With an estimated 850 million PCs installed worldwide, it's not surprising
the mantra continues for displacing Windows with a Linux desktop. But is this
a commendable objective anymore? Microsoft undertook a lot of dismal software
engineering and even legal run-ins with the antitrust police to establish 90%
desktop penetration. Linux application developers have better things to do
than build a desktop that personal computer OEMs would never adopt anyway.
Furthermore, even Windows is arguably not viable as a future desktop platform
for Microsoft. Microsoft cannot afford another five-year release cycle like
the one it took to launch Vista.
The late Peter Drucker, in his book entitled The Effective Executive,
outlined advice fit for any decision maker, whether business exec... (more)
As the adoption of Linux and other open source software within corporations
grows, enterprise IT managers should, using reasonable oversight, establish
policies that allow open source to benefit the company. Open source may be
free and not ordinarily expose a company to piracy claims, but open source
usaage should not be ignored. For most companies it makes sense to establish
policies an... (more)