Who Will Win As Linux Market Consolidates?
Two small Linux companies are merging. What does it mean to Linux market leaders like Red Hat, Novell and Ubuntu — and Linux customers? Here are some clues from The VAR Guy.
First, some background: Xandros has acquired Linspire. Xadros is making big, wonderful claims about the Linux-focused deal. But Matt Asay over at CNet’s “The Open Road” blog provides a healthy reality check — and some harsh words from Linspire’s former CEO.
Fact is, there’s only one real winner here: Customers. Here’s why.
There are far too many Linux distributions from which to choose. Most consumers walking down Main Street USA have never heard of Red Hat — and even fewer know about Novell and Ubuntu.
Start tossing niche players like Xandros and Linspire into the conversation, and most consumers will retreat to Redmond, opting for the “comfort” and “safety” of Windows — rather than the challenge of selecting the “best” Linux.
Goodbye, Linspire (at least as a standalone company). And thank you to Xandros for funding a market consolidation that’s badly needed. The VAR Guy applauds customer choice and open source. But in this case, fewer Linux options will mean faster decisions by frustrated Windows customers.
I support Linux 100% but I feel that people should make an objective decision for themselves after reading The Truth about Linux.
Here we go again. Why do some people think customers cannot deal with multiple sources for software? Those same customers are happy to have multiple sources of automobiles. It gives them choice they wouldn’t have otherwise and promotes competition.
They may have to do some homework to find the best choice, but so what? That is no different than what they face every time they buy nearly anything else.
You have failed to demonstrate with any credibility that customers will retreat to Redmond and “opt for the ‘comfort’ and ‘safety’ of Windows'” if challenged to select the best software for their needs. So far, customers have not had the opportunity to engage in such a challenge. Microsoft has done a fantastic job of making sure THAT doesn’t happen by securing pre-load contracts with OEMs that forbid multi-boot configurations and from offering hardware without software pre-loaded on it.
If offered a real opportunity to select the best option customers will happily compare features and quality no matter what the product is. It happens every minute of every day all over the world, except when purchasing desktop operating systems. And it is one of the rare exceptions, rather than the rule.
Scott: I would argue that multiple sources of automobiles has actually hurt US car companies (GM, for example) vs. foreign car companies that stick with fewer, more easily positioned models (Honda, for instance).
The real problem in the OS world is that customers don’t realize they have a choice beyond Windows and Mac. Super-educated consumers don’t even realize that Linux can run on consumer PCs.
Now throw in multiple versions of Linux and customers will only get confused.
Linspire was never going to amount to anything in the Linux world. Back when Linspire was Lindows it was hated by Microsoft and Linux users alike for different reasons. Nobody loved it and it’s high time it died.
I don’t know how much Linspire or Xandros amounts to these days, and there seem to be some allegations that there is a shady aspect to this deal.
IMHO reducing choice is never good for the consumer. I know people are having trouble getting their heads around the idea that the platform is not married to the vendor here, but we don’t need to pander to that do we? The whole point of going open source is to eliminate vendor lock-in.
That is a problem of education.
And the fact that US car companies have suffered at the hands of better competitors is simply a fact of competition. What’s wrong with that? Would they suffer if their products could compete on features and price? I don’t think so. When the Japanese auto makers entered the US market with cars that got better mileage and ran more reliably at competitive prices, the US auto makers failed to recognize the significance of the competition. They did not realize that their customers were more interested in value than brand and national loyalty. They believed that anti-Japanese (and anti-German) sentiment would keep their customers loyal to American brands. Volkswagen, Toyota and Honda proved them wrong.
But it took education in the form of effective advertising to turn the heads of consumers. So far, that hasn’t happened with desktop OS software, and Microsoft has done a fabulous job of ensuring that it doesn’t.
But to say that customers will flee to Microsoft in fear of having to make a choice is unfounded.
I think linux is pretty easy pick a distro do so by reading some reviews Ubuntu, pclinux, mint a good review will tell you how everything works. Burn a cd, try the cd, if it doesn’t work or you don’t like it don’t install it. That was hard and you might be out a cd.
