Why Linux is a desktop flop?

Forsaken_GA

DevilWAH wrote: »

However despite these issues I think the thin client will kill of the OS as we know it in terms of Desktops. I see Linux or a deritive as the driver behind the thin clients them selves, with multi vender back-end systems much as we see today.

Wouldn't count on it. Thin clients suffer from one major problem - you can't take them with you. If you've got employees who need to go mobile, you're going to issue them a laptop. I think it's far more likely that the desktop will simply be replaced by a laptop and a docking station, though this of course depends on the environment. Call center folks, sure, a thin client is plenty good enough. Office bound administration staff? Sure. Sales and marketing? Not a chance in hell. Operations folks who do on call? Not a chance in hell. Managers and executives of any level? Not going to happen.

And if you've got a sizable amount of users who do need the mobility, then you're risking running a mixed support environment. Right now, the ROI favors just buying everyone laptops who needs them, and sticking the desk bound folks with workstations, since the same infrastructure supports both.

Forsaken_GA

Qord wrote: »

And I completely undestand the business plan behind Apple's strategy. All I'm saying is that (in my opinion) if they did transition to a more open installation base M$ would have a much smaller market share than they currently enjoy.

Apple doesn't give a damn about market share. They give a damn about profit margin. They'd rather sell for more to less people, than to have their product commoditized to the point where the profit margin is laughable, which is what Microsoft has done to themselves in the desktop arena. Apple doesn't sell in bulk. They *buy* in bulk, and then sell the product they make from that bulk at a significant markup.

Their profit margin is also the reason their so litigious. It's cheaper to sue the pants off the competition than it is to drop prices to compete, especially if they win and the competition can no longer compete.

tpatt100

Well Apple has a revenue stream with iTunes where as other vendors have to keep pushing more and "better" hardware because that is the primary source of revenue. Apple sells an iPhone and they get money from the initial sale as well as a percentage of all the purchases made off iTunes and app sales. That is why Motorola keeps pushing the Motorola crap to try and get me to buy music, movies, apps from them. Unless they get a portion of the Android marketplace sales but I am not sure if that is the case.

The problem with Apple suing after reading up on the discovery documents from all the cases going on was how differerent Samsung and Android was pre iPhone and how they changed when the iPhone became a hit. I doubt Apple wants users to have a similar experience moving to Android if all the basic functions are similar like unlocking, home, etc because then it is easier switching. It took me a bit getting used to Android when I switched.

Forsaken_GA

To further illustrate the point -

Microsoft has a better profit margin, of around 5% depending on who's numbers you're looking at.

Considering Microsoft's market share in the OS game is about 9 times that of OS X, that's pretty impressive.

Oh, and then there's that small little fact that Apple is a more valuable company than Microsoft overall.

Neither company makes a killing off their OS personal computer sales, though. Microsoft makes their money from supporting software (amusingly enough, Office for Mac is one of Microsoft's most profitable business units). Apple makes their money from selling their mobile devices, and the content that supports it. I'd be willing to bet that Apple made more profit off Angry Birds app sales last year than they did off of their Macbook line. They've taken the razor manufacturers model (razor manufacturers basically give you the razor, they make their money on the refill blades) and they've improved on it, because they actually managed to make money off their version of the razor as well.

When it comes to product positioning and marketing strategy, I refuse to second guess Apple. They've come from a company that needed a cash infusion from their competition to stay alive to the 10 million pound gorilla that nobody can ignore.

DevilWAH

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Wouldn't count on it. Thin clients suffer from one major problem - you can't take them with you. If you've got employees who need to go mobile, you're going to issue them a laptop. I think it's far more likely that the desktop will simply be replaced by a laptop and a docking station, though this of course depends on the environment. Call center folks, sure, a thin client is plenty good enough. Office bound administration staff? Sure. Sales and marketing? Not a chance in hell. Operations folks who do on call? Not a chance in hell. Managers and executives of any level? Not going to happen.

