Pronouncements about future growth of Ubuntu GNU/Linux are not based on wishful thinking or tea leaves. Jane Silber has feedback from downloads, updates and OEM shipments to back up huge growth in India as well as China.
“We have chosen India for our biggest retail expansion after China because we see tremendous opportunity and growth in this country. India is one of the countries where Ubuntu is most successful and well received. We see significant growth in Ubuntu adoption in India. Over the last year we saw 160 per cent growth. So, we believe that there is real potential and demand here. I would like to make special mention of our partners because this is done with them. So we can go to the market through our OEMs. Canonical is not building computers and Canonical does not have stores. Our OEM partners know very well and have much more data than we do about the many machines that ship in India with Ubuntu pre-installed. Our OEM partners believe that we can grow with proper marketing and education.”
GNU/Linux does very well in a competitive environment. Ordinary people are getting to know about GNU/Linux at school, from associates and OEMs and retailers. They are not locked into Wintel and affordable IT using GNU/Linux makes sense to everyone. In these circumstances it is reasonable to believe this growth will continue until GNU/Linux has huge share of installed OS in India. With India’s huge population and rapid growth, the sky is the limit.
see EFYtimes – Diksha P Gupta “Ubuntu Adoption Grew 160 Per Cent In India Last Year”.
17499
12781
206
3
2
23949 
11874 
11726 
4646 
4275 
1642 
198 
14 
2 
1 
0 
0 
…wishful thinking or tea leaves…
That may be a more reliable method than what is presented here, Mr. Pogson. The article notes that there is no summary of values given by Ms. Silber and that even this ratio is some sort of impression more than a measured value.
If Ubuntu had 0.01% of the Indian market the previous year, they now have 0.026%. Even so they still have exactly zero revenue since “…Ubuntu is free, (and) we don’t ask people to register…”
Meanwhile, the web stats show Windows as the winner in India, as it is everywhere.
Clarence Moon wrote, “If Ubuntu had 0.01% of the Indian market the previous year, they now have 0.026%. Even so they still have exactly zero revenue since”
and later wrote, of GNU/Linux, ” It does not have the public recognition and immediate acceptance that comes along with the 30 years of evolution of the Microsoft OS products. The cost of obtaining that recognition is probably a lot greater than the cost of duplicating the functionality in code. There is no way to recoup and so there is never going to be an investment to make it happen.”
See the contradiction? Ramping up exposure to increase mind-share is a problem for GNU/Linux, according to Clarence, but it still happens.
All GNU/Linux needs are competitive pricing on retail shelves. The consumer will take care of the mind-share. It’s obvious that Wintel is a parasite on global IT and totally unnecessary. The world can move on without Wintel and is doing that in spite of the torment it causes Clarence. Young people, poor people and people remote from Wintel’s established markets are not locked in. There are 8 billion people in the world and only 1 billion are slaves to Wintel. The rest are free to do what they want with IT. Wintel’s high prices are enough to promote */Linux. All the conumsers need is to see it on the shelves. That is happening in those emerging markets. It will happen globally sooner or later. That’s why Munich was worth Ballmer interrupting his vacation. He didn’t care about a few $million dropped from the bottom line. It was the future $billions when Free Software got its fair share of IT that scared him.
See the contradiction?
No contradiction at all, Mr. Pogson. Evolution of Wintel was into a market vacuum that was shaped by whatever form Windows took over time. Now it is an established entity and Linux would have to displace Windows in that environment if it were ever to take over.
There are 8 billion people in the world and only 1 billion are slaves to Wintel
I saw somewhere that there were some 1.5 billion personal computers in service today, Mr. Pogson, and I believe that you yourself have used such a number in the past. Is is not likely that the backward nations, where a PC is still a luxury, might have a number of users, even a whole family or other social group sharing a single machine? That would argue for multiple users per machine and, if the number were large enough, it might account for pretty much the population of the world.
Say a family unit of two adults and a bunch of children in equitorial Africa might only have a single PC to share, but that would be enough users to grow the total number of world computer users to pretty much equal world population. Perhaps Mr. Oiaohm knows of some lost tribe in Australia that has not a single PC to share amongst them all, but I think that it is likely that almost everyone on the planet has some touch on a PC.
that scared him.
“What? Me worry?” Didn’t Ballmer say that? Or was it some other guy? With all his billions it is doubtful that Steve B is scared of anything personally. I wouldn’t be scared of Linux certainly if I had all that cash on hand. Linux is at worst only an economic threat to Microsoft and the inner circle at MSFT have long ago banked their winnings well beyond their abilities to spend them.