Wharton’s Kogut, who has written extensively on Linux, says he believes that Linux will slowly make inroads into the PC market, but that Linux’s real impact will be in large organizations that use servers. “As for the consumer market, let’s see how many more applications they can run on Linux” before making a judgment about how widespread Linux use will be, Kogut says. “We’ll see more applications to run on Linux, and that’s what consumers want. But there’s something else going on that’s interesting. Some governments around the world are saying they’re tired of paying fees to Microsoft and are considering moving to Linux. I also think we’ll see Linux being used in areas we don’t normally think of, such as mobile telephones, smart cards and personal digital assistants, or PDAs.”Murcko – the Apache Software Foundation member, who also has done work for IBM – says Linux may become more of a household name in the desktop market in two to five years. “It’s only a matter of time. Dell and Gateway two or three years ago started offering Linux as alternative installs. I suspect if you went to Dell or Gateway and asked for the percentage of people ordering Linux, it may be 1% or 2%. But the crack is there. It’s the hole in the dyke. It’s a matter of waiting for Linux to be easy to use on the desktop.”
The real big opportunity for Linux is in emerging markets - both on the desktop and the server. Linux can become the base for the IT architecture for SMEs in the developing countries.
From a Fortune article entitled Finding a Silver Lining in the Tech Bust:
What tech manufacturers need is the same thing that made them powerful in the first place: a new technology that corporate America believes it can't do without. That was true of the PC in the 1980s, and it was true of networking and the Internet in the 1990s.What will that technology be? If you want the big picture, it still makes sense to listen to Cisco's Chambers. Last month, in a speech at a Bank of America conference in San Francisco, he explained that we are far from seeing the potential of all the equipment bought and advances made during the boom. For all companies' bluster about outsourcing arrangements, Net-based streamlining, and virtual supply chains, there's still much to do. Throughout corporate America, files are sitting undigitized and forms have yet to go online. Once all that becomes available on private and public webs, Chambers told his audience, it will create a fluidity of information that will profoundly change business.
If the thinkers like Chambers are right, the meaning of the word "corporation" will change. Armed with the flexibility of moving and sharing information instantaneously with whomever they choose, companies will slim down to focus on doing one thing well, say designing computer chips, and outsource everything else from payroll and accounting to manufacturing and distribution. "It will be the most fundamental change to business since the assembly line," Chambers says. "It's amazing to me how many businesspeople around the world tell me 'that's exactly where we are going to go.' "
A WSJ story on how AMD plans to work with China Basic Education Software Co. to develop computers for China's 200+ million students:
The schools' systems could contain three kinds of AMD chips -- microprocessors, data-storage chips known as flash memory, and embedded processors, according to AMD.Dan Pickens, an AMD spokesman, said China has mandated online access for all schools by 2010. The venture, he added, should secure AMD's position as a "preferred provider" in the Chinese market and build a brand image in schools.
Mr. Pickens estimated that AMD chips are used in 29% of the personal computers in China that use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.
Slashdot has a discussion on the future of Linux.
I think Linux needs to focus on being able to run Windows applications. Wine is not good enough, while some of the others cost a lot of money. What's needed is for work to be done on Wine to make it "perfect". This is critical for Linux to make inroads into enterprises in emerging markets.
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The biggest dependance I have on Microsoft product is the Microsoft Office suite. I just cannot do without Word. There are a lot of friends I know of, who are in the same state. Unless and until I can get a product that rivals Word or unless Linux is able to edit Word documents, I will always be using Windows.
Posted by (\/)ysticThere are relatively good softwares out there that can give you the facility to run multiple operating systems from different sections of your machine's hard disk.
One of them, and also the best known, is VMWare. Click here for more info on VMWare product offerings. Click here for a screenshot of Windows XP, running within KDE on Linux, on the SAME machine! 
WSJ writes about "an alliance of 11 newspapers from Japan to Pakistan announced the launch of an online newspaper designed to provide readers with an Asian perspective of the region that would serve as an alternative to Western media organizations."
The Asia News Network founding members are:
China - China Daily, Beijing and Hong Kong editions
India - The Statesman
Indonesia - The Jakarta Post
Japan - Daily Yomiuri
Malaysia - Sin Chew Daily,The Star
Philippines - The Daily Inquirer
Singapore - The Straits Times
South Korea - The Korea Herald
Thailand - The Nation
Vietnam - Viet Nam News
Writes Jon Udell (InfoWorld):
Typically regarded as a consumer-oriented text chat tool, instant messaging, as well as presence-awareness technology, are making strong inroads into enterprises, emerging as critical collaboration and productivity tools."What started out as a tactical application is being developed and nurtured by companies like IBM and Microsoft to have both a collaborative and productive benefit as an application, but further being baked into applications through the platform and standards," said Dana Gardner, research director at Aberdeen Group in Boston.
The strategic goal is to make real-time collaborative activities seamless to business processes, application activities, and consumers and partners on the supply chain, Gardner said.
There's also a sidebar on Jabber.
Yahoo recently launched its corporate IM service.
Even though XML is a lingua franca, the price of its expedience has become complexity and inefficiency. Chief information officers are encountering layers upon layers of XML data generated by multiple platforms through myriad applications. Companies may be sitting on a goldmine of XML services and be unaware of it. They may also be sitting on potential problems.For instance, XML standards themselves are creating heterogeneity. A simple XML message might contain three to five "namespaces" from three to five different standards. (A namespace is like a digital snapshot--a picture of an XML standard taken at a single point in time and displaying unique context.) The message alone may be complex enough, but competing standards, versioning and styling choices further complicate it.
And because XML messages emanate from application code, the cost of retrofitting poorly designed XML usually includes a rewrite of a significant portion of an application. It's much more cost-effective to get it right the first time.
The world of technology as seen from one of its developing markets like India appears very different. Here's a glimpse:
But that’s the glass which is half-empty. The part of which is half-full sees that:
Much of what we see and read about is the impact of technology in the world’s developed markets – and this is where technological innovation has become incremental. This is because there is already a huge established base, a legacy. But there is another world comprising the world’s developing nations like India which is waiting for technology to help it leapfrog. This is a world which makes up in volumes what it lacks in purchasing power. This is where the opportunities of tomorrow lie. This is where the road to utopia leads. But for people and companies in the developed markets, it is as if this other world did not exist. This is the Invisible Market.
Tomorrow: The Invisible Market
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