Is Apple Killing Linux on the Desktop?

[wraggster]

Chris Howard has an interesting commentary at Apple Matters on recent trends in OS market share that says that while OS X has seen continual growth, from 4.21% in Jan 2006 to 7.31% in December 2007 at the same time, Linux's percentage has risen from only 0.29% to 0.63%. The reasons? 'Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn't; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn't; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux doesn't; Apple is driven by someone who has some understanding of end-user needs, Linux is not,' says Howard. 'Early in the decade it seemed that if you wanted a Windows alternative, Linux was it. Nowadays, an Apple Mac is undoubtedly the alternative and, with its resurgence and its Intel base, a very viable one

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/04/1730254

[JKKDARK]

Proably. Apple is more commercial than Linux.

[goity]

Probably; OSX is actually a usable end product rather than an eternal beta.

[the_eternal_dark]

Chris Howard has an interesting commentary at Apple Matters on recent trends in OS market share that says that while OS X has seen continual growth, from 4.21% in Jan 2006 to 7.31% in December 2007 at the same time, Linux's percentage has risen from only 0.29% to 0.63%. The reasons? 'Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn't; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn't; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux doesn't; Apple is driven by someone who has some understanding of end-user needs, Linux is not,' says Howard. 'Early in the decade it seemed that if you wanted a Windows alternative, Linux was it. Nowadays, an Apple Mac is undoubtedly the alternative and, with its resurgence and its Intel base, a very viable one....

No one really knows how much of the market actually runs Linux. I'm willing to bet that's either a gross under estimate or only taking in to account the commercial distros.

Linux has Open Office, has tools as good as if not better than those offered in the Adobe Creative Suite, and apparantly Chris hasn't tried Ubuntu/Linux Mint, Fedora, or PCLinuxOS, the easiest distros to use.

Linux will always be a smaller user share than Mac though. I just hope Mac can dethrone MS in the next few years and MS has to redo their sh*t, possibly buying out a BSD company and doing something similar to Mac. Linux, by that time, will be on 15-20% of all desktops, even more if you include dual boot options and virtual machines. Who cares about market share if you don't charge for your product?


Probably; OSX is actually a usable end product rather than an eternal beta.

Beta isn't Greek for bad. Also, what is OSX and Windows? They are alway "improving", wouldn't that mean they are still beta as well? OS 10.5, Vista SP1, lol.

[Junixx]

I forget what country it is but all of their government computers are running a linux OS

[Cloudhunter]

The reason Mac has a bigger market share? As it's a totally different line of computers, whether they use the same hardware or not. It isn't about application support. Some people just like Mac OS.

Also, Mac OS X is based on unix - and the person who said Linux is an eternal beta is a downright idiot.

Cloudy

[the_eternal_dark]

I forget what country it is but all of their government computers are running a linux OS

Brazil.

[Cap'n 1time]

Windows Vista is the Gary Busey of OS's and OSX is the Liberochie of OS's... Linux is like the Joss Whedon of OS's. Appreciated... but not nearly enough.

[Man]

Iv been running linux on my laptop for at least 1/2 a year now, and i love it, its quick, easy to use, and most of all, my laptop has never given me a blue screen of death !

Who cares about market share if you don't charge for your product?

thats a really really good point.

[the_eternal_dark]

Iv been running linux on my laptop for at least 1/2 a year now, and i love it, its quick, easy to use, and most of all, my laptop has never given me a blue screen of death !

Who cares about market share if you don't charge for your product?

thats a really really good point.

You may not have to worry about bsod, but you could eventually run into kernel panic, which can be just as bad.

Forgot to mention, most distros don't charge, but you still have Red Hat and the other few commercial distros, but they only account for maybe 5% of the entire Linux end-user base.

Servers on the other hand, Linux is killing MS and Apple in sales, according to Dell.