Open source Ubuntu gains stage in emerging markets.

http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/11/06/open-source-ubuntu-os-makes-strides-in-emerging-markets/


Emerging Markets: Key to Canonical’s Success?
But the lion’s share of Ubuntu investment by OEMs has come in emerging markets, where proprietary operating systems — in their legal versions, at least — are not as entrenched as they are elsewhere, and where Ubuntu’s nonexistent price tag can have more of an impact.
More than a year ago, Canonical announced plans to begin partnering with Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) to offer Ubuntu PCs inside retail stores in China. That endeavor reportedly has enjoyed significant success, with 400 stores featuring Ubuntu machines.
Meanwhile, HP (NYSE: HPQ) also has now entered the scene, further reinforcing Ubuntu’s foothold among major OEMs in emerging markets. And Kenyon added that Canonical is working with large OEMs in Taiwan, which could open another huge market for Ubuntu PCs.

 

That article, while informative, can be taken in different ways. It's become very obvious that Linux has an extremely small chance of becoming "mainstream", if you want to call it that and if you consider the U.S and Europe the "big time". However, the U.S especially is not the world and it's rather sad that anything that fails here is considered a failure overall. Which markets actually matter though, in a business sense? Also, as the article itself said, how do we know what the true growth is? Are the Chinese taking home cheaper Ubuntu systems and applying pirated Windows copies? Is MS just saying that for spin? ((By the way, where is the source statement for what the article is claiming MS believes?)) One thing the article gets me shaking my head about is the same claim that is so popular to copy and paste on every tech website now about the desktop dying. It's not even close to dying yet ((Let's remember, Photoshop and others don't do tablets.)). I just don't think there are enough real, verified numbers to say anything really. All we ever usually get is the "1% graph".

 

The two most populous and emerging nations are China and India, not only that, the education standards in both are evolving at gargantuan spheres. If you limit yourself to the setting sun Europe and US and base your judgement on that criteria, then its quite a limited concept. In countries like China and India and rest of SE Asia as well as Africa, Linux desktop and its derivatives like Ubuntu are seeing a phenomenal growth and adaption.

I do agree about your statement that desktop and its longevity, in fact it is not dying, its ever evolving and adapting itself well to the needs of the current.

 

Education is an entirely different issue, an issue I believe that the U.S is miserably failing in compared to the rest of the world. The U.S and Europe aren't the "world", as I said previously, no matter what marketing departments want to say. I'm not necessarily arguing against the opinion that Linux isn't growing, I'm only saying that it's hard to know just what the situation is because all that most of us ever get fed is the 1% statistic. It's certainly not, to me at least, an insignificant amount as I travel frequently and have seen more than my fair share of Linux machines in Vietnam, Malaysia Singapore and so on. India and China have a lot of pirated Windows machines though ((I'm not just saying that is my opinion though, I've been to both countries numerous times.)) and pirated copies are easy to pick up on the street. One thing is certain though, having HP come on board now will only help adoption.

 

The only way to get actual count is to either go on field and see it in reality or go by what the great Mark Twain said, Damned lies thats Statistics. As long as preloaded PCs are used as benchmark for counting OS deployment, we will never really have the numbers but it don't matter, be it supercomps, desktops, drupal, Open ERP, apache, android, Linux and open source is growing and thats all that matters in the end.

 

I myself got into this linux thing because my laptop came with linux preloaded. And there we go, I am still using linux in the same laptop albeit with a different distro. Linux coming through more OEMs is a welcome thing in a sense that not all are going to wipe their linux box to install a pirated windows. Even if 20% retain their linux box..that is still growth..growth for linux, doesn't matter if it is 10%, 20% or 100%. And installing a windows pirated is 0% growth for windows.
Yes you are right about desktops not dying and won't die anytime soon. who is going to kill desktops? ..those useless toys called tablets??