By Andy McCue, 8 November 2006 13:05
NEWS
Linux is unlikely ever to be a viable alternative to Microsoft's Windows on the desktop for corporate IT departments, according to leading CIOs.
Just this week new research by the National Computing Centre (NCC) found only one Linux desktop for every 300 currently running Windows XP in UK organisations. Three-quarters of silicon.com's 12-strong CIO Jury backed the view that the Linux desktop dream is dead.
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Rorie Devine, IT director at Betfair.com, said Linux would have to change drastically to compete at desktop level.
He said: "There would have to be a unified vision of where the components fit together and application developers would have to be able to work to that and have a mass market. At the moment there are too many options for the Linux desktop to support mass market tools. A more likely Unix on the desktop is Mac OS X."
Graham Benson, IT director at Play.com's IT organisation the Web Factory, said: "Linux is a great example of the old adage 'you don't get owt for nowt'. It is not free, as you pay for the support and there are so many flavours that it dilutes any potential attractiveness. Far from being a Luddite, I am disappointed with the penetration of Linux; I had high hopes for a viable alternative but commercial interests in the end got the better of a great ideal."
Despite the love-hate relationship that many organisations have with Microsoft, its products are now relatively stable, well-supported and secure, according to Ted Woodhouse, director of IT strategy at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
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He said: "Unless, and until, Linux can get anywhere near that level of service and guarantee, it's too big a risk."
Simply put, there are currently few business benefits that would justify such a switch from Microsoft to Linux for many IT departments.
Nick Masterson-Jones, IT director at Voca, said: "My view is that replacing one load of complexity on the desktop with another, albeit open source, isn't the way to go. We're going down the virtualisation path which will make a much greater impact."
Others predict the battleground for control of the desktop is completely changing. Paul Broome, IT director at 192.com, said: "Linux desktop for business is as unsuitable as Windows in what will be a retro terminal server world in five years. All apps will be hosted on servers locally on the net. So bye-bye all PCs - hello VT100 with a USB port."
But not everyone agreed that the Windows versus Linux desktop battle is over. David Lister, CIO at Reuters, said Microsoft's ability to respond to new entrants such as Google will ultimately decide the debate.
He said: "I suspect the real challenge is less about the operating system and more about the battle for web 2.0, Software as a Service (SaaS), etc. I'm not sure if Microsoft can reinvent agility although it seems to be trying hard to get there. It'll be a fascinating battle."
Richard Steel, the head of ICT at the London Borough of Newham which famously threatened to move to Linux before sticking with Microsoft, said there will always be challengers to the dominant provider.
He said: "Linux is the obvious route to challenge and, as it has some sizeable players involved, has the best chance of breaking through - great for keeping Microsoft on its toes. My view - to have any chance of gaining ground, Linux has to get ahead, rather than always be a couple of years behind."
Today's CIO Jury was...
Neil Bath, IT director, Brewin Dolphin Securities
Alastair Behenna, CIO, Harvey Nash
Graham Benson, IT director, the Web Factory (Play.com)
Paul Broome, IT director, 192.com
Ken Davis, IT director at TV channel Five
Rorie Devine, IT director, Betfair.com
David Lister, CIO, Reuters
Nick Masterson-Jones, IT director, Voca
Jacques Rene, CTO, Airclaims
Richard Steel, head of ICT, London Borough of Newham
Ted Woodhouse, director of IT strategy, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Phil Young, head of IT and operations, Amtrak Express Parcels
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Comments
There are 31 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
I would sack the CIO of an IT department who says he/she will not _ever_ evaluate one of the alternative solutions to a Microsoft Desktop PC (regardless from it being Linux). From the article, the only sensible position appears to be Richard Steel's one, who says more or less "I would choose Microsoft over Linux now, I will evaluate them again whenever I need to choose, and I am glad I have more than one choice". It's foolish to cut your options for the future based on the present. It would be just as foolish if I were to say the reverse, based on the fact that at present Microsoft does not offer any viable solution for the use I (and my team) have for computers (basically heavy number crunching in astrophysics and quantum chemistry, analysis and visualisation of the resulting data). I _will_ consider and evaluate critically _any_ viable choices whenever I will need to.
2. Macfield
I use both Linux & Windows at home,
because the choice allows me to achieve more. But I am only ever offered Windows machine at work locations.
Linux is NOT about "Free". It about choice and ready access to a large software open source repository.
Maybe your CIOs would all like to be driving just "Ford Mondeo" cars, instead of their many BMW, Jags, Merc, Audi, Volvos... etc. Now there is choice for you.
Laziness and fear of change is not a good reason to avoid exploring and make use of emerging technologies. The two technologies can co-exist,
with little or No Risk.
