Linux Desktop Redux
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Nobody — especially marketing professionals with education and experience in survey techniques — should give much credence to self-selected surveys.
In this case, I’ll make an exception.
The Linux Foundation asked the world at large if they were using Linux on the desktop. The numbers have started to trickle in, and though any top-line figure on penetration is suspect, how the numbers divide is not and provides some interesting insights.
Of all Linux desktops in production among 20,000+ responding companies, most were in small businesses. This is primarily due to the fact that there are many more small businesses than mid-sized or large firms, so the number of Linux desktops in use among small businesses is not surprising.
What is surprising is that small businesses are adopting Linux desktops at all. Conventional wisdom has been that small businesses needed to standardize as much as possible, be able to obtain hand-holding support, would avoid any solutions requiring sophisticated IT staffs, and would follow the Microsoft herd.
Conventional wisdom fails in unconventional times.
Like life, the market finds a way. There are no insights in this survey into how conventional wisdom was broken. Linux certainly has become stupid-level-simple to install and configure. It has proven itself to be very stable, meaning there is little after-installation support required. And some studies have show that local support outfits (what we used to lovingly refer to as neighborhood hacker shops) are all Linux savvy, and may be providing what little support is necessary.
One marketing reality is that when all other needs (software, support, ease of use) are met, then price rules. What we may be seeing is that desktop Linux is now able to fulfill most/all baseline needs of even the smallest and least tech-ready companies, and that price is now the primary decision driver. This is pure speculation on my part, but the fault lines seem obvious given that the survey also found that 64% of installed Linux desktops were not being used by engineers — that normal information workers were the end users.
Does this mean Steve Balmer should be looking over his shoulder? Not yet, but Forrester thinks Microsoft’s date with Linux destiny is approaching. Forrester notes that Vista, Microsoft’s latest and fattest OS, may be driving enterprise-level inquiries about Linux as an alternative. Since large companies have to make commitments to technology on wholesale levels, and market milepost like Vista invite such decisions (which explains the anemic 2% adoption rate for Vista thus far). Vista may be its own worst enemy.
My reasoning for why Microsoft’s dominance days are drawing closer is that the traditional adoption path has been up-ended. Small companies are adopting before large ones. This puts a chink in classic Chasm theories, and indicates the beginning of another Grow Rich Slowly market model. If Linux desktop adoption follows the path of MySQL, then they will create a defensible position in the market. Once this foundation is laid, addition of new capabilities will make Linux desktops more and more acceptable to enterprises, and more of their employees with have Linux desktop experience from previous jobs or even from home use. The snowball effect will be measurable.
Steve Balmer does not need to cash in his options just yet, but I’m now watching the short-sell ratio on MSFT every day.
