Linux marches on

Earlier this month, Linux operating systems represented more than 1% of the global desktop computer installed base compared to the better known alternatives like Windows and Apple's OSX. While this number may not seem impressive on the face of it, the month to month growth of 0.12% is well above the average rate of 0.02%. Windows XP showed a 0.64% decline and, while Vista grew, its growth rate slowed to 0.48% from an average of 0.78%. I was surprised to note that OS X usage rates had declined to 9.73% from 9.77%. So what to make of these figures?

It's no surprise to see a decline in XP use albeit a relatively modest reduction. Most new Windows machines sold are Vista based and these sales will dilute the XP insalled base in favour of Vista. Netbook sales will, however account for some of XP's persistance. Vista just doesn't cut it on the Intel Atom based platforms with their modest 1G RAM allocation and low key graphics capability. The fact that XP's decline is modest and Vista's growth "dissapointing" (if you're a Redmond based product manager) really stems from the unwillingness of the large enterprise market to fully adopt Microsoft's resource hungry product. Better for them they stick with the Devil they know and (possibly) await Windows 7 or something else. Why? well there will be a number of considerations that lead to this conclusion, not least the cost of hardware upgrades that would likely accompany a Vista roll-out (more RAM at least) or it may be XP still provides most of the value and capability needed for office applications. XP has been in the market for a long time now so the much vaunted security "improvements" offered by Vista have already been addressed or worked around by Enterprise IT organsiastions used to XPs capabilities and architecture. No one should ever under estimate the cost to a company of moving to a new IT platform. Licenses, hardware, training and IT support effort are just a few of the costs that will peak with any new roll-out, perhaps these uncertain economic times do not suggest a good time to jump to something new. It's likely that Apple's numbers have declined in line with economic pressure. While A Mac Book or iMac are still highly desirable aspirational items, that desire may not not turn into wallet emptying behaviour while the spectre of unemployment hangs over the target market.

What of Linux? I'm not surprised to see growth in the Linux usage numbers. The Linux Distributions themselves seem to have placed a great deal of focus on mainstream desktop applications; Ubuntu's 9.04, Linux Mint 7 and the soon to arrive Fedora 11 have all placed a great deal of empasis on the needs of the desktop user. All the distributions have targetted boot time, graphics improvements, font management etc. etc. I referenced Netbook sales as a contributor to the stickiness of XP and the dilution of Vista's performance. Well let's not overlook the relevance of Linux on these little platforms. Dell package some of their Netbooks with Ubuntu 8.04 and the nature of the OS lends itself to this resource constrained environment. Even the Red Hat based Fedora, a weapons grade, server focussed Linux distro has added many desktop friendly features to it's forthcoming release. Fedora have added a specific feature relating to enhanced power management for Netbook applications, since when did server operating systems concern themselves with battery life?

The next few months will be very interesting. Microsoft are betting the farm on Windows 7 and Apple look to be planning an assault on the Netbook market with their very sexy tablet PC. Through all this it is likely Linux will continue to emerge as a viable alternative, If the growing trickle of Enterprise deployments turn into a flood, Linux will truly arrive on the desktop scene.