Open source not doing "better than the US" in all of Europe

[Tsuroerusu]

Open source lacks foothold

Open source has found it difficult to really break through to Danish businesses and individuals. Business people agrees, that the open source solutions has become more modern, but economy, lack of familiarity and Denmark's size has influence on adoption.

By Nicki Reinhardt
Thursday, 24th of April 2008, 4:13 PM


Open source has not yet taken root in the IT-consciousness of danes – neither individuals or in businesses. Several business people say.

A, just updated, analysis from IDC shows, that Linux servers has a market share of 21 percent globally. In addition, 3.4 percent of all computers globally run on a Linux operating system. Yet both Danish house holdings and businesses hesitate, to accept the open source solutions.


According the latest statement from FDIM (Foreningen af Danske Internet Medier (Union of Danish Internet Medias) ), only 0.2 percent of Danish computer users, use Linux as their operating system. In comparison, 75 percent uses Windows XP, and about every fifth uses Vista.

»Denmark probably is what one could call a Microsoft-country. We are generally quick to adopt new technology, but not with regard to Linux. I believe that it will get harder to grow on the client side in Denmark, compared to other countries,« says Anders Elbak, research manager for IDC.


The open source operating systems have several times been criticized for lacking in user friendliness. Morten Kjærsgaard of Open Source Leverandørernes [the Open Source Providers] feels that, that is not justified.

»I actually think, that open source desktops are just as user friendly, and just as great as the desktops people already know. However there is a problem, which is that our children can't play the popular games of the times in these systems. That is the significant barrier for the private computer user,« Morten Kjærsgaard says.

However, he do think that it is other aspects, that plays in, when it's about the country's businesses and public institutions.

»In many cases the problem is, that the CTOs stick to what they know. Maybe because they don't have the necessary insight for the alternatives,« Morten Kjærsgaard says.

IBM is one of the players, that focus on selling open source solutions to the Danish business world.

»We have been a little slow with regards to using open source in the public sector, as well as in the Danish business world. But I think, that open source solutions have become more mature. With for example Linux servers, Linux desktops and OpenOffice it has become integrateable,« says Kim Østrup, vice director for IBM Danmark, who by the way, foresees much increased competition in this area.

At the Microsoft-oriented consulting house Ementor, naturally open source takes up very little space.

»It is the combined package that counts, and at that point it does not matter, whether the operating system is free. In the discussion of open source much focus is put on a very small part of the portfolio on the cost side,« says Niels Henrik Sodemann, who is the the manager of Ementor.

He underscores, that Ementor uses the products, that gives the customer the cheapest solution – and that is in many cases based on Microsoft-technology.

»We use what makes sense for us – and that is both open source and Microsoft. Although we create many solutions, that integrate with Office. It is cheaper for us, because Microsoft maintains Office, and there are somebody we can call, if it does not work. With regards to the back-end, 70 percent of our solutions are based on Microsoft-technology,« Niels Henrik Sodemann informs.

IDC's Anders Elbak says, that an open source system such as Linux has matured significantly over the years. However, he thinks that the open source technology has found it difficult to break through within the country's borders, because Denmark is a small country.

»I absolutely believe, that it is about the number of units. It may not be worth it to switch over a minority of clients and servers. In Denmark we don't have as many big deployments as in, for example, Germany - both with regards to the businesses and the public institutions,« Anders Elbak says.

Source: http://www.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=35791 (Translation carefully done, by yours truly).

Quite a number of times, when I have heard Dann or Pat talk about adoption of GNU/Linux and free software, on the desktop, they refer to it doing better in Europe. However, I think the above article clearly shows that, that is definitely not the case in every European country.

[Patrick]

Quite a number of times, when I have heard Dann or Pat talk about adoption of GNU/Linux and free software, on the desktop, they refer to it doing better in Europe. However, I think the above article clearly shows that, that is definitely not the case in every European country.

Yes, we have to look at it on a country by country basis. Some EU countries are definitely further along than others. You have my sympathies living in a M$ stronghold.

[greggh]

Interesting. I think I read recently that the Linux Desktop just reached 2% share globally. So Denmark's 0.2% is really low.

I'm curious, what would you guess the % of Apple users to be in Denmark?

[Tsuroerusu]

Quite a number of times, when I have heard Dann or Pat talk about adoption of GNU/Linux and free software, on the desktop, they refer to it doing better in Europe. However, I think the above article clearly shows that, that is definitely not the case in every European country.

Yes, we have to look at it on a country by country basis. Some EU countries are definitely further along than others. You have my sympathies living in a M$ stronghold.

Hehe thanks. I like to say "Microsoft colony", we were silently annexed a long time ago!

Interesting. I think I read recently that the Linux Desktop just reached 2% share globally. So Denmark's 0.2% is really low.

I'm curious, what would you guess the % of Apple users to be in Denmark?

That's a tough question. Judging by the fact, that you can buy Apple machines in mainstream computer and electronics stores, I would guess that their market share in Denmark is roughly between 5 and 10 percent. Because I have seen a few people carrying Macs around. And to Pat's amusement, two out of three have been the people who wear very expensive clothes and that sort of stuff.

A month or two ago, I asked my friend Martin Schlander (Who does Danish translation work for KDE and openSUSE, and is quite involved in a bunch of things) how many Danish GNU/Linux users he thought were out there. His answer was not very encouraging to say the least! He said around 50.000 would be his guess, with at least half, or more of that, just using it as a server or having it installed on the desktop purely as a thing to play with. On top of that he said that, out of the 25.000 that he would guess then actually used GNU/Linux as their primary operating system, 10.000 dual-booted with Windows. So that gives you around 15.000 users out of 5.5 million people. He did not include business users in this, as he based his guesses purely on the feeling he got from experiences he has had on forums, IRC, LUG meetings (He lives in Copenhagen where there actually is a LUG! ) etc. which are pretty much specific to just community users.

[allix]

Isn't the biggest problem come down to translation? Windows to give it some credit has translated the desktop very well in to Danish.

[Tsuroerusu]

Isn't the biggest problem come down to translation? Windows to give it some credit has translated the desktop very well in to Danish.

That is probably an issue sometimes, but nowhere near the general problem. KDE in general is very well translated, and Martin is translating KDE 4, and he's very good at what he does.