“And the conclusion is – Linux will not conquer the desktop
or the laptop, but will win on embedded devices. This isn’t idle
speculation. Let’s face it, when a significant number of
electronics manufacturers from the World centre of such products
line up behind Linux, then the rest of us should take
note.“
“Linux isn’t necessarily doomed on the desktop. Indeed, it might
well have faced a rosy future if it wasn’t for the question: “what
is the point?”. The world has already chosen an operating system
and hardware architecture which, whatever its faults, is proving
adequate for most uses. Linux will not succeed on the desktop any
more than, say, Windows 2000 – neither gives a user sufficient
additional value to merit the swap. There will always be advocates
for desktop Linux but the mainstream has already flowed one way
downhill and would take some pushing to get it down a different
route.”
“On embedded devices, however, we can see a different story. The
advantages (and disadvantages) of embedded Linux have already been
covered here but advantages do not a product make. How different
the world appears when companies like Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba,
Mitsubishi and so on – 23 of them in all – line up behind the
operating system. This isn’t one company setting a strategy to give
it USP against its competitors, or a hopeful start-up looking for a
niche. The message is clear: Linux is a perfectly adequate
operating system for us to use in our devices. So much so, that we
want to work together to make it even better.”