[ubuntu-uk] Sir Alan Sugar: "it's too late" for Linux

[Kris Marsh]

A few random ramblings...

Alan talked about "Microsoft being in every office", although it
interests me that he then specifically mentions that "everyone uses
Word, Excel, ..." - I guess an operating system isn't really the
important thing at all, it's the applications that are used. A shift
to ODF in Microsoft Office - if it ever happens, an if it's a 'clean
shift', without the traditional Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - would
smash this lock in necessity. However, I do think Microsoft Office is
currently the best office suite on the market presently. Whether it's
worth paying that much for it is a different question, and at least
this would promote decent competition in the office suite world,
whereby Office would have to stay ahead by feature and technical merit
alone.

Interestingly, I remember maybe one or two years ago doing a search on
the BBC website for "linux", and receiving maybe one or two results.
Now we see 11 pages[http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?uri=%2F&scope=all&go=toolbar&q=linux]
- not sure how relevant that is, however I do see a lot more F/OSS and
Linux visibility in newspapers and news websites, which seems to
suggest progress.

I think it's important to note that we're talking about Linux on the
desktop here. Linux has been a viable and generally preferable option
for the server world for a couple of years now. History shows that
whatever starts in the business and back-end world ends up finding
it's way through the servers, to the corporate desktops, and then
finally down to home desktops. I do expect this to happen with Linux,
but I don't think 'relevant penetration' will happen for a good few
years.

Interesting viewing though, and I didn't actually realise that he was
the chairman of Amstrad :-)

Kris


On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 9:17 AM, Dave Walker <davewalker at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Josh Blacker wrote:
>> Something of an, er, interesting comment beginning 7:11 on this video:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7462104.stm
>>
>> The rest of the video is pretty boring, including the preceding section
>> on 'Is Microsoft a monopoly?'.
>
> I haven't watched this clip, but according to his interview on the
> programme that was on last night, he admits that he made a mistake not
> using Microsoft software on his Amstrads.  He was of the opinion that he
> was making the hardware and shouldn't have to pay for something such as
> software.  Funny how he once thought that, and now thinks differently.
> He thinks that it's too late to have another mainstream OS - clearly he
>  hasn't been watching the trends (especially) in MacOS over the last 5
> years, and more recently Linux gaining popularity on the desktop
> enviroment.
>
> But hey, would you trust someone's opinion that made that mistake then?
>  After all Linux wasn't a viable option, and the arguably (IMO) better
> OS - Amiga Workbench was hardware specific - like Mac is today.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Dave Walker
>
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