For the desktop OS?

"We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard," said Doug Small, worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing at HP. "We are in a massive deal right now for ... multi-thousands of units of a desktop opportunity for Linux. That's an indicator." He declined to give details about the Linux deals.

This, combined with the fact that Dell is now shipping Linux laptops, is an ominous omen for Redmond.

I think that Vista may have been a bridge too far for Microsoft. Windows has been an entrenched technology for well over a decade now (and MS operating systems in general for well over two). As long as the cost of switching over remains high in terms of user retraining, it's hard for a newcomer to make much headway. But if the cost of continued use grows as well, and the benefits of the new technology start to become overwhelming, even the most entrenched technology can still lose out, when the curves cross over.

I've been fortunate enough not to have had to try Vista yet, but here's an amusing parable.

Of course, it's still an uphill battle until a standard GUI can be established, but I think that the Gnome/KDE wars continue.

Not sure why, but the "For the desktop OS" link points back to TTM...

Because there was no link. Or at least, no URL.

I recently heard a talk by Fidelity's head of technology research (kind of a Bell Labs inside their organization), and he indicated that Vista was a non-starter, and they were seriously investigating switching over to Linux for their desktops.

This would be the perfect time for Apple to start offering some deep discounts, wouldn't it?

I would guess that with the profitability of iPods and iTunes they could make their desktop and laptop margins razor thin for a few years to encourage the exodus from MS.

This would be the perfect time for Apple to start offering some deep discounts, wouldn't it?

Assuming that Apple's goal is to dominate the desktop arena. That might not be the case.

They have a great business selling solid hardware and a fantastic OS*. If they did own 98% of the desktop market that might dork things up for them. Who needs the grief of being the market leader?

*Please assume that I'm not a Apple fanatic and that I've used a variety of operating systems from numerous vendors, m'kay?

No one in their right mind wants to dominate the desktop. You're just the whipping boy. When the OS works great, no one notices. (Gone are the days when people boasted of their uptimes, or when you'd breathe a sigh of relief when your PC or Mac didn't freeze twice during the creation of a long manuscript.) But when the OS screws up, everyone complains. When applications screw up, folks half the time complain about the OS. You can't win. In fact, itt's one of them there lose-lose-maybe break even games. Blech.

Only a company as committed up to their neck already, and not very strategically bright as MS could want to be on everybody's desktop. Clearly Apple is moving carefully away from the business, having farmed out the essential core to B$D. Look for Apple to go further into the direction of portable widgetry that you can dock with your Mac.

The Linux fanboys are another story. With them, it's all about getting The Cool Desktop, with rubber windows, transparent windows, motorized icons, whatever.

They can do this visual masturbation stuff because the underlying OS is (1) rock-solid, (2) relatively bomb-proof as far as security goes, and (3) not trying to support a gazillion legacy apps. My impression of Linux (and I've used it for 13 years) is that serious development in the OS has plateaued. Aside from odds and ends like virtualization (yawn) nothing has happened for a long time.

"This would be the perfect time for Apple to start offering some deep discounts, wouldn't it?"

Hmmm, so nobody wants to buy new hardware and retrain for a new Windows O/S? So, naturally Apple should expect this to be a good time to get everyone to go out and buy a new Mac computer and retrain on an Apple O/S instead. Ooookaay.

I will freely admit that I am a Microsoft fanboy. I think Vista will be fine. It will just take some time and Microsoft has plenty of money to wait. Hell, Microsoft sold xbox at a loss just to gain traction in the gaming console market. Now they've got Sony on the run throwing hardware on the market that wasn't ready. They have proven time and again they have the patience and the right development mindset to see these things through. I've said before, no need to really worry about Vista till about 2009-2010. If you need a new computer and happen to get Vista before then all is well and good I'm sure. There is just no reason to go out of your way to get hold a copy any time soon.

apple lacks "Enterprise" support.
Until they can offer a good large IT support
solution, they will have trouble selling to
large firms.

I have to point out that Mac OS X has in many ways become the secret UNIX desktop. All of the linux geeks I know have switched over to using it as their primary system (although we all have multiple comps with multiple OSes) because it's built on B*D (apparently the profanity filter catches this acronym) and keeps that core at it's heart, and the gui is sleek and has innovations that you don't even see in the linux world. The fact that certain gui features (such as the bar at the top) are hard coded is the only thing most linux geeks have trouble with, but the rest of the features usually make up for it.

Josh - I have to tell you something amusing: The Windows expert at Computer World was recently doing a month long side by side comparison of Vista and OS-X. The result of the experience was that he switched to OS-X. His summary explanation was that the hardest thing about switching was paying the initial price to buy a mac, and after that everything got easier, and that the OS had so much more to offer than Vista.