For years we've heard that this year would be the year of Linux on the desktop, or this will the be year when Open Source really takes off. But each year we find ourselves sitting in front ofcki soul-sucking Windows machines at work, helping our friends and family with their Windows viruses, and listening to more FUD and vapor hype from Redmond than we cant stand. Waiting for Linux and Open Source to take over the world has left us so fatigued that we may have missed its actual arrival.
Maybe that's because we've been looking for the wrong thing. Instead of concentrating specifically on Linux, we should be looking for the family of operating systems that Linux is a part of.
That immediate family of software are the Open Source Unix/Unix work-alikes, including Linux, taken together. I think this is meaningful because these system share a certain philosophy, a culture and a very similar toolset. Tribalism aside, if I had to choose between working on a Windows box all day long or working on a flavor of Unix/Linux, I would choose the Unix/Linux option every time - even if I couldn't have my first choices, OSX and FreeBSD. My guess is, so would many of you. The extended family of operating systems would include the non-free unix operating systems as extended family.
Instead of measuring the popularity by counting desktop or server installations, why not use another yardstick? Most people who use a computer don't have a choice in operating systems, someone at a factory or in a corporate IT department made a choice for them, so installations don't mean much as the decisions are made by a few for the many. What then can we use as a guage?
In our capitalist system we use money as a measurement of what's important to us, rightly or wrongly. We think nothing of saying that people value their cars because collectively we spend an enormous amount of money on them. We will work ourselves ragged chasing the almighty dollar and the most shallow among us go so far as to make moral judgements of our fellow man based upon wealth. And although most computer users don't have to underwrite their critical operating system choices with money, because most of them aren't making critical operating system choices in the first place, what does the world look like when we look at where those who choose operating systems put their money?
What do our outlays on software tell us about what is truly most popular, most productive and most successful in the software field? The way we spend our software money tells us that the Open Source Unix and Unix-workalike systems are actually more popular than Microsoft Windows. The victory of Unix/Unix workalike systems has arrived, on cat's paws.
But don't take my word for it, look at the market capitlizations for the following firms as of April 30, 2010 (in billions):
Apple: 237.58
Red Hat: 5.61
IBM: 165.12
Novell: 1.96
Sun: 5.60
Why did I pick these companies? Because they are all vendors of Unix or Unix-like systems, including Linux. Each of them has a significant reliance upon and/or makes significant contributions to Open Source as well.
Apple's OSX is a certified Unix, as is Novell's software and IBM's AIX, to name just a few. Apple's OSX is derived substantially from Freebsd and Apple contributed Darwin to the open source community. Apple is also the world's largest seller of Unix units, I believe. While IBM's AIX is propietary, it is a Unix and IBM has a major business in Linux too. Novell has been a long time Unix vendor and for several years has been selling Suse Linux. Red Hat is a pure Open Source Linux company. Sun, while no longer independent, had a certified Unix, Solaris, which shares ancestry with the BSDs and they contributed quite a bit to Open Source projects.
So how do the market capitalization numbers for these firms support my suspicion that the year of Linux/Unix/Unix work-alikes has arrived? Well, if I take the market capitalizations of just these firms, and discount them to account for the fact that not all of their value comes from Linx/Unix and Unix work-alikes, I get a set of numbers that look something like this (in billions):
Apple: 237.58
Red Hat: 5.61
IBM: 50.00
Novell: 1.00
Sun: 3.00
Again, this is just me scratching some numbers on a napkin to reflect what I think their Open Source business, their Linux/Unix and Unix work-alike businesses are worth. I didn't discount Apple because OSX was instrumental in the company's revival and it's the operating system in their latest iPods, iPhones and iPad. For Apple, there is no meaningful separation of Unix, it's advantages and philosophy from the success, versatility and reliability of their products. Red Hat also gets a pass because its whole business is Open Source and Linux. That much of its revenue comes from support is not a stike against it as support fees is a central business proposition of Open Source software. Since IBM's business is heavily reliant on hardware and support, I discounted it rather steeply, maybe too steeply, but rather more aggressive in this case. In the case of Sun, I took only 3 billion of the 5.6 billion Oracle paid for them. These were the easiest firms to get my head around, but I didn't include HP or other specialized vendors. Together I think it's reasonable to say that the Open Source/Linux/Unix aspects of these companies are worth over 297 billion dollars.
By comparison, Microsoft's entire market capitalization is: 267.60 B
And that's for everything at Microsoft - Windows, Office, SQL Server, SharePoint, XBox, Zune, patents, real estate, the whole thing, no discounting there to simply compare their Windows value so my figures match operating system to operatnig system. This isn't an apples to oranges comparison, this is apples to an orange grove comparison. And the apples win. Sorry, couldn't resist.
It's clear to me that even when generously estimated, I have to conclude that the world has already voted with its dollars that the Open Source Unix/Linux operating system is the better system. When people who actually make choices about operating systems, and whether or not to spend a dollar on Open Source/Unix/Linux or Windows, it chooses Open Source/Unix/Linux. I haven't even taken into consideration the value of all the free installations of Open Source/Unix/Linux.
So when do we start saying that Microsoft has lost the operating system the battle and Open Source/Unix/Linux has won and 2010 is the year of Open Source/Unix/Linux?
No comments:
Post a Comment