Re: [MLUG] Company offers free Linux installs on desktops

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Mike Miller wrote:

> http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/06/06/linux.desktop.idg/index.html
> 
> Company offers free Linux installs on desktops
> 
> By Ed Scannell

[snip]
 
> In fact, last month startup Eazel, thought by some industry observers
> to have the best chance of establishing Linux on corporate desktops
> through its sophisticated graphical interface, closed its doors
> because of a lack of funding.

I guess they set the bar for "industry observer" very low these days.
Eazel took $13 million in VC funding to produce part of a semi-cool file
manager.  Their "lack of funding" is better conceived of as a "ridiculous
burn rate" combined with a "sucky business plan".

I'm also not sure what they mean by "establish on the desktop" here.  One
possibility is that it means "compete with Microsoft", in which case you
don't do that by designing a revolutionary, never-before-seen gee-whiz
file manager, but by implementing free replacements for the components of
Microsoft Office, most notably Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Another
possibility is that it means "allow people to do something so obviously
superior to their current way of doing things that lots of people leap to
your idea".  And, again, nobody is going to jump to Linux just because it
can preview a jpg in its file manager when you hover over it with a mouse.

And this is the very essence of the "establishment on the desktop"
fallacy. Either it means competition or innovation.  The problem is that
most people really don't do very much *at all* with their computers, or
really want to do very much.  Competing directly with "not do very much"
is tough in any situation where you have document format lock-in (the .doc
file problem writ large).  Getting people to do something new is similarly
very tough, unless it's something like a game (and that only works when
the game is only available on your platform).  The web is pretty much like
a game in that one important way.  And in another key and important
respect, it was exactly the opposite of the desktop.  It was therefore the
one tremendous possible vulnerability that MS really had and still has to
some extent.

jking



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