On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 20:53, Gedi wrote:
I was at a training course a few days ago. Whilst the rest of the group I was with had wondered off to stretch their leg in the break, I ended up on a discussion with the consultant/training officer about Linux, Unix, programming etc...
He passed a comment that Linux would never make it make it into homes or even onto workstations. The average user will always want microsoft product and far too much investment has been made with microsoft as a whole to warrant changing. His argument was, he was a software developer mainly for industry and virtually 100% of his work is for microsoft based software, even though his company offers development on any platform.
Needless to say we ended up arguing!!
As this list is home to many industry proffesionals, I would love to hear your comments on this.
Was he correct??
Will Linux ever be a real threat to Microsoft, not just in industry, but in the household also?
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I live in Japan right now (from US) and the local universities are switching from MS to Mac for public desktops (while not Linux it shows that your instructors opinion is flawed) Linux is being used on more desktops. People are switching for various reasons (security, MS cost too much when you add office and the extras, Linux comes with PDF programs and other programs that cost thousands to run on Linux......) Yes Microsoft is in the lead right now but as more countries break away from being locked in desktops will migrate as well (see Munich if you doubt my words) I get this argument a lot and it usually comes from people who have made their career supporting MS products. They are for the most part reaching their 40s and do not want to learn a new OS. (i.e. most of them are career people not true techies-a techie never quits) It is a slow road but we will win :) Dave Blomberg