Linux backers foresee desktop gains

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Things change

Resistance to change by entrenched departments is a
constant, and make no mistake about it; many IT depts. are
entrenched.

What usually happens is that one or two people go to a boss
and say that they can save the company a lot of money while
increasing productivity. Eventually a boss bites and a trial is
done. If things work out, the change is implemented.

You must remember that many, many desktop computers
are used for essentially one thing ? database access. Go to
your local bank branch far a prime example. Go buy a piece
of furniture and you?ll watch the salesman access a database
to enter the sale and set up delivery. Of course, we also
have all the utility companies with their millions of bills per
year ? all done off databases. There are millions of
machines out there used solely for database access. They
don?t need a pretty GUI and certainly don?t need productivity
suites or graphics apps.

These are the types of machines where Linux is ideal. The
companies can save a lot of money, increase machine
stability, and not have to upgrade hardware just to run a
new OS that demands far more power than the companies
need to access databases.

I think that such implementations will be Linux?s first
success in the corporate marketplace. After that I foresee
its entry into government ? another area where database
access only is common. Think of your local tax department,
etc.

After that, you?ll get penetration in offices that rely mostly
on things like general office work, e-mail and the web.
Open Office, and other OSS business apps, does provide a
useful alternative to things like MS Office. It?s different, but
not necessarily worse. I run it every so often on an OSX
machine under X11. Its presentation module is, I believe,
better than Powerpoint. It saves into HTML far better than
MS. Most of the OSS browsers are already better than IE.
Most render faster and offer things like popup blocking, etc.

The last area where Linux will gain entry into the corporate
marketplace is in places that depend on certain apps that
only run on proprietary OSs. Places using Autocad or the
various graphics apps would be examples. But those app
makers have to watch out. Their competition could come
out with Linux versions of stuff and put a dent in their sales.

Posted by: j.m.galvin   Posted on: 04/23/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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