Don’t Forget the Netbooks! Does Linux Have A Chance Against Windows?

By Marquis Hunt

This article is not meant to demean anyone not using a certain operating system or giving accolades to anyone using a certain system. This article is merely a commentary on Linux, Windows, and operating systems in the coming years. This article is also an indirect response to ZDNet’s Jason Perlow’s argument on Netbooks and Linux.

Does Linux have chance to truly confront Windows?

Like Chris Rock said in his new comedy special:” Not Really!”

With the financial crisis setting people up for tough times over the next few years, many people are pondering the effects of all sorts of businesses, institutions, cultural values, and innovations that will be affected by the current economic conditions. One of the issues that have come is will more computer users flock over to the next-to-free Linux systems over the money-grubbing Windows systems? Here are the reasons why this will not happen anytime soon.

1. Too many people use Windows.

On W3Schools’ website, they have posted their traffic analysis of the web user’s operating systems that come to their site. Pretty much, nearly 73% of their audience in 2008 were using Windows XP as their operating system. This would be even more alarming to Linux, seeing as this site is a web development tutorial site. Although these are beginner tutorials for mainly CSS and HTML, I highly doubt that the majority of other users browsing the internet on sites like ESPN and PerezHilton are somehow using a Linux kernel.

Although you’ll find articles like an increase in Mac users, or programmers moving to Linux and Mac, the statistics of the reality are in your face. If you own a website, and have data on your traffic, just take a look at your users. Email me if you can tell me that there is a growing change in your audience’s OS worth noting.

2. Statistics in favor of Linux over Windows audience are convoluted, or ridiculously overblown.

Overblown can be in the case of the article link above. The title: “Programmers shunning Vista for Mac OS and Linux“, is nowhere related to the statistics involved in the article. The writer even questions his source on whether a typo was involved. What is worse, is that the article confirms second thoughts on its own confidence by stating that 91% of desktops were still running Windows.

Although he mentions programmers in his title and not users, he combines two different statistics of two different parts of the computer industry ( the program developer and consumer ), the latter which doesn’t give instant justification to why programmers are not coding for Windows. Beyond that, it gives no justification to why programmers would shun the Windows market, to a Linux and Mac pie that represents 6%-8% of computer consumers.

My sample size is small, but you will see many people use this tactic to justify the Linux movement. The article is overblown because it is impossible to judge popularity strictly through the building process of a project. If that were the case, then it would mean you could only judge a city strictly by how many people are doing construction on it. Although this may hold true in some cases, that would mean that cities already complete in their construction would be the least popular. A lot of the good programs for Windows XP have already been constructed, and the decline of programmers is expected for a system that has been around for nearly seven years. Vista isn’t gaining many more programmers because XP still is dominant in the OS market, not only because Linux and Macs are taking in a bigger programmer share.

Jason Perlow’s article (from where I spun my title against ) is highly convoluted because he makes an analogy to the sales of Windows vs. Linux Netbooks ( Netbooks definition here ) to the sales of Microsoft Zune vs. Apple’s Ipods.

Perlow leaves a lot to the imagination, and his analysis show that there is very little, if anything, that can be held accountable in reality.

Perlow says that MSI should implement a better end-user experience and the product needs some work. He has a point, but the OS is usually the core of an end-user experience. People were not expecting an OS that is different from Windows, and they changed to go back to Windows. Andy Sung, Director of MSI’s US Sales, put it succinctly when he said that users “Would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don’t know what they get until they open the box”, that they find out they are not use to Linux, and that they “Don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store.”

Perlow preaches about the greatness of the ASUS Eee PC Linux version but overlooks his own reasoning of the OS success; because the interface is a customized version of Xandros, a Windows-like operating system. If one should tout that the Linux-based Netbooks are one case against Windows, wouldn’t styling an OS to be more like Windows should be considered anti-Linux, considering most Linux distributions are nowhere like the Windows counterpart?

Perlow doesn’t mention once in the article that Eee PCs also come with Windows, that the Windows version gave the Linux version a six-month head start for the Eee PC Netbook sales, and that Windows Eee PC Netbooks have outsold the Linux Eee PC models by a ratio of 6:4. That ratio, on a six-month head start is a gross oversight if you want to crown Netbooks to be sold due to the success of the Linux movement.

Perlow survives on his title which seems to be a declaration of dominance of Linux over Windows in the mini-computer market. The number 1# selling Netbook on Amazon is an Eee PC, and its operating system is a Windows XP. Its competitor, is an ACER netbook, also bringing the XP to the table. He saves himself by digressing into the future of Windows and their Vista fiasco. But he has already wasted many paragraphs with a winner announcement that just isn’t true.

3. Reports of Linux Growth Usually Involve Big Entities With Money And Resources ( and Smart Computer People. )

In many articles analyzing the battle over the Windows hegemony on desktop systems, a lot of people try to compare the server installations of Windows and Linux ( which is a different market share that Microsoft still dominates ), or installation by big companies who have a need to take on the Linux learning curve in order to improve efficiency, and save a lot of money.

You will always see articles where people will prove Linux’s worth when they site schools and businesses using Linux. Writer Matt Hartley, although he writes an incredible article, makes the We-Use-The-Metric-System-What-About-You comparison by relating the entire country of The United States to International banks and businesses. He forgets that the bottom line, efficiency, and management mean more to these entities than to an average user who checks their Facebook and forgets to clear out their cookies every week.

