Ask HN: Why isn't Linux as popular as Windows on corporate machines?
Linux is widely used for servers, so why isn't it as popular as Windows on corporate machines? I believe companies worldwide spend thousands of dollars on Windows licenses for their employees. Why isn't Linux preferred, despite its superior security and low cost? Recent versions of Linux are just as good as Windows. In many places, due to collusion and Microsoft kickback schemes. See for example: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/25/22995144/microsoft-foreig... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_licensing_corrupti... I think that part of it is central management, specifically Microsoft Active Directory. The whole thing of pushing out software, software updates, central control of user accounts and password resets, logging and more. "Joe Bloggs is fired, turn off his account on every computer" "The marketing VP wants this new logo on every desktop background today" "Security breach! make everyone change their passwords!" Central management for linux boxes is nowhere near as "point and click". But Linux does support those things. Changes like deploying software and desktop background changes are easy with configuration management systems like Puppet, and centralized user account control exists with SSSD (and it even connects to AD if you have it, so you can use the same accounts on Windows and Linux). Because of vendor lock in. Companies that have used windows for a long time have software that is essential and not available on Linux. Replacement is hard, you need to be really committed to get rid of it. Also, some departments depend on Microsoft office and excel. I used to work in a company that managed to get rid of 95% of all office installations, but after a management change controlling leaked excel back into the company and now it’s back to 100% Microsoft. big companies like to work with and be associated with big tech companies as it looks good in their promotional advertising and sales pitch. We only work with trusted big tech companies to manage our IT systems. versus. We have decided to use a linux operating system that 90% of the worlds population have not heard of to manage our IT system. you must admit, which, to the uninitiated, looks more pleasing Most, if not all, linux users agree that linux is a much better, more stable, more flexible and a more reliable operating system. When you have corporate media using Ipad to mean tablet and Iphone to mean smart phone you know you are fighting an uphill struggle. One reason is that it makes ISO 27001 compliance harder. I don’t know the details (maybe someone who does can add more info), but it was the reason my last employer gave me a mac when I asked for a Linux laptop. This is something I hadn't learned about before. If you are going to exceed ISO standards you are going to have to be familiar with them. It's even better if you know how to outperform them before they arise. If official conformation is required, lots of times this is designed for only quite large organizations to be able to afford financially because of the undue amount of talented individuals' time it can require to be diverted away from profitable activities in a usually endlessly growing way. If accreditation is required, it's so costly that it ends up with everything along the chain just barely passing requirements, I would say whether it was quality standards or security standards. One thing's for sure, the chemical plants around here have had about a consistent 10X multiple in quality incidents compared to the same facilities before they implemented European standards. And the dust of the transition has been settled for a long time now. It just takes so much more effort now to achieve a much lower level of reliability. It was a slippery slope gradually over generations of operators where the decline might be noticed over one whole career, but never by a single individual in a high-turnover position (especially one subject to frequent promotion). They just used to get so much more bang for their quality buck in the ingrained way they far exceeded the standards way before the standards ever arose. The good companies didn't compromise what they had at first, and just layered on an ISO-oriented bureaucracy, but that is the most costly way to do it and over the decades the bureaucrats are going to have the strongest hierarchy against occasional cutbacks. To truly exceed a standard you've got to have more than just barely passing abilities, and if you've got that you're in a niche where you can pick up where the others leave off. Anybody got an idea how much it costs just to maintain a Windows system to support specialized business or industrial applications? I would imagine there are established service operators who prosper by doing just about this alone. So the ultimate users can smoothly utilize the kind of expensive Windows-only software that are a lot more costly than the Windows and/or Office licensing itself. People recognize that kind of corporate environment would never be able replace Windows with Linux until there was an equivalent specialized software package that was Linux-compatible and not Windows-only. There is a lot of legacy/domain expertise here that would need to be accounted for. The replacement for the specialized software would not have to be open-source itself, but either way there should still be opportunity to disrupt if you could make sales where the customers' total software-licensing cost immediately goes to zero. From that point forward. Even if all you did afterward was maintain their system at the same cost their previous Windows-maintainers were doing, and prosper the same way they are doing now, it could be pretty good and better than making no sales at all to otherwise impenetrable customers. Another good business might be to help companies make ISO 27001 compliance easier for Linux systems. Then iterate beyond that so they have way more security than just barely passing compliance. FUD(Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), an high usage on desktops(we use ms because the executives know it from their computers), an license model that gets better for the buyer the microsoft products you use, bribes to computer manufacturers so that computers come preinstalled with windows and EEE(Embrace, Extend and Extinguish). Because Microsoft has better/more salespeople when i worked at yahoo everyone got a redhat desktop and an apple laptop. I really like to have a linux laptop for work. This was back in 2010.