Analyst: It's Game Over for Linux

By Douglas Perry
published

Prepare yourself, especially if you are passionate about Linux.

A Forrester analyst yesterday told the Linux world that it is game over for the OS. No more hope for world domination. At least on desktops and mobile devices.

This special post begins with the following notes: "Poor Linux. It struggled so hard to dominate the world. It was the little open source engine that could, but it didn’t." It ends with "[…] I do not think the open source community can muster the forces necessary to compete. Open source never seems to be the innovator. Instead, it seems to disrupt pricing power for established technologies. Game over for worldwide dominance." Swallow that.

Forrester analyst Mike Gualtieri recognizes that Linux has 60 percent of the server market, but states it only has 2 percent of the desktop market. iOS and Android virtually killed it in mobile. In Gualtieri's words: "Sure, Android is built on top of Linux, but Linux is only one of many piece parts of the Android mobile operating system. It is not Linux."

Feel free to chime in at the comments below.

Douglas Perry
167 Comments Comment from the forums
  • killerclick
    Analyst Trollface has a point, Linux can't seem to get any traction in the desktop market despite it being free as in beer and free of viruses. And there are/were so many distros and still none of them managed to get more than 1% of the desktop market, no matter how much coverage they got.
    Reply
  • coldmast
    Sure, Android is built on top of Linux, but Linux is only one of many piece parts of the Android mobile operating system. It is not Linux.
    Reads like someone writing on a subject they know very little about.

    Reply
  • Android is more Linux than most would think. Actually, the whole modding/rooting community wouldn't exist if it wasn't Linux with its ton of applications (examples: vnc server/client, wireless monitoring, remote sensoring system, and so on). Moreover, it makes a lot easier to put a "real" GNU/Linux distributions on mobile devices (either with chroot or dual-boot). Regarding desktops: Linux distributions managed to keep their market share or even increase it while the total number of computer users in the world increased substantially. It may have ~2% of the total share, but among youngsters it's far more common (more than 10% in my class), so we will see in 10-20 years what will happen when all these people that grew up with Linux enter the world of work/enterprise.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    Actually, I feel that Linux is actually it's kernel in escense; that's what makes Linux what it is. Everything that's been built on top of it has been the creation of the open source community and privates too.

    It might not be the same for Windows and iOS/MacOS, because they want to sell you the experience and all that. Linux just wants to fit everyone needs as they see fit. You can have a linux machine and have nothing more than the kernel, bash (or name the one u like) and glibc installed.

    Desktop doesn't need that wide range of options nor do cell phones for the masses. But telling that Linux is dead in the desktop, not sure. Linux can adapt and morph way faster than Windows and iOS/MacOS can. Just look at the PPC (for example) support and you'll get an idea on how flexible the concept for it really is.

    If OGL and OSS/Pulse had better marketing and adoption, I'd say that the Linux environment would be rocking the desktop. But it ain't that way, so there you have it :P

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • whooleo
    two words: Dumb ass...
    Reply
  • getreal
    This week on "Who Friggin Cares", some nobody "analyst" states the obvious.
    Reply
  • littleleo
    I seem to remember GW saying it was game over how well did that work? LOL, well Mike we'll see if your right, won't we.
    Reply
  • i7Rocks
    game over? when did we even start playing?
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    dumb analysis. sounds like a disgruntled ubuntu user. may be he is a mac user who tried to use ubuntu and failed. :P
    Reply
  • nikorr
    No more hope for world domination.
    It never was.
    Reply