Pictured: The Linux penguin seeks a new pecking order
IBM and three Linux distributors recently reaped a rich harvest of press publicity when they announced plans to work with local partners in markets around the world to build and distribute ‘Microsoft-free desktops’. August is traditionally a slow news month (except for the start of the First World War) because so many people go on holiday, which might help explain the amount of press coverage given to Linux and the three distributors: Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat.
It helped that IBM wheeled out someone prepared to take a pop at Microsoft in keeping with the tenor of the overall message. Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president for IBM Lotus Software, claimed that “the slow adoption of Vista among businesses and budget-conscious CIOs, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux”.
Adding fuel to the fire, Scott Crenshaw, vice president of the platform business unit at Red Hat, argued customers were “demanding a Microsoft-less PC, and we have responded with our reliable, secure Linux solution through our top channel partners worldwide, building on the success we’ve seen in Eastern Europe and other markets”. Note that customers are not asking politely whether such an option is available; they’re demanding it (which is more than can be said for many of them about Vista).
However, before we get too carried away, it’s probably a good idea to reach for the salt cellar. While it’s conceivable there are many people out there who would be interested in a ‘Microsoft-less PC’, it would take a monumental leap before large numbers were willing to turn it into reality. Granted, alternatives are becoming more attractive. Apple has been making big inroads into the PC market since Vista first arrived, getting more than 8% market share in the US and climbing into third place. But that’s being driven to a large extent by consumers.
It’s also fairly clear many enterprise customers are still holding off from deploying Vista – no matter what Microsoft might say about the number of Vista licences it has sold to date, it’s obvious that significant numbers are not being used. And there have been other interesting developments, such as the revelation that the number of PCs shipped with Linux pre-installed in the UK had grown to 2.8 % in June from 0.2 % in February 2007 (the month after Vista was launched).
But this doesn’t mean there is going to be a Damascene conversion by large numbers of businesses to Linux as a desktop operating system. For anything truly revolutionary to happen there would have to be seismic change in the PC channel, which has spent the best part of nearly 20 years make a living off Microsoft products. But Novell has already launched a solution based on IBM’s collaboration software and SUSE Linux Enterprise through distributor Avnet UK and its local business partners. It’s not unreasonable to expect Linux to establish a toe-hold in the desktop OS space and, once that happens, it may well expand further.
It will certainly be harder for companies in the channel to ignore. While the announcement concerning the ‘Microsoft-less PC’ may have been a little OTT, the fact IBM and the three Linux distributors were prepared to so publicly state their intentions and define them so implicitly against Microsoft Windows and Office suggests a measure of confidence that the demand is there for an alternative. It will be interesting to see whether the window of opportunity will burst wide open or slam shut.
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