Alastair Neil wrote:
On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 10:23 PM, Ric Moore <wayward4now@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:wayward4now@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 13:05 -0700, Francis Earl wrote:
> That article ENTIRELY got it wrong. All RedHat said was they won't be
> pushing Linux on the consumer desktop for some time. They make their
> money from servers, and they are a company, so it's not in their best
> interest to have a product they aren't profiting from.
OTOH, as I've said for years, desktops beget servers. Who in their right
mind would have ever thought that Windows would become a choice as a
server platform?? The Windows3.1 users got used to the desktop and it
rolled from there. Disregard the desktops of college entry level users,
and they'll migrate with their favorite platform and comfort level to
using it to admin their future server needs. What's not to understand in
this? RedHat could very well be blowing their lead and not seeing it
until too late in the game to recover.
We (RH) used to have college programs all over the place ...usually
promoted as install fests at Universities. I haven't heard of one in the
press for years now. Servers are where the money is, no doubt. But, it
is better IMHO to have the future admins loyalty through the user
desktop by catering to them. I spent years in Marketing. I learned to
never EVER disregard the little guy. He might become the next purchasing
agent and/or decision maker. My two cents, Ric
An where has it got Microsoft? 20 years and countless billions invested
in marketing and they still manage only 30% of the server market.
True, Novel lost out to WinNT in part because users got used to the
Windows interface and wanted a similar experience for managing their
servers. I refuse to believe that there is such a gulf between Ubuntu
and RHEL in functionality that users would have the same visceral
reaction and defect in droves from RH to Ubuntu - because they love
brown backgrounds on their Gnome desktops. Red Hat has focused its
desktop efforts on crafting a distribution that is best in class for
administering servers, just as SUSE is crafting a business productivity
centric desktop distribution with an emphasis on Windows
interoperability (thus Evolution, Mono/silverlight and "Don't Sue us
please Bill!" agreements). These distros have carved their own niches,
I don't as yet know what Ubuntu's niche is - windows malcontents? home
tinkerers/hobyists? Small Home Office? You could argue that this is
exactly the way linux started and who knows in 10 or 20 years maybe they
will have a significant enterprise share, however, I doubt it. Being
able to play MP3's out of the box rarely makes it onto a enterprise
server deployment specification.
This is an interesting comment. Just a few days ago, I read an article
about Microsoft pointing out companies that have moved from Linux
servers due to the desktop support as well as gui management tools. Of
course I hear that they are now adding more command line tools for
administration due to demand.
I see two aspects to this part of the debate.
If people use Linux at work, they will be more likely to use it at home.
They will use what they are familiar with. Most computer users are
not that intelligent to using their computers. Some cannot even figure
out how to update their computers.
As for MS not getting a larger server share, this is a strange aspect.
Part of the issue in the past has been many admins that new Unix found
it easier to move to Linux from Solaris or other versions. The share of
Windows servers from what I am reading is increasing. I see this as a
result of the new point and click mentality. If you cannot click it,
then you cannot manage it. Damn kids today. :)
FWIW, this thread has brought out many of the comments that have been
stated in this article.
Did Canonical Just Get Punked by Red Hat and Novell?
http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2008/04/did-canonical-j.html
Basically, the announcements are to support the server sales.
I did like this comment though.
"Curiously, very little attention was paid to Ron Hovespian's comments
on Novell's similar plans, made before Red Hat's. If I were Novell, I
would take this as a bad sign. Not only did the mainstream media not
pick up on Novell's news, but even most of the hard-line Linux
blogosphere wrote them off with nary so much as a "meh" And if you can't
get those folks mad, you must be doing something wrong! :)"
From the people that I know, the reason to move from Fedora is the
upgrade path being easier. Longer support is appreciated. Some of
these people are also old time Solaris users as well.
I will stick with Fedora as long as I can get third party application
that me and my family use. If they are only available on Ubuntu, then I
will have to move.
--
Robin Laing
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