14 DAY TRIAL // The latest Windows platform from Microsoft, following its business and consumer releases in November 2006 and January 2007, is the source of the collateral growth in adoption of the Linux open source operating system. Instead of acting as a catalyst to drive Linux's insignificant market share into the ground, Vista will potentially have exactly the opposite effect, fueling the uptake of the open source platform, believes Cole Crawford, IT Strategist, Dell, Inc. In the presentation of his paper "The Corporate Linux Desktop-Fact, Fad or Fantasy" at LinuxWorld, Crawford opined that the arrival of Vista is synonymous with Linux's chance to supplement its share on the operating system market.
Crawford emphasized the fact that, despite having acquired and deployed Windows Vista, Microsoft customers have reverted back to Windows XP. The Redmond company never denied the fact that users are in fact exercising their rights to downgrade from Vista to XP. However, such customers own Vista licenses, and even though they chose to downgrade to XP, this is just a temporary strategy, as they migrate to Microsoft's latest Windows operating system. Still, in the context in which Microsoft owns the lion's share of the operating system's market with over 90%, out of which the vast majority is represented by Windows XP, Linux dislodging Windows users to open source just because of Vista, is a far fetched scenario.
For Windows "the only way to go is down. But Linux can only go up, and its growth potential is enormous. While Linux only has 1 percent of share on the desktop versus Microsoft's more than 90 percent, that is changing, and the Linux desktop is expected to gain some share over the next two years," Crawford forecasted according to eWeek. Still, Since January 2007, Vista has grown from 0.18% to 5.41% at the end of July. In the same period of time, the various Linux desktops jumped from 0.35% to 0.75%, according to data from Market Share by Net Applications.
Crawford emphasized that Linux's increase in market share can be attributed not only to the impact delivered by Vista, but also to the growth in the number of developers, and to the interoperability and intellectual property assurance agreements inked by Microsoft with Novell, Xandros and Linspire.
"The Linux desktop can be interoperable with earlier versions of the operating system, is generally interoperable with Windows, can ship with an enterprise kernel and can be remotely managed by existing management solutions," Crawford added. "This is the year of the interoperable Linux desktop. Standards are helping to drive adoption, while driver support will be the key to the success of desktop Linux. The opportunity to standardize and drive interoperability is paramount."