And if you've got a sizable amount of users who do need the mobility, then you're risking running a mixed support environment. Right now, the ROI favors just buying everyone laptops who needs them, and sticking the desk bound folks with workstations, since the same infrastructure supports both.

See mobile is where it works great, you have exchange web to the thin client, but if you are out an about with out your thin Clint.. well a tablet or phone gives the same experience. Yes your right some users can't use it such as support staff, (a lot of our sales staff use ipads now as most company tools have web based interfaces). but in the case of a company such as a large bank. 99% of staff are admin which is exactly what you use thin clients for.

We are seeing many of our larger companies with ( >100,000 employs) all starting to remove desktops and go with thin clients, it's not ready for the masses and small set ups, but these are the guys that drive the trends and they are all telling us its what they want.

Thin client = £200 including screen.

Desktopp = £600 + support + licencing

for a company with 100,000 people that's a huge potential saving and have the resources to sort out the mobility issues, which are there but are getting smaller by the day. Its these large companies that are driving the solutions, and these in turn will filter down to smaller and smaller companies.

Forsaken_GA

tpatt100 wrote: »

Well Apple has a revenue stream with iTunes where as other vendors have to keep pushing more and "better" hardware because that is the primary source of revenue. Apple sells an iPhone and they get money from the initial sale as well as a percentage of all the purchases made off iTunes and app sales. That is why Motorola keeps pushing the Motorola crap to try and get me to buy music, movies, apps from them. Unless they get a portion of the Android marketplace sales but I am not sure if that is the case.

Oh, I'm not arguing that Apple does better at the OS game. They're certainly a player, but it's not their bread and butter. Microsoft has plenty of other revenue streams as well. Office is their most profitable product, period.

But the only reason that Microsoft has that kind of presence is because, essentially, they were first to market. They established the inertia, and grew quick enough that they became the de facto standard for everyone else. Their growth is also tied closely to Intels. There was a reason why for most of the 90's you heard Wintel an awful lot. Microsoft bet on the right horse when it came to processors for personal computers, while Apple took forever and a day to realize that they might just do better if they followed suit and switched to the x86 architecture.

Their growth has been careful, slow, and very, very profitable. They focused on making good products rather than just functional ones. If Apple ever decided they wanted to play in the Enterprise market, they'd give Microsoft a run for it's money. But for whatever reason, they've decided that's not their target audience, save for a few niche places like Audio/Visual folks (and to listen to people ***** about the latest version of Final Cut Pro, they may have decided they don't give much of a crap about that market either...)

They may change their mind at some point, but it'd have to be an absolutely amazing suite of products to overcomes the death grip that Active Directory and Exchange hold on the Enterprise. But if anyone could do it, it'd be Apple (maybe not anymore with the passing of Jobs, but that remains to be seen)

DevilWAH

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

When it comes to product positioning and marketing strategy, I refuse to second guess Apple. They've come from a company that needed a cash infusion from their competition to stay alive to the 10 million pound gorilla that nobody can ignore.

I agree Apple have demonstrated an amazing business model, and found so much success. However is this some thing ingrained in Apple or was it all Steve? I say this looking at Microsoft, while Microsoft is by no means dead and buried it has lost the drive the Bill Gates brought to it. Will Apple follow suit and be forced to make room for the next kid on the block (whoever that might be)

Forsaken_GA

DevilWAH wrote: »

We are seeing many of our larger companies with ( >100,000 employs) all starting to remove desktops and go with thin clients, it's not ready for the masses and small set ups, but these are the guys that drive the trends and they are all telling us its what they want.

So these clients are removing desktops and laptops entirely, for all staff, and removing the infrastructure needed to support non-thin clients?

I believe that will last one product cycle before someone changes their mind. But we'll see, you may end up being right, and I don't support Enterprise anymore, so I could very well be wrong

Thin client = £200 including screen.

