Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

Code:

Can the open source software movement defeat (or severely cripple)
 Microsoft in the marketplace?
...Most research to date into the OSS movement has focused on the 
organization and management issues surrounding OSS. Harvard Business School
professors chose to explore the fundamental competitive dynamics question: 
Will OSS ever displace traditional software from its market leadership position?

An interesting interview

 

Thank you!

May i ask how did you find this?

 

Very good analysis. IMO, they should have analyzed the lost of the value of the Win32 API in the hands of web apps.

 

Did you read it already Lucas?
(the pdf, not the interview! )

 

I've read only the interview.

 

the problem with opensourse at least atm is the driver support and most of the time having to use commandline for installing drivers and software.
with the new package managers its getting their slowly but most people would rather use windows because its easier.

 

I don't know who will win, but I doubt M$ will lose.
M$ is fighting ODF (Open Document Format) tooth and nail.
Understandably so.
Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, France, Japan, Malasia, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Poland, South Africa and other countries have already adopted or are planning to adopt ODF.
Their rationale being that their vast amounts of government documents and archives should not be owned by a proprietary format.
Also often stated is the need for their citizens to be able to access said documents and archives without having to purchase any specific vendor's software.

 

I had a good laugh with this one. What kind of users are they talking about ?

 

I doubt MS will win using their current strategies.

Visit a forum for any open source software and you'll see lots of users with programming knowledge able and willing to add new features and tweak old ones.

I admit, I didn't get if you were being ironic or if you really are unfamiliar with the open source scene...

regards,
T

 

Goverments, research centers, schools, business, etc are interested in the source code.

 

...and more here

 

just normal common average eager boys with some coding skills are still working on the Linux project in his many flavors.

 

There is no way i will debate with anyone the viability of Linux and what kind of market share it could grab or whether it will win out over MS, which is highly unlikely anyways. I don't even care. All I have done is approached it with an open, unbiased mind and have been pleasantly surprised with my so far brief experience with it.

My computing needs are admittedly close to "granny-like", but Linux can presently serve >90% of them. The software packages included in an Ubuntu install are quite impressive, in my mind anyways. Getting some things to work has been painstaking at times, but the community help for it is out there and mostly very good. In some cases I have found that I did things the hard way, rather than simply using, for example, Synaptic or fewer terminal commands.

 

If they eventually can make away this annoying commandline shell and make it as userfriendly as the Windows shell then it would be something for the masses,up until then they have come a long way to even rival MS.

IMO most people favor the easy computing way,playing with icons,menu and submenus this is what people intuitively understand(visual),commandlines are completely alien to most of us and to get used to it take steep learning curve,so linux in its current incarnations is something for them who are really interested in computing. i admit that and specially with Ubuntu that development evolve all the more in directions taken earlier by Microsoft with his DOS > Windows course.Rumors are that administrations are really curious in implementing Ubuntu in their logistics.

 

Oh I see, skilled programmers, working in computer departments of governments, research centers, schools, business are changing the code in open source applications and not the man of the street.
At work we also buy the source code of an application sometimes and make changes.

So ONE open source application will end up in thousands different personal versions of this open source application made by all these programmers.
Must be quite a mess or is it more than that ?

 

As I was reading, I couldn't help but keep asking myself what they meant by "win" or "lose".

 

One thing i should note is that this is not a casual look on the OS market. This all starts with assumptions (which can be later debated), and these form the basis for a simplified model to work with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_(economics)

Seriously, i've been using Debian for some time now, and i don't know what you're talking about.
Why is cmd any easier? And do the masses even touch it?

You should not be using the shell that much.
What can happen is your distro doesn't have all your drivers, or doesn't auto-detect properly. That's mostly a hardware manufacturer support problem, or the distro's dedication for free drivers, not proprietary, and so on. An install issue.

What if they're fully supported, what if you bought the PC with it, and so on.

Linux is a kernel, OS's built on it are many. Some are very similar, others are not. Some are like you describe, since they were not built to be easy and hold your hand. Others are made to be easy.