At the other end of the spectrum, take the example of Google. They would not be who they are today if not for the CHOICE to make use of open source products and tools.
Linux DOES have a place in many office/work environment only if it is given a chance. Writing letters, manipulating spread sheets, reading emails formS 70% of most office activities.
Need I say more...
3. Ram
These "experts" are wrong. Linux is far ahead of Microsoft on the desktop. By default it has better performance, security and stability. The Linux desktop was not able to compete several years ago but today it the best desktop. One great example is how easy you can run it with thin clients, usb pendrives, mini disks, something that you cannot do with Windows or MAC. The Linux Desktop is far ahead of all other desktops and it is the way to go. Also, end users and entry level admins are getting smarter every day. The click and go wizards have limit. End users and entry level admins are beginning to learn how to hack their way through a problem. Advanced admins prefer Linux for those reasons. One final note there are many easy to configure distros that work out of the box. Oh, and most drivers are included - actually by default Linux comes with more drivers than Windows.
4. Khan Md Ashraf
Most CIO's have not had a look at anything but Microsoft Windows. Therefore they can only think Microsoft Windows. Have they tried GNU/Linux? Evaluated it as an alternative to their current desktops. No! They are not even willing to countenance any alternatives. They are scared that they will get burned. Maybe they are scared of Microsoft? They don't care that all their documents are locked into Microsoft's closed document format. They don't care that by using Microsoft they loose time and money due to poor reliability.
They choose to ignore the disaster Microsoft has been till date pretending that 'ease of use' and 'integration' is all that is required. Just as people are saving time and money by using GNU/Linux on their servers soon they will do so on the desktop. Windows Vista will mean junking your current hardware. That is not going to sit well with a lot of people. Then they will start looking at GNU/Linux the 'alternative'.
5. Linux.Liberation.Front
It seems that this experts are aonly speakin for the US and UK.
In other european countries Linux get more and more important on the Desktop.
As example the great european towns Munich, Mannheim and wiena are on their way to migrate their whole IT-Systems towards Linux, also on the Desktop.
Other Cities like Paris or Berlin are planing to migrate big parts of their Computers to Linux.
Many big comapnies ar doing the same, the raid on Redmont has just begun.
6. anonymous
Well, many CIOs have either no hands-on experience or are way behind the technology. Their conclusions are often results of their experience as home users, i.e. gaming, multimedia, etc. What do they need on the desktop when the industry is heading towards virtual desktop especially in the corporate environment?
7. anonymous
Linux is way behind Windows in terms of being compatible with all of the latest viruses. I have a hard time running spyware on my Linux desktop as well.
These are but small nuisances that I have learned to live with as I work daily on Linux and Mac OS/X. Otherwise I somehow manage to get my work done.
There is the other bit about Linux users not having access to a fragile registry that constantly needs attention and pruning to keep the machine running optimally. Not having the ability to do that on my desktop, I generally spend that time surfing for freely available software that does interesting things.
I don't mind that corporate IT isn't on the bandwagon and does not care to drive the masses to the platform that I love. By maintaining the majority of users on Windows, the virus authors out there have no compelling reason to try to affect me.
Linux on the desktop is dead? Look around the office at the Linux users the next time the entire company goes down due to a virus. Tell me it is dead then, CIO Jury.
8. anonymous
Linux is way behind Windows in terms of being compatible with all of the latest viruses. I have a hard time running spyware on my Linux desktop as well.
These are but small nuisances that I have learned to live with as I work daily on Linux and Mac OS/X. Otherwise I somehow manage to get my work done.
There is the other bit about Linux users not having access to a fragile registry that constantly needs attention and pruning to keep the machine running optimally. Not having the ability to do that on my desktop, I generally spend that time surfing for freely available software that does interesting things.
I don't mind that corporate IT isn't on the bandwagon and does not care to drive the masses to the platform that I love. By maintaining the majority of users on Windows, the virus authors out there have no compelling reason to try to affect me.
Linux on the desktop is dead? Look around the office at the Linux users the next time the entire company goes down due to a virus. Tell me it is dead then, CIO Jury.
9. D.C. Parris
This story comes just one day after a report about a small business replacing Windows with Fedora Core Linux across more than 450 desktops and servers in 9 cities, all at the hands of an inexperienced sys admin. His only resistence came from Windows admins in remote locations; the employees barely noticed the difference. He just made fools of your jurors.
10. anonymous
Question for CIOs: Have you even tried Linux recently?
Did you know Ubuntu Linux ships for free? https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ with no postage+handling charges or any charges whatsoever? You may even download it to your computer and install it. How about that, a free desktop with Ubuntu Linux which is for free, updates are free, and programs are free. It's also all open source software.
