Per Jessen wrote:
Uriel_Carrasquilla@ncci.com wrote:
Per, very silly indeed, I agree. I am just passing on what my customers are saying regarding their choice for desktop. When I grow up I might become a salesman and convice 800 people in my company to switch their XP for SuSE. In the meantime, I'll let someone else fight that battle.
Of course a lot depends on how your company operates IT, but one of way of working this is 1) decide to go Linux, 2) then sell it to the users. I don't know of many companies where the _users_ actively decide the IT strategy. My point was - just because your users aren't falling over oneanother to go Linux, it doesn't mean the Linux desktop isn't ready for prime time. They're two very different things.
I do believe that once there is acceptance in some signficantly large organizations, then companies like mine will follow.
I don't know the situation in your part of the world, but in Europe it's public administration that's been moving really fast in this area. Especially in Germany and France, but Britain and Switzerland are now catching up. And when a large health-insurer like CSS (www.css.ch) decides to go for Linux-based thin clients, it's very significant (given that Swiss IT is generally very conservative).
All I can do in the meantime, get a few converts here and there. So I am on your side, don't forget that.
Oh, absolutely - it was perhaps just the way you phrased that statement that got me out of my otherwise comfortable armchair :-)
/Per Jessen, Zürich
I agree that one of the major hardware vendors needs to step up and offer GNU/Linux as part of their regular offerings. Offer users a choice of Linux or Windows on standard hardware. That would go a long ways towards building the user base. In terms of organizations migrating to GNU/Linux, I'd say the educational system is making headway here in the US. Indiana high schools will put Novell Linux Desktop on some 1600 student desks. Another company (camera company, I believe) is using GNU/Linux for POS terminals. I forget which distro - may have been another Novell account. Seems like another school system here is migrating also.