On Jun 13, 2010, at 6:45 AM, Erik Trimble wrote:
>
> For Enterprise mindshare and training, the critical point is Universities.
> Not Home Users.
>
> Take a look at the *BSDs - University is where they get the vast majority of
> their mindshare from, and newbie's cut their teeth under the tutelage of the
> grey-beards. If Solaris can maintain sufficient penetration there, well,
> it's a short lecture to a new freshmen hanging around the computer cluster:
>
> "So, you know that Linux stuff you're using, right? Here, kid, take a look
> at my ${SUPER_DUPER_MACHINE} - it runs Solaris. Look at all the new things it
> can do!"
>
> "Gee, Mr. Grey-beard, that's COOL! I couldn't do that on my Linux box! Where
> do I get one?"
>
> "Well, right now, let me show you install OpenSolaris on your PC, and then,
> let's get you an account on this ${Big_Iron}, and..."
>
> *that* is how you get the techno-groupies hooked.
Well, yes and no. Universities make IT purchasing decisions in much the same
way as corporations do only with smaller budgets, more complex demands and,
often, older more experienced staff than their corporate counterparts. About 20
years ago, the university I worked for at the time decided to chuck AIX because
the IBM reps were playing hardball with the license and support fees which had
become rather unaffordable, even for a fairly high-profile and well-endowed
institution. This was when the decision was made to go all in for Sun since
they offered the OS and the hardware for much less money.
Universities are, however, often early adopters of things to come. This doesn't
mean that they are great predictors of what will be popular or mainstream, e.g.
I had fibre off the backbone to my desktop in '93 which, while insanely fast
and cool, never really made it to the corporate or the home market. We also had
wireless all over campus which, the moment the technology reached non-insane
prices was widely adopted for both the corporate and home markets as, while
blazing speed is fabulous, roaming free without cat-5 cables solved a popular
complaint/desire.
I don't know that Opensolaris on the laptop, especially without some key
features like suspend/resume, is going to get too many groupies even with a
BOFH grey-beard trying to make it look sexy.
These days, the platform is only a commodity, a means to an end for most people
since, aside from some applications that will only run on certain platforms,
they're all capable of doing most of the same tasks, so it often comes down to
personal taste and expense when choosing one or the other flavours.
e.
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