Robert Pogson

The US, in business, clings to M$ like a drowning man clinging to a wet cardboard box. M$ is holding them back. When there was nothing but Apple and UNIX on proprietary hardware, the IBM PC and that other OS were helpful to US businesses in getting ahead of the rest of the world but no longer. The FLOSS alternatives are much more flexible, rapid in development and tough. The longer the US clings to M$ the sooner they will lose major advantages of IT: efficiency.

The web stats from w3counter.com show it. No other part of the planet supports M$ more strongly than the US. Support/adoption of FLOSS is growing at rates from 30-50% per annum in the rest of the world but the US is dropping support for M$ by only a few percent per annum. The world will be wired on FLOSS in a few years and the US will still be dominated by M$. Look at the costs:

• US pays hundreds of dollars per seat on licences to M$
• US pays hundreds of dollars per seat on malware
• US discards equipment long before it fails

The cost of IT in the USA is about double what it is in countries where FLOSS is used widely. In any business where IT is a major cost, the USA will have a large disadvantage compared to the rest of the world:

• financial services
• R&D
• education
• communication
• multimedia
• government

The leadership of the US in any of these fields could be gone in five years if things continue as today. Why then, do we read this in CIO Insight?

“many CIOs are taking a wait-and-see approach. Just 6 percent of U.S. CIOs want to take the lead in adopting new technologies, whereas 19 percent of CIOs in China seek such leadership, according to a recent survey of 500 global CIOs conducted by Accenture. Conversely, 54 percent of American CIOs said they’re comfortable being a follower in adopting new technologies, while just 27 percent of Chinese CIOs were content to follow.”

see http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Trends/Stormy-Conditions/

Leaders who forget why their companies acquired leadership in their fields are bound to lose that leadership. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are full of ambitious, hard-working people willing to go with what works well. Japan, Indonesia, Germany, France are more cautious but still more accepting of new technology.