[ Thanks to Gregory D.
Horne for this link. ]
“All such discussions have a context, and the context I intend
here is that of the Small and Medium Enterprise, or SME. I’m not
addressing the issues for the single desktop, or for the large
multinational corporation. In fact, for both these extremes the
issues are arguably simpler: at one end it’s just personal choice
of platform, at the other the resources are available to implement
customised solutions as needed. But it is the SME area that has in
the current, somewhat-recessive economic circumstances,
consistently been identified by the IT industry as the last largely
untapped potential growth area. I’m referring here to small
installations of between two and a hundred desktops and servers.
This SME area is price-sensitive, hasn’t upgraded for years, has no
IT management: it’s where Linux can make a difference, and it’s
where I reckon it’s hardest for Linux to enter – for reasons that I
will describe later. If the problems can be solved here, then Linux
will become ‘sticky’ at this level of the ‘ordinary’ user.“In this first article I’d like to set the scene, and this is
why I started with the Santayana quote. I’ve noticed that people
with a UNIX background often have had little contact with those who
have been weaned on DOS–and vice versa. The target business that
I’d like us to keep in mind is a small office–say eight or ten
users altogether–and if this small office has a history in
computing, it will generally have been in DOS and Windows…”