Desktopp = £600 + support + licencing

That's a little disingenuous. You're forgetting the cost of the backend systems to support those thin clients. Last time I checked, Citrix wasn't free. You also pay support for it. And licensing. Then add in the cost of the tablet or mobile device that you're using to supplement the mobile needs of thin client users. All of a sudden, that price difference gets alot smaller.

Forsaken_GA

DevilWAH wrote: »

I agree Apple have demonstrated an amazing business model, and found so much success. However is this some thing ingrained in Apple or was it all Steve? I say this looking at Microsoft, while Microsoft is by no means dead and buried it has lost the drive the Bill Gates brought to it. Will Apple follow suit and be forced to make room for the next kid on the block (whoever that might be)

There's no question it was Steve. There's a reason the Apple board brought him back after their less than amicable parting the first time. The man knew how to get things done. The question of whether or not Apple can survive his loss remains to be seen. I figure Steve probably had a few projects in the works that will keep Apple on top for about five years or so, but when the Steve supplied ideas run out, we'll see what happens. Supposedly, Tim Cook is the annointed, remade in Steve's image, but we'll see.

tpatt100

DevilWAH wrote: »

I agree Apple have demonstrated an amazing business model, and found so much success. However is this some thing ingrained in Apple or was it all Steve? I say this looking at Microsoft, while Microsoft is by no means dead and buried it has lost the drive the Bill Gates brought to it. Will Apple follow suit and be forced to make room for the next kid on the block (whoever that might be)

Well when Steve came back he killed the clones and brought the Mac OS back to Apple hardware only. He was known for being picky for the look and feel of the hardware. I read an article about how Apple invests in not just product design but product packaging. When I bought my wife an iMac last year the unpacking was just "clean and simple" I mean there was just a couple of simple drawings on the inside to show you how to take it out, the computer, cords were hidden behind another piece of white cardboard. It was like "voila" just the computer when the box is opened. They are good at creating a "boutique" style of tech.

When I opened my Dell the last few times I bought new machines, it was packed right but not "impressive" but I am the demographic Dell is aiming for, I buy a PC not a Coach purse. Apple is just smart about certain things. Even Samsung caught on and changed the packaging to impress customers.

DevilWAH

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

So these clients are removing desktops and laptops entirely, for all staff, and removing the infrastructure needed to support non-thin clients?

Then add in the cost of the tablet or mobile device that you're using to supplement the mobile needs of thin client users. All of a sudden, that price difference gets alot smaller.

not all of it, but reducing it defiantly. and replacing with back ends that support both. As I said if you deploy a solution that is web based then you don't need a second solution specific for desktop or laptops. So it not doing it over night but replacing back end systems by ones that support mobile and thin client access and web access.

demonfurbie

dont forget a large sector of pcs are for gamers

if linux got there crap together and make one distro with a clean gui that could run biz. class applications as well as games it would do quite well

the issue is that there is no one distro that will do all of that well, give and take doesnt work well for oses

as for macs i see a larger movement to them not for the os but for the design
Edit: most new software out there for biz (at least what i deal with) is html5/database software so it will run on anything

Forsaken_GA

DevilWAH wrote: »

not all of it, but reducing it defiantly. and replacing with back ends that support both. As I said if you deploy a solution that is web based then you don't need a second solution specific for desktop or laptops. So it not doing it over night but replacing back end systems by ones that support mobile and thin client access and web access.

Ok, so your clients are actually increasing their TCO by having to maintain both systems.

Now, on paper, I have absolutely no doubt that the TCO of a predominantly thin client deployment beats that of a desktop/laptop deployment. But that solution probably isn't going to work in every case, and I'd doubt it'd work for even a majority of cases. Certainly enough to support an industry, but not to overtake.

