Chuck wrote:
> My point is that OSS will never be more than a small niche compared to
> commercial software.
It is such a small niche that microsoft has announced that they have
lost, and will continue to lose market share in the desktop, and
office suite, due to FLOSS products.
>free = piece of crap, expensive equals great software with great support.
Perceptions rule.
Microsoft has admitted that without FUD, they will lose market share
faster than they have been.
> OSS has been available for years to fill many needs and yet it never garners
> more than 1-2% of the market.
Market share measurements of FLOSS have never been reliable.
I haven't looked at any market share data recently, but the last time
I did, Linux & BSD were the OS of choice for servers. Linux had a 20%
market share on desktops. OOo had a 10% market share in office
suites. Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla had between a 5% and 10% market
share.
You would do well to remember what the most popular and most used
browser, and email client at One Microsoft Way is.
>They are all superior to their commercial counterparts but are no
where near replacing them in the market.
a) FLOSS is barely past the stage of being "just good enough".
EG: Calc is nowhere near the equal of Excel, for heavy number
crunchers. [The people who spend $1K+ for a spreadsheet template.]
For most people, OOo is "just good enough".
b) FLOSS suffers from a distinct lack of good, effective marketing.
Firefox is better than MIE, but it (Firefox) suffers from an extreme
lack of marketing to "Joe Sixpack".
xan
jonathon
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