A simple example which could help you here:
There's the program, maintained by a company or individual or .. --A
Anyone else using the program can modify it for their needs etc. --B
They (B) can send feedback on how to improve the code to the original developers (A), and send them their code.
These (A) choose to incorporate or not the changes.
B can also fork the program (start their own project based on their different view).

I for one don't understand how Universities (some in particular) waste their time on proprietary programs. Sure it takes time, but many could start by making partnerships with other Universities that can provide programmers, and their students could very well benefit from this relationship.
Maybe i'm missing something..

 

LOL
You'd be amazed to see how many "men of the street" are skilled programmers. Some choose to code malware and virii (I guess you realize they're not necessarily coding for a living, right?), and others choose to do good things. Develop freeware, work on open source projects etc.

You have quite an old-fashioned somewhat outdated view on who's able to write code and who's not, don't you?.

As to your other misconception Pedro explained OSS very good in his reply.

regards,
T

 

No, I'm half serious, half kidding. I was a programmer myself during a few years, but I didn't like the job. So I became a pure application analyst. I'm the missing link between average users and our computer department.

 

I shall try to concentrate on commenting on the article.

The paper wrongly assumes that OSS costs $0. There are many distros that are commercial - Redhat, Suse offer desktop distros that require payment.

Microsoft could choose to involve users more and also shorten dev life cycles.
Conversely, Debian has had massive release cycles for some of the distro releases.
OSS should not be confused with development cycles.
A project could be written behind closed doors, then released OSS, like ID software do with Quake and Doom.
Point that should of been made is that a lot of OSS projects are community supported.

But requires someone to listen and fix the bugs or implement the new features. MS knew for years about the security risks of the default user being a full admin...

So if ms keeps the price of windows as is, it means Linux IS a threat.

I guess that means, Linux is forever.

The overwhelming theme seems to be that MS has such a big market share Linux will not over take windows.

Note the date. 2005.

Look at http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp , MS had 90% in 2005 of desktop market, its now down to 87% - going to be decades before MS looses desktop dominance if the current trend continues.

Even though Vista is an initial failure, people will buy it because it comes with their machines, only the savvy will opt for a *nix machine (mac or linux), number of XP installs is still high and people will stay with it for a while (why change ?), which means MS will still retain its dominance short-mid term.

 

*Second time i timed out, and lost my post. An even shorter one follows (shorter than the second, which in turn shorter than the first).
How the hell do i tell Firefox to go Back using history, not freakin reload the page and lose what i wrote?
It doesn't happen a lot, but it's very frustrating!*

Nickr, note this quote:

It's not an opinion, it's a model to understand the market.
It's not supposed to contain every real-life detail, it must simplify to the most important variables in order to be workable.

 

Hello,

The most interesting thing, in my opinion, is the mathematical model.
I'd like to see that one.

As to who will win? I guess MS will level out at some 55-60% at around 2015, with Mac and Linux taking equal shares of the rest.

Mrk

 

I would have to give a slight edge to Microsoft because corporate organizations will not be willing to use open source software since it will not be supported by a structured organization with a tech support staff. Large numbers of corporate users are non-technical people who don't need to modify source code or would want others to alter code and execution for them. The reason why programs like WordPerfect, Office, and Adobe were used is due to standardization principles that came out of the 1980's multitude OS software offerings. You want to update through one channel for every workstation. Can another software program overtake MS? Of course it can. It all depends on whether users are willing to switch over. Remember that Netscape had the browser market cornered back in the 1980's and it just died a quiet death earlier this year.

 

FYI

We use Redhat for various servers and is fully supported by redhat.
I work for the biggest employer in the UK and with the most/biggest IT systems - the NHS.

 

The kind of events that can really make the difference:
(and could very well be included in these studies, the impact of government decisions; besides standards enforcement..)

ProInfo and Linux Educacional - KDE in Public Schools in Brazil

http://piacentini.livejournal.com/7871.html
enjoy