Robert Pogson

I have been the victim of headline writers once. “North End Goes Nuclear” was the headline about my little workshop in the back yard… Nothing nuclear about it of course. Well, here is a “nuclear” headline from The Register: “IBM Linux chief: Chasing desktop Windows a ‘dead-end‘“. Sounds like GNU/Linux on the desktop is going nowhere, eh? But the article is about segmenting the desktop market and carving it up one piece at a time. GNU/Linux is good at that because it performs so well and is so flexible.

I am not qualified to second-guess the “IBM Linux chief” but he is taking a few obvious facts and coming to the wrong conclusion. We, the FLOSS community and users of IT of all kinds are bigger than M$ by a long shot. M$ has not enough money to buy us all off. We can gain a large share of the desktop just by doing what we have been doing. Exploiting niches like the netbooks will bleed M$ dry if they try to pay off OEMs to block GNU/Linux everywhere. M$ cannot afford to provide free IT to the world. Netbooks alone cost them $2 billion in 2009 so far. It could be five more quarters before “7″ gains traction in business. M$ will be a  normal corporation by then, not an overbearing monopoly.

If GNU/Linux wins on the netbook, which is inevitable if M$ attends to business, the world will see what can be done with GNU/Linux on the notebook and desktop, too. The effect of netbooks so far has been to show most of the world that there are alternatives to that other OS. When the hot ARM netbooks come on stream, M$ will have nowhere to hide. Even Intel is getting on the netbook bandwagon pushing Moblin.

What IBM does not seem to understand is that the FLOSS community is many times the size of M$ and can specialize in a dozen areas and take share. IBM is pushing virtual desktops where GNU/Linus shines, but there are also netbooks, education, low-cost entry-level systems, and systems free form malware, and embedded systems, servers, etc. GNU/Linux does well in every niche except perhaps gaming. That is a small niche. We can leave it to M$ until gaming industry recognizes that GNU/Linux has been mainstream for awhile.

Further, IBM and Red Hat have seemed to accept that business will cling to M$ no matter what. That is not true. Business did not accept Vista and many businesses made plans to migrate to something from XP. Virtualization shows that it does not have to be “7″. Web applications show that it does not have to be “7″.  It is crazy for an IT industry worth trillions of dollars to be dependent on a single source of supply for anything. Business wants multiple sources with open standards for compatibility. GNU/Linux gives them what they need: low  cost, efficiency, compatibility, and openness. Some businesses may not see that yet but their competitors do. If businesses in USA do not see it, businessses in the rest of the world do. By the time “7″ sorts itself out, the monopoly on the desktop will be done.