Bloor: Could Linux become the dominant OS? Gradually, Yes, Via Googlesque, BIC DIYs

Hurwitz & Associates' Robin Bloor, founder and president of Bloor Research, foresees a virtually inevitable dominance of both PC and server markets worldwide by GNU/Linux, led by Google's DIY (Do-It-Yourself) servers and a block called the BIC -- if not by the whole BRIC ( BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India, China).  See BeLow.

Could Vietnam make it VBRIC?  It will likely need a lot more help from government and threats from Microsoft if either its user or developers, local or foreign, are to be weaned off MS piracy addiction.

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Could Linux become the dominant OS? - Gradual triumph

By Robin Bloor, Hurwitz & Associates → More by this author

Published Friday 17th August 2007 09:15 GMT

Excerpts

[Of the] ... "constructed servers" [DIYs, not included in most server market surveys]: very large and they nearly all run Linux. How large? Well Google, for example, builds all its own servers and is estimated to be the fourth largest builder of servers in the world - after HP, IBM, and Sun. It's not the only ISP that does this, but its activity is so great that it distorts the market stats.
 
Linux probably doesn't trail Windows by much and it will almost certainly dominate in time. The determining factor is the emerging economies where Linux is growing at a much faster rate.

Linux has two very important advantages for developing economies such as China, India, and Brazil:

• It can be used to establish a local software industry with local skills.
• The cost of adopting it is lower by far than any alternative.

If you examine the enthusiasm for Linux in these rising economies you quickly see that it is government led, with governments mandating Linux for their own IT needs. Bear in mind that in most countries government accounts for 10 per cent of the IT budget and the drive to Linux becomes clear.

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