<There are reasons for one not to adopt linux-based (or other OS based) desktop environment, the foremost of them, I would say it's application compatibility.
OpenOffice/StarSuite/StarOffice does not cover 100% of frequently used applications in a typical manufacturing/ODM/OEM business. In these businesses, the ability to "exchange" information with their suppliers, buyers, partners is crucial. For example, if I am going to persuade my manager to switch to an exclusively Linux (or *nix) desktop environment, I will have to provide solutions for my manager to read/write MS Project or MS Visio documents from other companies. With Linux/*nix desktop environment, you can always have 70~80% of functionality of a Windows desktop, but the missing 20~30% is there, and as a critical factor to prevent the adoption.> You are talking about situations in Taiwan, which are definitely not applicable to the China market. Taiwan has a much more mature IT community and, as such, it is much more deeply embedded in Microsoft Windows--thus making changes much more difficult--but not insurmountable IMHO. The biggest obstacle is that with an OEM-dominated metality, the Taiwan government, based on my experience and frequent contacts with government officials there, has no real desire to push the adoption of Linux (they are indeed pretty much clueless). Worse, the Taiwan government is actually very afraid of doing something beyond a level that may offend Microsoft. Both of these are not true in China. Finding support for Linux desktops is a nightmare. Of course many groups or even individuals will be more than happy to offer services, and they have advertised as such. But this is not the kind of services businesses will feel comfortable. The biggest difference between Linux and Solaris desktops, as far as businesses are concerned, is that Solaris has a well-recognized (and reputed) backer in Sun. Practically speaking, based on conversations with our clients, the only way for Taiwan to consider Linux is if China adopts it first. I am sure many here have heard about the fiasco that happened in Beijing in early 2004 (or late 2003). In a nutshell, the Beijing municipal government decided to move to Linux and forced some of its employees to use Linux desktops. Within less than a month, everyone of these Linux machines switched back to Windows. For reasons that I will be very happy to discuss but not right now, I believe the SOS platform has a much better chance of being successful in China. Nowadays, as far as IT goes, whatever China does, Taiwan will follow. Then if everybody else is using SOS desktops, the table will be turned, & you will find that the compatibility problems now reside with Windows. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