What I think alot of folks running the numbers are forgetting is to adjust for risk. As you've already mentioned, when there's a problem with the VDI infrastructure, it effects *everyone*. If your Citrix servers get borked in the middle of the day, and you're a company that can measure your revenue loss of an outage in the six or seven figures per hour, you're going to want to do some serious thinking about whether or not you want to introduce another point of failure, especially one with the potential for such widespread problems. Those that don't will make their competitors very happy people.

But again, I could be wrong!

Asif Dasl

I can't find anything in Google about it but I remember reading that it cost Dell/HP/etc. something like $30 or something stupidly cheap to put a Windows license on a computer, now Dell offered computers with Linux and very few sales happened - I don't know if they even still do that. I know if you wanted a computer without an OS that was a waste of time cause they charged you extra to take the PC out and wipe it FFS.

I agree with Ally_UK there should be less choice with Linux - this is the same problem with Android. All the different versions are canabalising their market share, widespread adoption and support issues.

This is an interesting watch on too much choice:
Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice - YouTube

Forsaken_GA

Asif Dasl wrote: »

I agree with Ally_UK there should be less choice with Linux - this is the same problem with Android. All the different versions are canabalising their market share, widespread adoption and support issues.

The problem is, the ability to roll your own and customize and tweak and release to others is the very heart of Linux, and the open source community in general. You take that away, you take away the product, and all of the cool software that's come about as a result of it.

Keep in mind - there is no big company even attempting to drive Linux as a desktop OS. Canonical is the closest thing to it. The major players in the Linux world that are driving adoption (Red Hat, IBM, etc) don't play in the desktop market. They play in the Enterprise infrastructure market.

Apple has proven beyond a doubt that a large company can take a unix base and turn it into a consumer hit. Google is attempting to do the same thing with Android, though they're pretty much skipping the desktop market entirely.

You're never going to see the likes of Debian or Ubuntu trying to make a serious push into the desktop market. Looking at the market with an analytical eye, the returns aren't worth the investment. The marketplace is saturated with players, and operating systems are essentially a commodity. In order to compete, you'd have to cut your profits to the bone, and doing that when you're going up against companies who've had years to R&D and refine their product is suicide. Mark Shuttleworth has tried with Ubuntu, but he's no Steve Jobs. Even Canonical cedes the desktop market place. Their business plan is to position themselves as a services provider, not a software vendor. They're basically looking to compete with Red Hat.

The only companies that are going to deploy Linux as their primary desktop OS are ones that prize driving overhead down to a fanatical degree, who also happen to have a superbly skilled administrator to actually implement and maintain it, and in the cases where that does happen, the deployment rarely survives the turnover of that skilled administrator (or skilled staff, assuming there's a big enough need for it). Otherwise, you're going to go for the big corporate solution which includes 24/7 support, and has a very large trained workforce to support it.

the_Grinch

it_consultant wrote: »

So, SuSE is more Windows-like? I am not making fun, really, because I really like SuSE. It just seems funny that there is finally a linux distro that would give you the same general capability that Windows has been doing for years.

What is the benefit of the Linux desktop? I can only think of 1 thing, security and virus resistance.

I find it to be one of the better distros available out there. Perfect? No. But definitely not one of the worst I've dealt with. If I couldn't critically think, I might say cost is one of the benefits, but we know that's not the case. But another benefit I could think of though, is that Linux tends to run well on older hardware. I once tried to get a school administrator to let me install edubuntu on a bunch of old machines they were going to trash, especially since a lot of classes were making use of the internet and basically that was it. I was denied.

Asif Dasl

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

The only companies that are going to deploy Linux as their primary desktop OS are ones that prize driving overhead down to a fanatical degree, who also happen to have a superbly skilled administrator to actually implement and maintain it, and in the cases where that does happen, the deployment rarely survives the turnover of that skilled administrator (or skilled staff, assuming there's a big enough need for it). Otherwise, you're going to go for the big corporate solution which includes 24/7 support, and has a very large trained workforce to support it.

