Comment Re:A long way to go (Score 1) 169
You have a few good points. Just want to make a few things clear (my links may require subscription):
Many Linux advocates use security , internationalization and "free-ness" as a major selling point.
For security, many users in the US care about spyware and etc. sending off their private data. Meanwhile I didn't see as much concern for private data in India (I assume the whole identity theft factor will take a major role which is why I mentioned that). That killed off the security selling point. This is also why I also mentioned about Windows Updates since it can make a computer far more vulnerable to spyware and etc. However, US and India seem to share the lack of concern in performance factor.
For Internationalization, there has been a notion that Linux has great international support. However, when I had users try KDE's Gujarati, I didn't see any kind of quick adoption to the language. In general, users tend to need to see quick results before being convinced a product is worth adopting. So KDE's Gujarati could be "the best" out of every other interface out there, but it is not good enough to convince them that "Linux has great Gujarati support" (thus killing that selling point).
As for Linux being free, the Indian small businesses (the ones I interviewed with) had a pirated version of XP as opposed to US where many small businesses have a legal version that came with their computers. This can come in to play when these companies deals with larger companies (or governments) that may require their assets to all be legal (you can see an example of this in Thailand). The small businesses I talked to didn't seem to have a concern about it. Therefore, the "free" as in beer selling point was killed off.
So I tried those three major selling factors of linux on a few small businesses in India and they all didn't work out well at all. So yes, a lot of what I said is not India specific but those where the problems I saw upfront for businesses migrating to Linux.
Many Linux advocates use security , internationalization and "free-ness" as a major selling point.
For security, many users in the US care about spyware and etc. sending off their private data. Meanwhile I didn't see as much concern for private data in India (I assume the whole identity theft factor will take a major role which is why I mentioned that). That killed off the security selling point. This is also why I also mentioned about Windows Updates since it can make a computer far more vulnerable to spyware and etc. However, US and India seem to share the lack of concern in performance factor.
For Internationalization, there has been a notion that Linux has great international support. However, when I had users try KDE's Gujarati, I didn't see any kind of quick adoption to the language. In general, users tend to need to see quick results before being convinced a product is worth adopting. So KDE's Gujarati could be "the best" out of every other interface out there, but it is not good enough to convince them that "Linux has great Gujarati support" (thus killing that selling point).
As for Linux being free, the Indian small businesses (the ones I interviewed with) had a pirated version of XP as opposed to US where many small businesses have a legal version that came with their computers. This can come in to play when these companies deals with larger companies (or governments) that may require their assets to all be legal (you can see an example of this in Thailand). The small businesses I talked to didn't seem to have a concern about it. Therefore, the "free" as in beer selling point was killed off.
So I tried those three major selling factors of linux on a few small businesses in India and they all didn't work out well at all. So yes, a lot of what I said is not India specific but those where the problems I saw upfront for businesses migrating to Linux.
