Will a resurgent Mac waylay Linux? Not likely. Here's why.
There have been many recent pieces written about how a resurgent
Mac is a threat
to Linux. This particularly hit fever
pitch when Apple decided to jump
ship to Intel CPUs.
/>
The notion that the Mac is either a short or long-term
threat to Linux
is wrong for a number of different
reasons. 10 in fact. Recounted below.
In reality
the obverse is true - a broadly successful Mac OS X platform
/>is a great benefit to Linux. In order to see why, we have to
understand
what the roadblocks to broader Linux desktop
adoption are and why the
growing Mac market helps clear
these.
There are different roadblocks for different
market segments. Different
things block Linux adoption on
a corporate desktop, from a small
business desktop, from a
home computer desktop, from a gamer's desktop.
So, let's
start counting the reasons why a growing Mac presence in the
/>market will help Linux.
1) Web-sites.
/>Many web sites are Internet Explorer-only, either through
design or poor
practice. Now that the Mac defaults to
Safari as its web browser, an
increasing number of web
sites will feel extra pressure to move away
from
supporting an IE-only policy. This will help all other browsers,
most of which are on Linux, which in turn helps reduce the
barriers to
broader Linux adoption in all markets.
/>
2) ISV Support.
Many ISVs target Windows-only
platforms. If OS X reaches over 10% of
the market, these
ISVs will see that supporting non-Windows platforms is
an
actual market positioning advantage. And market advantages are
normally pounced upon by vendors in any competitive
marketplace.
This will increase the likelihood that
these ISVs will use
non-Microsoft-only platform
application tools and frameworks, many/most
of which also
support Linux. Therefore, the cost to these ISVs of also
/>supporting Linux when they broaden application support to
include OS X,
is minimal or nothing.
So, they
might as well support Linux because it too might "do an OS X"
in the near future and become yet another rising platform
that they will
have to support. So, they might as well
plan ahead and do a broadening
support shift once only. It
costs less and places them ahead of their
competitors.
/>
Thus broadening ISV support for OS X will (in most
instances) also
benefit Linux. It certainly wont
disadvantage it.
3) A Shift in Mindset.
/>For most computer users, a PC and Windows are one and the same
thing.
For many users, Microsoft Office is also synonymous
with Windows and the
PC, and they often use the term
'Windows' to refer to their
word-processor or web browser,
or 'Word' to refer to Windows. For most
users, a computer
and Microsoft are one and the same thing.
A major
increase in the use of
any alternate platform therefore breaks
/>the hegemony that Microsoft has. It will force a shift in
people's
mindset. They can't simply think of a PC implying
Windows, as an
increasing number of their friends have a PC
which runs a non-Windows
platform. They can't think of a
word-processor being Word, as many home
users with Macs
will use Apple's word processor, not Microsoft's.
4)
Expanding the Comfort Zone.
I can't prove it, but
gut-feel tells me that any user who migrates from
Windows
to the Mac will be far more comfortable in subsequently
/>migrating from an OS X interface to a Linux interface
(KDE/Gnome). It's
fairly self-obvious really: if you've
discovered that a Windows
interface isn't the
style="font-style: italic;">only interface, if you've had
to re-tool your mind
and muscle memory to shift to one
alternative, any subsequent jump is
far, far less
threatening.
But why would OS X users jump to Linux
and not back to Windows? Well,
many of them might like the
fact that they suddenly hit fewer bit-rot
problems on a
non-Windows PC. They might like the fact that they hit far
/>fewer virus, spyware and key-logger problems now that they've
moved away
from Windows. They might like the freshness of
difference a
non-Microsoft platform and mindset brings.
They might like the access to
several thousand free open
source apps which have been ported to run on
the Mac's X
Window interface. There are many good reasons.
Time
to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes: "The mind, once expanded to the
dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original
size."
Regardless of why various new OS X users might
jump over to Linux, it
seems likely that many of them, if
they do decide to jump off the Mac,
are likely to try
Linux before returning back to Windows.
Therefore,
any increase in the Mac's mindshare and adoption will also
/>raise those users' comfort levels to perhaps try Linux.
/>
5) Bursting Microsoft's Momentum Bubble.
One
of the reasons Microsoft 'wins' so often in the marketplace is
that
the marketplace expects Microsoft to win. This
therefore becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Anything
which perturbs this process is a
serious threat to
Microsoft.
If, suddenly, Microsoft has a
one-in-three chance of losing a desktop PC
sale to Apple,
the market will understand that Microsoft no longer
/>commands complete control of the desktop market. That market
is now open
and in flux. It becomes easier for
style="font-style: italic;">any alternative to play in
this
fluctuating market and compete against Microsoft.
Linux is the prime
alternative to gain in a fluctuating
market, when that market perceives
that Microsoft's
momentum is impeded.
6) A Broader Price Spectrum.
/>
While the new mini-Macs are a cool and well priced
device, and Apple's
laptops have historically been good
overall value, much of the remainder
of Apple's desktop
range is out of the cost radar for many of the
world's PC
users.
Any initial push towards the Mac, by those
who can afford it, may
therefore serve only as
promulgating a wave that Linux rides, due to its
far
broader price spectrum. By this I mean that while you can buy a
US$500 Mac, you can't buy a $200 one. You
style="font-style: italic;">can buy a US$200 Linux PC
/>however, which more than suits most users.
7)
Applications.
While the Mac comes with some cool and
slick apps, it's not a patch on
the breadth offered by any
common user-oriented Linux distro. It's not
likely that
Apple will bundle a whole range of software which might be
/>of interest to the corporate world, the small business world
or the home
market. Linux distribution vendors have no
such qualms.
Therefore, if I want remote corporate
desktop display client software
for Linux, it will be
there, out of the box. If I want an accounting
package for
my small business for Linux, it will be there, out of the
/>box. If I want a recipe manager, or a music notation program
or a
thousand other educational or miscellaneous tidbits
for Linux, it will
be there, out of the box.
/>This is a major market benefit to many forms of consumers: "No
need to
download and install anything. Linux ships with
5,000 apps. It's likely
that your needs are covered."
/>
All you need is their attention, and getting them out of
the Microsoft
mindspace is the best way of getting that
attention. The Mac can do this
with aplomb.
8 )
But isn't Linux less friendly than Mac OS X?
Perhaps.
In some ways. But none that really matter to most non-technical
users. Sure, OS X looks slicker than Linux. But no, most
users want only
a handful of applications and have only a
handful of functions they want
to perform. And for most
users, Linux performs these tasks just as
effectively, if
not as elegantly, as OS X does. Remember, many consumers
/>buy home-brand product. Linux
is the home-brand equivalent in their
/>eyes.
9) It's the Vendors, Stupid.
While
a resurgent Mac is wonderful for Apple which supplies both the
hardware and system software, where does that leave the
5,000 other PC
vendors from around the world? Nowhere,
really.
If these vendors catch a whiff of change in
the PC marketplace, with
Microsoft's hegemony no longer
looking unassailable, they have two
options. One is to try
and licence OS X from Apple. We've seen that
disaster movie
before, right? The other is to find an alternate
platform,
which is kinda not Windows and kinda like OS X: Linux.
/>10) Freedom.
In the end, it's all about freedom.
And while OS X's core is based on
the open source and
libre Darwin Mach/BSD derivative, very little else
is -
there is very little freedom within the Mac space.
/>It's either Apple's way or the bye-way.
So, try as
hard as you can to convince yourself that Apple is somehow
/>not going to 'do a Microsoft' on its users. I've followed
Apple in the
marketplace for 26 years - I have no such
expectations waiting to be
dashed.
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