MESSAGE
| DATE | 2008-07-07 |
| FROM | From: "Ronny Abraham"
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Maybe its because lindows just sucked
|
On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 8:53 AM, Mark Simko wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-07-06 at 22:29 -0400, Ronny Abraham wrote:
>> What they want is the guys who runs
>> Microsoft Office and the occasional custom business app. I could have
>> told them "nice try, but you aren't getting that market". Why? Not
>> because they don't do a good job, but because you are simply not going
>> to convince someone to give up something that "Just Works" and take a
>> chance on a technology that "does a good enough job". Why screw
>> around with something that might work when you have something that
>> does (sort of)?
>>
>
> They will go for something that is more reliable, easier to use, and
> less expensive with less maintenance headaches. Give them a system that
> is less prone to performance degradation and malware infection and they
> have every reason to move. The only reasons that Windows prevailed is
> because of superior marketing and unfair competition. What Linux lacks
> now is marketing. There just aren't marketing dollars there for that. I
> don't know if word of mouth and a grassroots groundswell will change
> things, but the problems of Vista performance, Vista difficulty, and
> Microsoft Office incompatibility have many moving over to OSX, and
> probably linux too.
I remember when Java was being touted as the next big thing. They
also bitched about the lack of marketing. Yet not many people
realized that the Correl corporation bet on Java based on the
marketing hype and got burned big time. I'm not interested in people
telling me that there's a "lack of marketing". Democrats do it,
Republicans do it, and at this point it sounds like a bullshit excuse.
Yes, there is that, to an extent, but that only goes so far. You
want people to adopt Linux? Fill a need. Make it worth their while to
build their applications around it. Give them business. Apache is
also free and has very little/no marketing yet it's used in the
majority of web servers. This "lack of marketing" talk is something I
have zero patience for.
Fill a need.
As for maintenance problems, that's what offices pay tech drones for.
People can handle a crash or two. It's regular system failure that
makes them run screaming for another operating system.
Windows prevailed because IBM dropped the ball on OS/2 because they
didn't think the personal computer was a market that had any real
potential. The whole Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates thing is interesting
drama, but if IBM had kicked in, both these guys would be presently
out of a job. Frankly, I think you should be happy about that. No
one would pay attention to Linux if OS/2 was the prevalent system.
And if you think Bill Gates is worse than the evil, cold hearted
bastards at IBM than you have to do some serious reading. They just
threaten everyone who dares to point out their atrocities. Yeah, I
used the word "atrocities" and I meant it.
>
>> Maybe SUSE does that job. I wouldn't know. But tell me, if you start
>> up SUSE will you have an environment that looks exactly like Windows
>> XP and works exactly like XP as far interface and preferences go?
>
> No need for exact. Just need a lot closer than what Vista is.
XP is being officially supported through 2012, so vista isn't your
competitor. XP, and windows 98 (yes, win98) are your competitors.
>
>> Because that is a major reason why someone won't switch over. Your
>> average office drone has no interest whatsoever in mucking about with
>> a system. He's terrified of it and with good reason - he doesn't own
>> the computer it's running on.
>
> All most people want is that, not just office drones. What they are
> afraid of is that they will have to give things up. There are a few
> video formats I can't watch. What I've come to appreciate is that they
> are just time wasting emails anyway. I am more productive on a Linux
> system without all the M$ maintenance hassles.
>
>>
>> I think that Linux has a lot of potential on peripheral devices.
>
> A lot more potential on the desktop. And especially with thin clients.
Maybe.
>> I
>> also think that one day, maybe, Linux might even capture a significant
>> portion of the desktop app.
>
> Maybe soon if this crud economy continues for long.
I say exactly the opposite. When the dollar is tight people are less
willing to take a risk. And don't tell me about how free as in beer
compensates for risk. That sounds really great when you're hanging
out with friends, it sounds a lot worse when you're responsible for
several hundred employees. No one wants to take a risk. Why is this
so hard to understand?
>> But that depends on whether technologies
>> like Flash can translate to the desktop and further show serious power
>> in the form of apps (something Java was supposed to do, but failed at
>> miserably). Show me that, and I'll show you a potential Linux desktop
>> market.
>
> So Linux on the desktop success depends upon the success of Flash on
> Linux? Please!!! That's just eye candy.
>
Yes, you hit it right on the head. It's eye candy. It's also eye
candy that works. Why do you think so many people use compiz?
Because of it's superior desktop managing capabilities or because it
just looks damn cool the way the window wobbles around? Do you think
Steve Jobs pays top dollar for his programmers to come up with a
classy look because a classy look improves spreadsheet performance?
He does it because if your view is ugly your performance will be ugly
and he knows this.
When someone asks me about Linux, do you think I put them to sleep
with a 50 minute long dissertation on how convenient the system is for
me as a programmer? Or do you think I actually show them what this
racehorse can do? Which do you think they care about? Maybe you like
using mutt, and that's great, really. But do you think someone wants
to see Mutt or Evolution? And what do you think is the first thing
they say when I show them evolution btw? It's "but outlook already
does this". In other words, their needs are already being met. So I
show them how I can have a dozen apps running in virtual desktops.
That draws them up short.
When Java first came out (I'm a bit bitter about Java if you haven't
noticed), people were into it because they thought you could make all
these great looking desktop apps that could potentially run in a
browser or on just about anything. No one told us that Java was great
because they were going to run database calls through it. At a slower
rate than everything else. No one promoted it because of EJB 1.0,
2.0, or 3.0 (all of which suck). No, it was because we saw this cool
little animated dude, and thought, wow! Flash does exactly what Java
was supposed to do. Google "Adobe air" and you'll get the idea.
Incidentally, no one hyped me on this, I only figured it out because
my brother asked me to tear apart his flash based web site, that I
found out just how powerful this stuff is.
-ron
|
|
