Having spent the past couple of days surrounded by Microsoft users and developers as well as the company`s significant marketing entourage, I have been brought face-to-face with the significant challenge that the open source movement faces if it ever hopes to make inroads into the consumer market.
The biggest challenge for the open source movement is going to be the .Net strategy that Microsoft is starting to finally roll-out in finer detail.
Alastair Otter, journalist, ITWeb
It is a debate that has been going on for a long time: can Linux ever really replace Windows as the consumer operating system of choice? There is a strong case for saying no on the basis that Linux is best suited to the server environment and not the desktop. But let`s assume for the sake of argument that Linux was a purely consumer operated desktop system.
On the interface side there are a couple of compelling options: Gnome, for one, is a great desktop environment with the ability to be manipulated to suit the user`s wildest dreams. The other is KDE, a desktop that is closely modelled on the Windows environment down to the ability to make the window colours and buttons resemble those of the Windows operating system.
Ease-of-use
Aesthetics, however, are such a small part of the equation and what truly affects the user experience is the ease with which they can open, close and manipulate files. And at the heart of this rests the concept of interoperability and ease-of-use.
Looking at Microsoft`s latest offerings from its newest operating system, Windows XP, through to the company`s soon-to-be-launched Pocket PC operating system for handheld devices, it is clear that Microsoft is bang on target with these aims. Pocket PC has most of the functionality of its big brother desktop operating system and can synchronise information with barely a moment`s hesitation. Anyone who has tried to set up a USB-based handheld to synchronise with a Linux machine will appreciate the benefits of the compatibility features offered by Pocket PC.
The biggest challenge for the open source movement, however, is going to be the newest .Net strategy that Microsoft is starting to finally roll-out in finer detail. If .Net lives up to the hype, which it could well do, the many "services" that users will be able to seamlessly obtain over the Internet are going to make the Windows environment ever more compelling.
Locked out forever
I know that there are already a number of projects within the open source movement that are in the process of replicating the .Net framework, and now more than ever it is important that open source developers push these projects along as rapidly as possible. Without them, the Linux community, and its related open source projects, will be locked out forever.
Admittedly the most recent Linux distributions are better than they have ever been but it is still hard to imagine the average user downloading and compiling their own media player just so they can listen to a couple of MP3s. Nor can we imagine a user dropping to the command line to re-configure their networking environment or change the infinite display options available to the X-window system.
I am not about to switch operating systems, but when I see the advantages that Windows users take for granted, I just hope that the Linux developers are up to the challenge.
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