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posted by
cmn32480
on Thursday April 16 2015, @03:29AM
from the does-homework-suck-less-with-Linux? dept.
from the does-homework-suck-less-with-Linux? dept.
According to StatCounter, in September 2014, Linux usage in Malta was 1 percent. By October, usage was over 4 percent. There was a peak after Christmas and current numbers are around 5 percent.
Blogger and Linux advocate Robert Pogson has charted the numbers. He says:
Malta is one of those places where the small size allows one to see significant migrations to GNU/Linux desktop in their full glory. Notice the ascendance of GNU/Linux in the same week that school started that year. The peak usage was on Thursday, 2015-Jan-8 at 6.83% a day or two after the Christmas break ended. Even use on weekends showed dramatic growth.
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Interesting Usage Statistics for Desktop Linux in Malta
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Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday April 16 2015, @05:07AM
Yes and no. Not sure if Malta is quite big enough but if any notable political subdivision were to get anything like 100% penetration top to bottom it really would change everything. Suddenly every commercial entity doing business with it would have to take that fact into account. IE only webpages are already becoming rare outside narrow niches but such a development would instantly end it outside of internal WANs. Office documents would also suddenly offer alternatives assured to be readable. And so on. The network effect that has locked Microsoft and Office into a position where they are considered unassailable by 'all right thinking people' would quickly fall apart... even faster than the mobile revolution is already challenging many of the same assumptions; but only madmen are deploying Android and iOS in corporate productivity right now so Windows/Office is still almost entirely dominate. Being forced to interop with Linux would challenge it because once the calculus became 'everything must be interchanged in a cross platform format' the lock in vanishes. Many more would suddenly be free to shift platforms and many of them would, although many would still be locked to internal systems like Exchange.
And some lock in is probably good. I wouldn't want a sudden bandwagon away from them to destroy Microsoft and leave Google and RedHat to dominate, meet the new boss(s) which would (are) quickly become the same as the old boss. I want to see Microsoft reduced, but still a double digit player, only more like 20-30% instead of 90%. I even want to see new players. Linux under RedHat's iron rulership is in need of a new scrappy competitor.