Let me tell YOU something, I've been alive longer than Microsoft's been in business, and I've used many computers, operating systems, game platforms, etc. and Ubuntu Linux is by far the easiest and most enjoyable Operating System to use right now on the PC or Mac.
Of course, Linux isn't marketed like Windows/Mac, so people don't know about it as much, but that's changing.
I will never use a product or service from Microsoft or Apple ever again, I believe in freedom and freedom is what is given to me when I use Linux. And by Linux I don't mean products from Novell or SUSE.
Ubuntu Linux is what I suggest you try.
11. anonymous
whatever. cio's aren't smart enough to configure their linux desktop so they write pompous articles to proclaim it dead.
12. anonymous
besides, and I'd also like to add that some distrobutions, chiefly Ubuntu are coming so far along, and are developed so smartly and have *ahem* better package managers than EVERY system out there, that ... well, Ubuntu IMO is already function ing at or vastly above MacOSX. The only difference being some missing Eye Candy. Yes superficial people do tend to go for superficial features... but there is beryl / compiz coming from SUSE-Novell which is at least equal to Vista and OSX desktops except that its still buggy from my understanding.
13. Alan mathers
As a Security Engineer I tend to support myself at work and MIS tend to turn a blind eye :)
I have just got onto RHFC5 and got everything working, despite being in a network full of windows NT /2000 /2003.
It's wonderful! Sounds sad but I actually enjoy working more now.
No more Ouchlook - Evolution feels so much nicer, slicker and productive - all office docs work out of the box in open office.
It's come a long long way since earlier releases.
Only a couple of legacy windoze apps I still need to use - Citrix to the rescue!
Oh and the total amount of linux expertise needed was minimal. It really was almost out of the box install.
My collegues now want Thunderbird on the search feature alone - it wasn't my intention to start a desktop revolution, honest!
14. Iwekani Mukoma
Sorry Colleagues but you are worng. Your verdict would have made sense years ago. I am a real CIO and I do use linux and I haven'nt used Windows for a couple of months, there is really no need. Linux on the desktop is going to grow steadily over the years. The argument about the plethora of distributions is not founded. There is some consolidation game going on and there are some real nice distros that are stable, appealing and comprehensive.
Just watch
15. Danny Wall
I do not know many CIOs that actually know much about I/T. Most of them are business people, and can't go a month without a call to the helpdesk.
If Linux and Mac are not and never will be ready for the desktop, why does Microsoft constantly add the features that they already have?
The only thing holding Linux back is the applications that have been built over the years, to only support Windows. That is all changing thanks to AJAX and related web technologies. Microsoft has known this since Windows 95, and that is why they destroyed Netscape, who was heading the industry in that direction. As stated previously, we are going back to dumb terminals, except everything will be web based, and hopefully, based on 'open' industry standards, so everyone can use what suits them best, not what is forced on them.
16. anonymous
SUSE 10.1 is my desktop.
You don't know your subject, your trolling.
17. Craig Sturman
I don't think that the UK should be seen as a reasonable glimpse at the scope of LInux on the desktop. Most companies there still use Windows on their servers *wince* We just started a joint venture with a UK firm and the difficulty we've had in integrating their temperamental Windows servers into our framework has had me up nights. If I never see another useless Exchange server, it'll be too soon.
18. anonymous
I am in the process of evaluating SUSE and Red Hat in a medium sized company (~3,000 computers) as a option for our desktop environment. So far in the evaluation Linux has been able to do the same basic office work type applications (e.g. Office and Email) that Windows can do. Getting everything to integrate nicely with active directory has been a little bumpy. Our users want the ability to be able to use SSO, which some applications like Evolution are unable to be kerberos enabled yet. Another area of concern is getting all our in house and 3rd party applications that are Windows platform dependent to function properly either by emulation or virtualization. If we totally went through with the open source route, we'd have to migrate all our users in AD and Exchange to an open source mail and directory server. Bottom line: it is not so easy to say Linux has better security and performance thus making it the better OS. In a enterprise you have to take a look at all variables involved to determine if is right for your organization.
19. Crusty Smothers
If the Linux Desktop is dead....why is this story generating so much Web traffic ? The Open Desktop continues to evolve it simply is moving at a community pace, which is not always a sexy news story.
20. anonymous
The point is the future changes in computing, not the desktop! Essentially dumb terminals fed by personal USB-devices will be the future. The lighter the desktop the better. The computing behind is unix/linux on servers.
21. Navin
get some quality Jury...
22. Eric
Get real, folks . . .
