On Mon, 15 May 2000, Tom Worthington sooth-said:
> Monday, 15 May 2000, Melbourne - Tom Worthington, Visiting Fellow at the
> Australian National University and IT author, says Microsoft Windows is
> likely disappear within two years, killed off by the Linux operating system.
> Worthington was giving a presentation at the IIM 2000 Global Information in
> the 21st Century Conference in Melbourne, 15th May.
I enjoyed Tom's predictions. Anyone that knows me or has read my
ramblings will know that I support this direction.
But! The reality is that there is an installed base of millions
of enterprise PC's running Windows systems, run by millions of
semi-computer-literate staff who have been spoon-fed-taught how
to run their 'puters.
Don't expect the enterprise to switch technologies and retrain
staff within the next two years. It ain't gonna happen that fast.
We are at an ideal juncture for the required change-over to begin, since
MS is shoving W2K down the throat of the enterprise. And the enterprise
is barfing up its response: we don't want to redeploy untested, beta-
class software when it took us three years to nail down NT4 with its upmteen
services packs.
I support Tom 100% in his predictions, just not the timing. What will happen
when it comes time to change/upgrade is the Linux card will be played
more and more often, and that card will look as good as or better than the
W2K redeploy.
Hey, on second thought, even if this process takes a "real long time" in
computer years (i.e. 5 years) ... the idea remains the same. Windows is
on the way out and open technologies (read: Linux) are on the way in.
Windows' lack of open standards support, severe security problems, instability,
and mounting real cost of ownership will invite Linux into the enterprise
with open arms :-)
Regds
Rick W
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Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services
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