I would definitely agree with this, I have seen Linux systems put in place by knowledgeable staff only for them to be pulled out later once they have left the company. I remember looking at DistroWatch in the early days and sheer amount of choice boggles the mind, it really is too much. I know what you are saying but to put it like this M&A in the linux realm would be a good thing to me. I don't think it will hurt innovation, in fact it might ignite it further.

Forsaken_GA

Asif Dasl wrote: »

I would definitely agree with this, I have seen Linux systems put in place by knowledgeable staff only for them to be pulled out later once they have left the company. I remember looking at DistroWatch in the early days and sheer amount of choice boggles the mind, it really is too much. I know what you are saying but to put it like this M&A in the linux realm would be a good thing to me. I don't think it will hurt innovation, in fact it might ignite it further.

Well, the bottom line is that all the choices really don't amount to much. There's a few 'players' in the field, and they're pretty much split between Red Hat derived or Debian derived, with Slackware occupying it's own weird little niche and still hanging on. Gentoo as well to a degree, but that really is a hackers OS.

Other than that, most of the other choices are just flavors of the month. Things like Mint, Arch, and Pupply Linux.

http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/uploads/12.02/gldt1202.png

That graphic gives a timeline of Linux distros. As you can see, all Linux is pretty much derived from the three big ones I mentioned above, with a few outliers. Alot of those outliers aren't intended for desktop use, they're custom built roll your owns for things like appliance installs (ex, rPath)

When it comes down to it, there are only three real choices, and practically speaking, only two, as Slackware continues to lose relevance. The rest is just window packaging. But from those major roots, a whole lot of innovation comes about.

And except for a few companies here and there, there's nothing to M&A. Debian, for example, isn't a company. It's a community project, funded by donations of time from volunteers and donations from non-profits. Ubuntu is driven by Canonical, which is a for-profit business, but up until they introduced Unity, Ubuntu was nothing more than a prettied up version of a mix of Debian's unstable and testing distributions. CentOS is literally nothing more than a rebrand of Red Hat Enterprise. Scientific Linux is the same, with a few extra packages thrown in. There's nothing to acquire, the licensing requires that if you use their code and make changes or improvements, you have to provide the source code along with it. There's no IP to sell, which is why folks like Red Hat sell services, not software.

Merges do happen, however. Scientific is a perfect example. Fermilab and CERN both maintained separate linux distros, based off Red Hat. Rather than continue to put out separate distros, they agreed to collaborate and co-develop a single version. However, the nature of free software is going to be more divisive than anything else. The projects are largely volunteer driven, and those volunteers occasionally have major disagreements. Unlike in the corporate software world, where if two players have a problem with each other, one of them usually gets canned. He can't take the software and go do his own thing though. Free software community, whole different ball game. Two players have a problem with each other, one can take the code and go off and do his own thing, while the other continues down his path. Probably the most famous example of this is how OpenBSD came about. Theo de Raadt had a few.... issues with the NetBSD folks, and when they told him to piss off, he went and founded OpenBSD. Now, his project is thriving while NetBSD.. well, let's just say it's going the way of Slackware.

The offshots and cute little boutique distros will flash up, and then die off on their own, but the big players are pretty much set, and aren't going anywhere

Asif Dasl

I was thinking M&A along the lines of RedHat/Novell/whoever else. It's great to have all these versions but at the end of the day, people have got to support them and management have got to make sure there is support and maybe even a brand they can embrace. And I understand there is a "from the garage" underground thing going on too but your chart just implies this is getting worse and worse as time goes by - just looking at when ubuntu was released.

I really don't know how many version of linux are listed there and how many have died off - it's just too many. Gather all those heads working on individual versions and group them in to 3 or 5 versions not 100+. I'm sure the versions help a bunch of programmers seem very important on their resume but I look at it as the wasted time and collaboration of ideas under a few projects - the biggest thing for me starting out on Linux was to figure out what was used the most and that was a big turn off too - let alone the complexity compare to Windows. I know it won't change, but if it wants to be more mainstream, it needs to.

kriscamaro68

Qord wrote: »

Can you imagine what would happen to the market if Apple "changed" the hardware end and opened up bulk licensing agreements similar to what M$ has now? I'm almost positive that if we could image old Dell boxes with OS X via multicast we'd have minimal Windows machines left afterwards.

