* Curtis Johnstone <[email protected]> [2005-07-24 22:12-0400]
> Ladies and Gentlemen - July 21, 2005 passed by like any other day with
> little buzz in the computing world. Unbeknownst to the average person, this
> date represented somewhat of an epoch in computing history. Yes, it was on
> this day 5 years ago that our good friend and Linux evangelist Gerald
> Oskoboiny declared that "I have no doubt whatsoever that Linux will conquer
> the desktop market within 3-5 years"
> (http://impressive.net/archives/fogo/[email protected]).

Yeah, yeah :)

At the time I wrote that, Linux companies had been getting funded
left and right and the trend seemed unstoppable, but the dot com
bust took away a lot of its momentum.

So it's taking a bit longer than I expected, but it will happen,
unless MacOS X does it first. (a fine product, if you don't value
your freedom ;)

> Microsoft still has approximately 90% of the desktop market.. :-)

That's nothing to smile about!

They also have approximately 99.999% of the spam zombie market...

:
> The next 5 years should be interesting. The desktop should matter less with
> the emergence of new mass communications devices (Blackberries, cell
> phones).

I think Linux will also do well in markets like PVRs, routers and
other internet appliances people will have around the house. I am
really surprised that nobody has succeeded yet at making and
selling cheap internet devices based on Linux.

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/