As for not getting linux a couple of tech magazines have run multi page guides for getting started with ubuntu covering most of the basics.
I am all for customer-choice, but there are many significant advantages to having fewer Linux distributions.
Because Microsoft has a 90% monopoly of desktop OS, it is very hard for any new OS to gain traction. This is because there are many network effects that encourage users to stay with their existing system. Software vendors usually only support Windows, hardware manufacturers develop their drivers primarily for Windows, training for Windows is available everywhere, and people tend to stick to what they know and are familiar with. All of these forces are pushing against adoption of a new unknown operating system.
We need a Linux distribution to gain enough marketshare to reach a critical mass where it begins to benefit from these network effects. I think Linux can still be successful if there are three big distros. Right now that looks like OpenSuse/SLES, Fedora/RedHat, and Ubuntu. This critical mass could happen sooner if each of these distributions continue to standardize and share as much code as possible. That is why Mark Shuttleworth proposed agreeing on upstream versions to reduce duplicated effort.
http://useopensource.blogspot.com/2008/04/synching-open-source-release-schedule.html
With that said, there is nothing stopping the next Linux distribution from being created and becoming the next big thing. Just look how far Ubuntu has come in four short years since 2004!
@Jeni… like you do your owners pay for the lies that you say? For meter, for kilogram or per second?
Linux do not need less distributions. Choice isnt a hassle, its a gift. The software market is just upside down.
What I think most people fail to understand is that “Free” is not a feature that businesses look for. They look at TCO studies, productivity charts, integration paths.
@ Jeni:
Perhaps Microsoft will also sponsor you on a trip to Hungary to lecture them about your happy views on the benefits associated with being locked into the Microsoft proprietary environment. Don’t forget to hand out lots of eggs (Hungarians LOVE eggs)!
Jeni=troll+troll+troll, no apologies about the “un-objectivity” but did you get paid to post your reply? Im getting tires of seeing these types of troll posts.
Jeni said, “What I think most people fail to understand is”.
Try not to “think” too much Jeni, it’s obviously not a strong point for you if you believe “The truth about Linux” article.
Jeni, the truth is the very same accusations leveled against linux in that article are the very things that ms has done themselves, repeatedly! “Strong Arm” tactics is not the best business model and is certainly not the best for competition.
Most people will be picking a distro by buying a PC with a distro installed, any distro. They will be attracted by ads. They will be comforted by a test drive and take the thing home. Look at the new low-end PCs. Strange, little-known distros are going out the door in the millions with no hesitation. The distro is less important than the usability in-store and a bit of marketing hype. Picking a distro and installing it is for geeks and we are a small minority. How many non-geeks do you know? I know thousands and they have no clue about picking a PC or a distro. They walk into a retail establishment and look on the shelves and displays. Before last year, they usually found that other OS. Now they have a small chance to find GNU/Linux as well. The store may call it something else so the buyer will not even know it is GNU/Linux.
Um, Linspire will still be here. The following quote:
Xandros will continue to offer downloads through the digital software distribution warehouse for a variety of Linux platforms, including Freespire, which will continue to be maintained as an open source Latest News about open source project, the company said.
Pending further planning, both product lines will be maintained, said Typaldos.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/63657.html
“Most consumers walking down Main Street USA have never heard of Red Hat — and even fewer know about Novell and Ubuntu.”
Most likely that statement is quite wrong with regard Red Hat being more familiar than Ubuntu: http://www.google.com/trends?q=red+hat%2C+ubuntu%2C+linux%2C+novellamp;ctab=0amp;geo=allamp;date=allamp;sort=0
The reality appears to be that Ubuntu is becoming synonymous with ‘Linux’ in consumer minds.
Jeni said: “I support Linux 100% but I feel that people should make an objective decision for themselves after reading The Truth about Linux”.