The CIO's are responsible for their company's systems. If they have committed their organisation to a Windows contract they are hardly going to admit there is a cheaper, more secure and more flexible system available, would they?
Someone might accuse them of not knowing what they are doing and they would not like that would they?
And remember, they know more about the subject than the people they report to- In the Land of the Blind the man with one eye is KIng.
23. anonymous
I have to agree with a previous comment. After 18 months evaluating Linux desktop and servers it was ease of integration and maintenance tools plus resourcing that eventually made Microsoft the right choice for desktop and server.
Linux and MS can coexist but it is quite difficult to harmonise the two and find SA's that can manage an integrated environment. Patch and service pack deployment requires lots of testing. DR systems can get complicated.
Deploying the OS is not the problem. Supporting the hybrid environment and managing change is very very hard to balance. Most companies will not take that risk and I'm afraid after personal experience, I have to agree.
24. anonymous
Come on guys. The article is right. Just because you and I know *nix, that doesn't mean everyone else does. In fact if you put a Windows user in front of a Linux machine, she won't understand a thing! Despite the fact there are numerous efforts to make Linux a PC friendly OS, majority of the people don't understand it!
25. StormNineNet Technical Support
I totally Agree. CIO's are buyers, not technicians, so they know little if anything about the actual quality and capability of alternative Operating Systems because they are of the mentality "No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft". To me, this kind of behavior is like a shortcut to thinking.
I work in government IT, and they are primarily a "Windows Only Shop", but I'm slowly influencing them away from that strict mentality. The in-road I used was a Barracuda Networks Antispam firewall appliance running on embedded linux. Granted, this isn't a desktop system, but it is based on Linux, and it's so solid that it's beginning to change minds about open source. To me, that's a huge win. Now, outside of my job, I also run a lab & 2 chat networks. My lab is a co-existance of Fedora Core 5, DD-WRT Embedded Linux, Slackware, Windows Server 2003 + Active Directory, and Exchange 2003. Windows servers handle our LDAP via Active Directory, and the Linux servers handle all our "real-time communications". Now granted on average, when I have a minor administrative task like adding a configuration or installing software, I'll normally use an SSH connection using PuTTY or a direct terminal session at local console, but if I'm going to be in my lab all day, I have a linux box that I use for listening to Shoutcast Radio streams (xmms+shoutcast) as well as for any research I need to do. This workstation is powered by Fedora Core 5, and uses a KDE 3.5 desktop which is so freakin' beautiful that I wish I could figure out a way to compile it for Windows to replace the Luna desktop included with XP.
I think the main thing that scares away alot of CIOs is the estimated costs of retraining all their employees to use Linux on the desktop. What most of these CIO's don't realize is that the learning curve is very minimal nowadays, especially with the 1st tier commercial Linux distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SuSE/Novell Linux 10.
26. TD
If the Linux desktop is dead and there is no threat, why have Microsoft just signed a huge deal with Novell/SuSE?
My advice to any CIO is to evaluate different Linux desktops in an objective manner i.e. dont get pro-windows technicians to do the eval - they want job security, and the only way they feel they can achieve that is by sticking with what they know. Talk to a linux tech company who can show you the possibilities and don't bury your head in the sand.
27. Robert Malone
The main problem is that too many vendors of widely-used software packages have absolutely no plans to release on Linux. And before anyone starts, OpenOffice is about as good a substitute for MS Office as the Gimp is for Photoshop.
28. anonymous
Good to see people with no balls or brains have a CIO position to move on to. I reckon Derek Trotter is more of an IT agenda setter than this lot.
29. Henry Miller
This is all guesses and predictions. They are no more reliable then the weather report - right often enough to pay attention to, but they are not the word of God or any other always right source.
If you are in IT in any role you should have some linux machines in your home (not to mention Mac OsX), and have them set up so you can use any one to do your job. You never know when things will change. There are a lot of potential reasons that you would have to change to a different OS at work.
Some people prefer Fords, others prefer Chevys. A good mechanic can handle either. Even the specalists will once in a while handle a different make of car.
30. Christos Ioannou
You are absolutely right, no one was fired for selecting "Microsoft".
Despite that, there is another important thing that influences mostly small businesses that cannot afford Oracle, SAP or other similar software.
Developing business software in Linux really sucks. Someone has to spend half his lifetime just to develop a small client/server app that creates and prints a simple invoice.
Just google for "Software for X" , you'll get 100million results of which the 99.99% will be Windows applications. And still the Linux world doesn't care.
31. anonymous
Recently read an article which stated that a large percentage of the UK's CIOs had lost the plot. So in this case, it's not the Linux Desktop which is dead, it's the CIOs.