You have other articles giving examples of the Linux expansion by showcasing businesses ( such as Pixar ), government, and education institution adopting Linux on a grand scale. What they fail to mention is the reality that the choice of computer systems is under the scrutiny of surviving in the environment of the bottom line. Even with these statistics, does that mean that people will move toward Linux during the coming tough times?

4. In Tough Times, The Status Quo Wins Out.

With Linux, you can’t stylize an argument based on its popularity with the elites and the knowledgeable. Many of the Linux ( and Mac ) enthusiast come from two perspective most of computer buyers don’t have: money and/or expertise.

“But when faced with the choice of adding several hundred to a thousand dollars worth of TCO on the top of a PC versus getting virtually all of their equivalent key functionality for free, especially in this new austerity budget economy, I think people will be a bit more motivated to adapt to change.”

The above quote from Jason Perlow, in his article in favor of Linux, is highly biased and overestimates industry and technology during economic downturns.

First of all, during recessions, businesses, as well as people, won’t have the money or investments to introduce much change. The argument of the Netbooks does solve a lot for people looking for a computer and don’t have enough money, but that would mean talking about a small demographic whose first computer is handed to them in 2008!

You have a 2nd demographic of people that would be willing to change, but if they have kept up with the times and have bought a computer, what reason would they buy another computer during a recession? If people are teetering on the break of losing their savings in the market, or losing their jobs to bottom-line of the company they work for, is it possible for them to think that these great factors in their lives would be mitigated by buying another appliance? And based on the study of computer types, a different operating system no less?

The only remedy I see is in the the group of people who do have the money to pay for these new innovations. The elite will have money, time, and some expertise to decide to choose Linux over Microsoft. This might be the only way that Linux would have a chance in competing with the giant, but it would not put a dent in the statistics. If it does, it would mean essentially that the common class’s old Windows technology would be ‘outdated’ and useless, making the usable computer an elitist item only. From there, if Linux does win out in this type of future, its succession will be the least of our civilization’s issues.

Second off, if people are having trouble paying the bills, how would the businesses that create these changes prosper? If there isn’t money to be made by making a product better, than the businesses and programmers have no incentive to make things better. Even if Linux is free, very few people can afford another computer, and most are comfortable with the systems they have now. As people can see, not only has Windows XP continually dominate in the desktop industry, but it has dominated its own successor ( Vista ).

Windows XP has prospered and Vista has turned into such a flop that Windows plans on having a different system ready altogether ( Windows 7 ). Perlow dives into the matter, seeing the Vista flop as an opportunity for Linux. But he has failed to see the immense popularity of XP, and doesn’t understand that the weakness of Vista in a recession will not lead to any advantage for Linux at any price.

Perlow has been bitten by the fallacy of knowledge, which, at one’s point of expertise, thinks that everyone knows and can do whatever he feels possible. He talks about businesses budgeting and moving to Linux, but he forgets: Who is going to do the installation? How much is it going to cost to pay for the installation? How much learning is there in the curve? Is all of this time changing into a free system better than upgrading to a better Windows, or even just keeping what they have?

“As the US economy continues to shift for the worse, I find myself thinking back to recent trips to a local bank where I noticed that Windows 2000 Pro is the norm and the computers, if updated at all, might be using Windows XP.”

This quote, coming from writer Matt Harley, if anything, is a clear indication NOT that Vista doesn’t work, but that XP DOES work. XP is a pain: It is hard to keep it secure, it constantly needs upgrades, there are infinite amounts of buggy processes that hurt your computer, it can get slow after some time, and it cost a lot of money to install and upgrade it. This is enough to scare any prospective buyer away.

You want to be an insider of what is scarier? How about learning how to install and manage an OS. Many of the computers are still XP not even just because it works, but the alternative has to be molded ( Linux ), and the other alternative cost a lot of money ( Apple ). In this article, the writer lauds how his computers, bought with the Windows Operating System installed, are now mostly re-installed with Linux. He also sneers at why anyone would buy a Windows-based machine.

What he fails to realize is that very few people know how to use computers properly, let alone get around customizing them.

Installing RAM is easy! I only bought my computer for $1745! I have 10 computers that were Windows-based because I love the HP keyboard! I installed Linux on most of them because I loathe Windows! ( abridged version of article being dissected )

What is worse about his article, is that he is dismayed and suspicious that a study revealed 90% of users were using Windows. Somehow, he found that study to be so illogical, that he correlates AN ENTIRE industry of computer users with his modest proletariat lifestyle of ten computers. He can also install RAM. And Linux. If you are reading this and find all of this to be easy, and all of the amenities to be attainable, then welcome to the top 1% of the world’s civilization.

I am not against Linux. I am not pro-Windows. But I am against arguments from the perspectives of computer professionals and elites who have more at stake when it comes defining their experience using desktop technology. If Linux is going to stand a chance, I can only hope that it is easy enough for simple users like myself to manage them. My only goal is to check my Facebook, and read up on my Manny Ramirez news on ESPN. I have very little time for learning curves.

Welcome to the other 99 percent.