Dear Jeni
Thanks for the link to that page. I removed Vista from my hard disk as soon as I bought my laptop, and kept running XP on a virtual machine, just in case, but now I’m determined to delete the virtual machine, too. And if I ever think that I can draw an objective conclusion after reading such crap, please, shoot me.
Jeni’s “website” is a joke people. Please do not take it seriously. It’s a full blown satire site. It’s not real, it never was intended to be real. Read the FAQ if you don’t believe me.
Pat
The problem with the car analogy is each one takes a different formulation of ‘gas’, and so you need as many ‘gas stations’ as ‘automatkers’. It’s not terribly efficient.
The problem with multiple Linux distros is that Linux is a *platform* to run other software on. As such, it needs to be standardized enough for it to be easy for that software to target the platform. Why is that so hard to accept?
Most linux users don’t venture far beyond their distro’s repositories. That is, they don’t use any software that isn’t supplied as a part of the platform. Perversely, the whole idea that an Operating System consists of such a ‘complete’ set of software was introduced by Microsoft. Open Source allows Linux distros to similarly provide ‘all the necessary software’, because they have access to tons of application source code. And that model works great, to the extent that it works. But venture beyond that model, and it doesn’t work at all.
Do you think ISV’s explicitly do *not* want to make Linux versions of Quicken, Photoshop, etc? They can’t – plain and simple. Oh, they *could* alright, but not cost-effectively.
“The problem with the car analogy is each one takes a different formulation of ‘gas’, and so you need as many ‘gas stations’ as ‘automatkers’. It’s not terribly efficient.”
I’ve never owned a vehicle and had to get gas from a particular oil company. What are you talking about? For that matter, I’ve never run a Linux distribution and had to get all my software from its repositories, but if I were to follow your version of the analogy, I would have to get my distribution (my car) from one source and my applications (my gas) from another. Hmmm… come to think of it, that is pretty much what it is like in the Windows world.
“The problem with multiple Linux distros is that Linux is a *platform* to run other software on. As such, it needs to be standardized enough for it to be easy for that software to target the platform. Why is that so hard to accept?”
Who has a hard time accepting that? (Microsoft, perhaps?) Software written for the POSIX standards is easier to port from one unix variant to another, including to different Linux distributions, than porting software written for one version of Windows to another version of Windows. There are no standards in Windows that software developers can count on to remain from version to version. Changing programming APIs is one way Microsoft ensures that users upgrade to new versions of Windows and that ISVs write programs that work only on newer versions. That’s one reason software developers like to write for unix. And it is also one reason why developing software for Windows is so costly.
“Do you think ISV’s explicitly do *not* want to make Linux versions of Quicken, Photoshop, etc? They can’t – plain and simple. Oh, they *could* alright, but not cost-effectively.”
Why not?
“Perversely, the whole idea that an Operating System consists of such a ‘complete’ set of software was introduced by Microsoft.”
Who told you that? When have you ever seen a Windows operating system that included all necessary applications in the box. It doesn’t exist. That honor doesn’t even belong to Linux, though Linux distributions have expanded that idea to “perverse” proportions.
“Open Source allows Linux distros to similarly provide ‘all the necessary software’, because they have access to tons of application source code. And that model works great, to the extent that it works. But venture beyond that model, and it doesn’t work at all.”
What does it mean to “venture beyond that model”? Describe what you see beyond it and how it “doesn’t work at all”.
Okay, so, the car analogy doesn’t work because there must be as many gas stations as there are manufacturers, which, of course, blows the whole customer choice point right out of the water; the problem with Linux is that it needs to be standardized, and the fact that there are hundreds of Linux distributions all derived from the same code base means, of course, that there is no standard; Microsoft invented the concept of operating systems that consist of all necessary software, which, of course, means that Linux is simply following Microsoft’s lead in supplying all necessary applications in the box; and ISV’s can’t port their software to Linux, because they don’t have the financial resources, so, naturally, Linux is bad–Windows is good.
…And this has what to do with consolidating Linux distributions and how too many choices will send consumers running in fear back into the safe arms of Microsoft?