Comments on BlissPoint Blog: Five Reasons why the Ubuntu Server Revolution will...

I want to ask from where I can get Ubuntu latest v...

2008-06-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

I want to ask from where I can get Ubuntu latest version...
one thing more that is Ubuntu and fodora core are same?

Regards

Just an FYI: your 14-year-old could have done all ...

2008-06-03T05:40:00.000-07:00

Just an FYI: your 14-year-old could have done all those things with Windows Movie Maker.

Richard, to your and the VAR guy's point one, its ...

2008-04-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

Richard, to your and the VAR guy's point one, its actually a three horse race, not a two horse race.

There's Windows vista , OSX and Windows XP SP3, way before Ubuntu or any Desktop Linux Distro come into play.
Unfortunately, this is the truth. I too am an avid Linux user on the Server and desktop, but still, it can't be helped that users would still flock to WinXP before OSX or Linux...

Your "law" of duality seems to assume a stagnant m...

2008-04-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

Your "law" of duality seems to assume a stagnant market, devoid of innovation and disruptive technologies.

Computers (especially laptops) are becoming more and more like cellphones. Very few people ask what kind of operating system a phone is running. They want to know if it can browse the web, play music, take pictures, etc. This situation places linux as a disruptive technology -- capable of performing all the required tasks while costing much less.

The amount of hardware needed to perform the most common tasks (web browsing, email, office, video, music, etc.) is becoming so cheap that the cost of a proprietary operating system will soon dominate the price of budget systems. Companies like Asus and Everex are already trying to find ways to dodge the microsoft tax.

Ubuntu provides a solution for these hardware manufacturers who would like to start selling laptops for under $200. It is already extremely user friendly and has a very reliable core (thanks to debian). With minimal investment, hardware companies can make some slight customizations and have their own branded laptops (much like apple does currently). The end user is likely to not realize the laptop they bought is running linux. They just know that they can push a button and launch an application which does what they need.

Roger,Doh. You are exactly right. Now that you poi...

2008-04-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

Roger,

Doh. You are exactly right. Now that you pointed it out I see that I did miss the point. SaaS makes the desktop OS irrelevant.

Yes, this is a benefit for a free distributed desktop.

Costs are reduced and functionality with the SaaS does not change.

Chris,You have a good point. The ability to simply...

2008-04-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Chris,

You have a good point. The ability to simply swap one operating system for another without seeing any decline in usage is a great start.

Although I'm not sure I understand your Mac reference. When my 14 year old sat down at my Mac for the first time, she took a camcorder, pulled off the video of her dance routine at a parade, ripped the soundtrack from the original CD, layed it over the poor sound from the parade, synced it together, then added titles, special effects, and burned a DVD.

Total time, about four hours. I didn't teach her any of it.

Couldn't have done that with Windows.

This is what I mean by being able to do something with Ubuntu that you can't do with Windows. Although in your case simply getting the system running appears to be something that Vista wasn't capable of doing and Ubuntu did that for you and your kids.

Thanks for the comment.

Nina,When even Community College Text books can po...

2008-04-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Nina,

When even Community College Text books can point out the obvious, it should be obvious to the folks at Ubuntu.

My point here is it doesn't matter WHERE the solution comes from, in this case Ubuntu, what matters is the market that is being targeted and meeting their needs.

I am not arguing against the Open Source Community. I believe in it and believe that it represents the death of Microsoft, although far into the future.

What I'm arguing is that Ubuntu's particular strategy is flawed. You can't assail your opponent in their stronghold and expect the world to change without giving them a very compelling reason to change.

That is why a community college text book would be telling Ubuntu to find a niche market, a group of users that will embrace the need for a new desktop to do something that can't be done easily on Windows. This is exactly how Macs survived all these years, they focused on the Graphic Artist as a customer, the person needing all that those fancy graphics.

Where is Ubuntu's core market group? This group must be coherent enough to feed off of each other and have a very specific need. This need then attracts other 3rd party vendors to the space to augment Ubuntu.

But just going after dissatisfied Windows users who have given up on Vista isn't going to cut it.

There isn't any core group to hang onto for Ubuntu to leverage.

So we will have to disagree but I certainly appreciate your willingness to take a few minutes and write me a comment. It did make me smile myself.

BTW, the text books where you can read about this are:

Focus - By Al Ries

Positioning - Al Ries and Jack Trout

Innovator's Dilemma - Clayton Christensen

Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore

Start with these and if you have any questions I'm more than happy to give you an answer ;-)

Kennon,I agree with your concern about Novell bein...

2008-04-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Kennon,

I agree with your concern about Novell being able to keep two masters relatively happy. They are also attempting to keep their legacy customers happy, GroupWise, ZENworks, and others. It is the multi-front approach that is extremely difficult to do, some would say it is impossible.

We will see if Novell can keep these three groups happy. Ultimately, I believe they will need to choose which master to serve.

"SaaS runs on Linux Servers, not on Linux Desktops...

2008-04-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

"SaaS runs on Linux Servers, not on Linux Desktops"

Hmmm, I think you've missed the point. Ultimately the output is used on a desktop - linux/win/mac/whatever. SaaS removes the compatibility barrier which keeps windows in the enterprise.
So being the free desktop of choice when that happens is not a bad place to be for ubuntu.

In rebuttal to your rebuttal of Point 1. Windows V...

2008-04-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

In rebuttal to your rebuttal of Point 1. Windows Vista Debacle and the sub point of cheap Dell hardware.

I bought the wife and kids a cheap dell desktop with Vista pre-installed. After months of pulling my hair out providing tech support to that POS I decided it was time for a change. I installed Ubuntu 7.10 and never looked back. I gave them their login information and about a 2 minute overview. Now they are showing things I didn't know were there.

I could not have done this with OS X. As I think of all of the "old" windows desktops laying around just waiting to become usable Ubuntu desktops I see an opportunity that hasn't existed before. That is where the $$ savings may be more readily apparent.

"You must FOCUS, put all your resources into gaini...

2008-04-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

"You must FOCUS, put all your resources into gaining a foothold in a specific market, dominate that market, and then expand."

lmao! What community college business class textbook did you lift these nuggets of wisdom from?

You totally miss the point of what open source community software represents to the market. It takes all your neat little rules here and defies every single one them.

Thanks for the giggles.

- nina aoki

Good points Richard. I read an article a few days ...

2008-04-25T23:28:00.000-07:00

Good points Richard. I read an article a few days ago where the author made a comment to the effect of "Because Ubuntu is the most popular desktop distro it is most likely the distro admins will choose for their datacenters." I find this logic flawed on several levels. But the most obvious being the assumption that the average admin has the ability to dictate the datacenter's operating system. In small server rooms and one wiring closet shops this might be the case but in any kind of government or large corporate setting those decisions are made at an upper management or executive level. And those types of folks don't take risk lightly because mistakes at that level tend to cost millions. When a CIO sticks his neck out and fails he can have a hard time coming back from that. Organizations like Novell and Redhat that have reputations for rock-solid support AND enterprise class solutions thus much more appealing to business decision makers. Although I tend to disagree with a lot of Novell's mixed source strategy from an idealogical standpoint, they seem to be good so far at keeping two masters relatively happy (Open Source community and corporate bean counters). I am just concerned that they won't be able to keep that up indefinitely.