You would also have wonderful botnets and virus infested computers with crappy patching because everyone thinks macs are the most secure thing in the world.

Just sayin.

DevilWAH

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

and you're a company that can measure your revenue loss of an outage in the six or seven figures per hour, you're going to want to do some serious thinking about whether or not you want to introduce another point of failure, especially one with the potential for such widespread problems. Those that don't will make their competitors very happy people.

We are talking hear about companies that outages can cost of losses of 7 figure sums per minute not hours. And like I say this is not an over night task you need the finances to make it work. But the these people are reducing numbers of data centres and staffing levels needed to support.

I agree you can introduce more costs and more points of failure if you don't plan it correctly. however the savings you get from cutting the spport of 100,000 laptops and desktops and there users can more than make up for the extra skills you need in the data centres.

when you have 20+ large data centres already around the world, you have the resources to insure your thin Clint solution is redundant and is not going to have any negitive impact on your business.

Yes I have seen very bad attempts to go to a thin client and centralised (private cloud) solutions. But for ones who have taken to time to do it correctly and think it though, they report serious savings both in terms of cost and effort, for both the cost of hardware and cost of support.

LinuxRacr

All this talk about Unity....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yLJ5NHARMk

That was a good article that layed out some valid points. I know in the LARGE corporate environment I work in, the only people I've seen run Linux desktops, or workstations, are power users, or Sys Admin, such as myself. With the dwindling workforce, due to cuts, more and more support jobs are being outsourced (often overseas), which leave the people who are left stuck with more work. The time it takes to support a Linux user over the phone would probably be more, especially if the client was new to it. Linux deployment just wouldn't fit into the business model of the company I work for....

it_consultant

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Ok, so your clients are actually increasing their TCO by having to maintain both systems.

Now, on paper, I have absolutely no doubt that the TCO of a predominantly thin client deployment beats that of a desktop/laptop deployment. But that solution probably isn't going to work in every case, and I'd doubt it'd work for even a majority of cases. Certainly enough to support an industry, but not to overtake.

What I think alot of folks running the numbers are forgetting is to adjust for risk. As you've already mentioned, when there's a problem with the VDI infrastructure, it effects *everyone*. If your Citrix servers get borked in the middle of the day, and you're a company that can measure your revenue loss of an outage in the six or seven figures per hour, you're going to want to do some serious thinking about whether or not you want to introduce another point of failure, especially one with the potential for such widespread problems. Those that don't will make their competitors very happy people.

But again, I could be wrong!

I thought I was the only one who said "borked".

it_consultant

kriscamaro68 wrote: »

You would also have wonderful botnets and virus infested computers with crappy patching because everyone thinks macs are the most secure thing in the world.

Just sayin.

Or, Mac people would be introduced to the blue screen of death when NVIDIA releases a bad driver for their video card. A lot can be avoided when you control the hardware.

onesaint

it_consultant wrote: »

Or, Mac people would be introduced to the blue screen of death when NVIDIA releases a bad driver for their video card. A lot can be avoided when you control the hardware.

They've got it. It's called the black screen of death.

tpatt100

onesaint wrote: »

They've got it. It's called the black screen of death.

Well at least that tells you what to do rather than a BSOD which says "jdfjhifjdifhdfihjdfihew1`213233"

At least now a days Windows just BSODs and hurries up and restarts lol.

Ch@rl!3m0ng

The main things that I think would stop Linux being used by the average user is Cost, Time and fear.

Cost due to Linux admins getting paid more. (In the UK at least) Also the cost of paying to train all the users to use linux.
Time due to training of the users.
Fear is a fear of the unknown.

Just my View.