Cosmetic adjustments, better business applications -- and more of them -- and improved marketing will help turn the tide, according to speakers at the Desktop Linux Summit here.
While figures vary widely on worldwide Linux desktop penetration, most credible sources place it between 0.5 percent and 2 percent of the market, making the open-source operating system a slowly rising third to Windows and Apple Computer's Mac OS.
Still, many are optimistic Linux will reach mainstream status, typically defined as 10 percent market share or better, within the next five years.
To get there, analysts say, developers and businesspeople behind Linux will need to make some changes. The user interfaces used by most Linux distributions are a good place to start, independent analyst Amy Wohl said. Some relatively simple cosmetic changes to make Linux look prettier and more similar to dominant Windows conventions would make a big difference, she said.
"It's an issue of how you package things up and present them," she said. "These are issues that are highly fixable. Let's get them fixed."
Open-source marketers also need to change their focus in some areas, Wohl said. Instead of trying to convert Microsoft customers, think about the much bigger potential markets of people who can't afford Microsoft applications, she said, citing the software giant's Office productivity package as an example.
"The fact of the matter is, there are approximately nine workers available as a target market for every one worker using Microsoft Office," she said. "There's a huge market out there without even touching the Microsoft issue."
Talkback
I migrated away from Windows and Windows related software personally about five years ago. Part of the reson for migrating was indeed the fact that the Linux Desktop environment is so much "slicker" (feature rich) than anything Windows has including the latest offering of XP. I think it strange that so much press comments on this issue. A Linux user feels confined and grossly limited on a Windows machine. I know because I work with Linux, Windows 98, Windows NT and XP at my work. Usability features such as "virtural desktops", "rollup windows", "advanced window placement", "window pagers", "multiple X window sessions", "remote X window sessions", and the list goes on and on, are things the average Linux user enjoys, things MS Windows lacks completely or only has the ability with addon (read additional cost) software. And the desktop environment is just the beginning of advanced usability features that Linux (and indeed other *nix's) have had for some time now. I use the KDE desktop manager on my Linux IBM Thinkpad and find it makes Windows XP feel very primitive. Windows is still good for games though ... but I have a Play Station 2 for that (I don't play computer games much in all fairness).
Anyway, when I see articles that make such comments about "slickness" and such, I have to wonder if the writer used a Linux desktop long enough to experience all the "slick" features. It takes a little while to brake out of the MS Windows box to explore the benefits of new, unthinkable (by MS users anyway) features found in Linux systems.
Just my 2 cents.
i have to agree with the other poster. in some ways Macs are slicker than Linux, in other ways Linux tops the Mac, but windows? the telletubbies/lego theme is slick? look at virtual desktops in Linux and Expose in OS X and then tell me that again, but try not to laugh.....
The most discouraging thing about using Linux (as a current windows user) I found is the lack of support for newer hardware. The SUSE Linux 9.0 I use comes with very spotty support for wireless devices for example. It took me upwards of 3 weeks and countless re-installations to get my wireless device functioning - though barely, I still have to reconfigure it every time I reboot.