"IBM, HP, and Compaq Computer Corp. CPQ, Houston, have to balance Linux against their own homegrown Unix operating systems."
Hi Pat! This is from earlier today. How is Kemble? Leigh
Desktop Is Next Frontier For Linux
TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2000 2:27:00 PM EST
Aug 14, 2000 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- Linux may not be everywhere yet, but it's making progress.
At Linuxexpo this week, several key vendors are expected to push the open source operating system beyond Internet servers --where it is already entrenched -- to the desktop.
The desktop is, in fact, the next frontier for the operating system, which is already compact enough to run tiny PDA devices.
But, as yet, Linux lacks a viable desktop application suite that could lure users out of the Microsoft Corp. MSFT camp, where Microsoft Office, running on Windows, dominates.
"Long gone are the days when people pick an OS and then pick a machine to run it. They start with the application they want to run, then pick the OS/hardware that supports it," said Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of systems software research for IDC, Framingham, Mass.
Toward that end, an unlikely group of allies, including hardware rivals Sun Microsystems Inc. SUNW, Mountain View, Calif.; IBM Corp. IBM; Hewlett-Packard Co. HWP, Palo Alto, Calif; as well as Linux stalwarts like VA Linux Systems Inc. LNUX, Sunnyvale, Calif., are collaborating on GNOME, a common user interface for Linux.
Currently, GNOME and KDE are the two most popular GUIs for Linux, which is otherwise a non-graphical operating environment.
A single, predominant graphical face would make it possible for a Linux application suite, like Sun's StarOffice, or Corel Corp. CORL Office, to gain critical mass, observers said.
Sun,which has been slow to warm to the Linux/Open Source phenomenon, will work with Gnome to ensure that Star Office will integrate well with GNOME tighter than it now does, Kusnetzky said.
The big question will be how much Office/StarOffice compatibility the Linux forces will offer. If users cannot always open documents created with Microsoft Word or Excel and lose a few hours opening that document in StarOffice "organizations will not go for it," Kusnetzky said.
Given the high-cost of knowledge workers these days, even two to three hours of downtime a year would cost more than the price of Microsoft Office up front, he said.
"If we use Linux for basic infrastructure support, Web services, messaging, firewall, proxy servers, Linux has all that's needed right now," Kusnetzky said. "If you want an application environment to run the most popular commercial [server] applications, it is still growing.
"But in the desktop market, where 98.5 million copies of software sold and Microsoft held 88 percent share, Linux is just under 4 percent of the market," Kusnetzky added.
There is skepticism that yet another group of Microsoft bashers can succeed where similar efforts --OpenDoc comes to mind --failed. The difference here is that GNOME, "already exists. It was a very active effort that many open-source companies were involved with and these other companies came to late," said Larry Augustin, president and chairman of VA Linux, a maker of Linux-based hardware.
Indeed, IBM, HP, Dell Computer Corp. DELL, and other hardware powers as well as software giants such as Oracle Corp. ORCL, Redwood Shores, Calif., have fallen all over themselves to bless Linux, which is seen as the next, best hope of dethroning Microsoft.
Then there are the pure Linux plays-companies like Red Hat Inc. RHAT, Caldera CALD, and VA Linux -- all of whom based their businesses on the operating system from the ground up.
IBM, HP, and Compaq Computer Corp. CPQ, Houston, have to balance Linux against their own homegrown Unix operating systems.
Augustin thinks Sun's effort could bolster Linux on the desktop "if sun can really get the usage out there. The question is whether Sun really means it when they promise StarOffice will be Open Source
"They claim that they'll release it under the GNU public license and if they do that it will have a chance at succeeding," he added.
Solution providers that support both Linux and Windows say the foundation's efforts on the desktop side are great -- as long as they support the existing desktop standard -- Microsoft office.
"Most customers are using Microsoft Office," said Hal Davison, owner of Davison Consulting, a Linux-Windows consulting firm in Sarasota, Florida. "If the GNOME people develop a common API, that may be great, but the final has to be compatible with Microsoft's .doc format. The underlying application has to be 100 percent compatible."
In the past, Sun has stopped short of true open-source licensing, offering Java and its other software under Sun's Community license.
That meant third-party developers could tweak the code but could not distribute their work to others. Instead, they have to return their adapted code to Sun, which then effectively controlled distribution.
Dell chairman Michael Dell will kick off the show with a Tuesday morning keynote. And, Linux prodigy Linus Torvalds will award a $25,000 Community award.
Other speakers will include Caldera president CEO Ransom Love, and HP chief scientist Joel Birnbaum.
CRN's Paula Rooney contributed to this story.
techweb.com
Copyright (C) 2000 CMP Media Inc.
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