IP: Markoff on Microsoft at LinuxWorld; some thoughts on OS X and Linux

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Chris Gulker <cg () gulker com>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 13:06:32 -0700
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Markoff on Microsoft at LinuxWorld; some thoughts on OS X and Linux

Found John Markoff's story on Microsoft's planned attendance at Linuxworld,
interesting, in part because I'm going:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/technology/10LINU.html

One observation seems to have created a bit of a stir:

"Linux has failed as a desktop alternative to either Microsoft's Windows or
Apple's Macintosh operating system, and last year, according to a study by
the International Data Corporation, Linux sales actually slumped."

Which  gets back to Tim O'Reilly's comments posted here a couple days ago:
it seems like OS X is becoming a popular desktop alternative to Windows, and
Linux is becoming the server alternate. Linux servers and Mac OS X desktops
integrate very nicely, since both sides will find familiar tools (terminal,
ftp, NFS et al. for the Linux crowd and AppleTalk and easy Mac interfaces
for some BSD apps for the Mac crew).

Both OSes are more reasonable than Microsoft's proposed new pricing
(although I wonder if Apple is riding on MS' monopoly pricing to get away
with the full-price Jaguar upgrade), even if Apple hardware continues to be
pricey (but cool).

Be interesting to see how many iBooks and other Apple hardware comes to
LinuxWorld.. My OS X-equipped G3 laptop will be there...
-- 
Chris Gulker
cg () gulker com
http://www.gulker.com/




------ End of Forwarded Message

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