| Must Linux buy its way onto the desktop? |
Feb. 08, 2006
As you may know, Google is close to making a deal with Dell in which the search giant will get to preinstall its software package on Dell PCs. What you may not know is that Google may be spending a billion dollars over three years for the privilege.
For cash-rich Google, it's a cheap price to pay to cut Microsoft off at the knees by getting pride of place on about 33 percent on all new US desktops
Microsoft is worried about this because, despite what we Linux users would like to think, the vast majority of users stick with the operating system and applications that come on their machines. If a Dell PC comes with even a Google search toolbar and nothing else from Google, that will still permanently cut into Microsoft's plan to promote MSN with its own Microsoft Search Bar.
What does that have to do with Linux? Everything.
Microsoft may say that what ends up on the desktop is all about having the best products, but that's hooey. I don't say that as a Linux supporter, I say that as someone who knows how the desktop market works. Most users, I'd say 80 percent, stick with what comes on their desktop. Period.
I know this. Microsoft knows this. Everyone in the desktop business knows this, even though we may disagree on the exact numbers.
So, the real way to win the desktop, as I've long said, is to get Linux on it before a user ever sees it.
There are many arguments that might talk a PC vendor into doing this. They can sell the same PC for a cheaper price, since the desktop Linuxes are cheaper than XP. They can market Linux PCs on the grounds that they're more secure. And so on.
The PC business, though, operates on razor-thin margins. When you only get a few bucks out of every PC you sell, you can't afford to take chances. Because of this, most PC vendors are very cautious about putting new operating systems on their computers. In addition, they are extremely wary of getting on Microsoft's bad side.
Still, I've always thought that eventually a tier-one PC vendor would take the plunge in the US and offer Linux on a PC. After all, Hewlett-Packard made the jump in Latin America with Mandriva.
Now, though, I'm worried. If Google has to pay a billion just to get some programs on a mainstream PCs, what would a Linux vendor have to do?
Are we going to see some kind of PC OEM (original equipment manufacturer) payola just to give our operating system a shot at the popular PC desktop? And, if we are, who could afford to pay it?
I mean, for Google, a billion can come out of pocket change, but for Novell or Red Hat that would be betting almost the whole farm on the Linux desktop. They're not going to do that.
Linspire is trying to make a go of it with the small OEMs. The San Diego-based Linux distributor hopes that eventually one or more of its PC partners will start to grow larger with it.
Unless Ubuntu's millionaire backer Mark Shuttleworth decides to throw all of his resources into bundling Linux and PCs together, Linspire's method is probably the best one for other Linux distributors to emulate.
The smaller PC makers have profit margins thin enough that you can read through them, but they know they need to compete on features as well as price to stand a chance, so they're more willing to take a flyer on Linux. With some good marketing and the continued up-take of Linux in the server business, eventually I think one or more of these vendors will become well-known PC brands.
Another way to avoid having to pay to get Linux on machines might be if someone were to give the old approach of combining a Linux and PC vendor into one. Early attempts at this kind of business often died, or like VA Linux Systems, morphed into a different business: VA Software, with online news and software development tools. The few who stuck with it, like Penguin Computing, became workstation and server businesses with most of the cash coming from the server side.
Things are different now, though. Desktop Linux is more mature; Microsoft is getting ready to try to talk people into switching from XP to Vista; and last, but in no way least, Apple is showing that Intel PC users are willing to consider another operating system.
Since we don't have a billion to bribe -- uh, persuade -- a PC vendor to give Linux a fair shot, maybe someone out there does have, say, between $50 and $150 million to start up a tier-2 Linux desktop business.
If someone out there remembers reading this and then goes ahead with the idea, well, be sure to mention my name when you're making a speech about your billion dollar IPO for "Linux PCs R Us" in 2009, OK? OK!
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
 About the author: Ziff Davis Internet senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about technology and business since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the
way.
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