Guys you don't have to dig into the web to find for statistics. Go to Carrefour, Lulu, or other electronic stores in Doha. Most laptops comes pre-installed with win OS. Some are sold without OS, others have Linux installed and sold cheaper than those with windows. But people buying these laptops almost always end up installing unlicensed copies of windows. And believe me they are very well aware of Microsoft's piracy policy, but who cares. The OS is easy to use and widely accepted.
Indeed linux is a very robust OS specially for server apps. I was administering slackware linux from 2000 to 2005, used it for our file server, Apache, MySQL, Squirelmail for our email server [atleast until I left the company :)], our local RDBMS Postgres, and a whole lot of server apps. It is very very stable, we sometimes just force a restart once a month just to refresh the servers.
However most end users still prefer to use windows over linux, due to the simple fact that they are at ease with it, & resist change. SIMPLE...
Cost is neither an issue anymore, at least here in Doha. No individual has been imprisoned for being caught using unlicensed windows, that is as far as I know. Majority of the big companies here are also using unlicensed copy. So whats the big deal.
BOTTOM LINE? Windows is still widely accepted as an end user platform. Linux performs well as a server, but still lacks most of the features that windows has to offer. One example is program installation. You have to read tons of readme files to install a simple program in linux. In windows? The plain old "SETUP.EXE"
Guys you don't have to dig into the web to find for statistics. Go to Carrefour, Lulu, or other electronic stores in Doha. Most laptops comes pre-installed with win OS. Some are sold without OS, others have Linux installed and sold cheaper than those with windows. But people buying these laptops almost always end up installing unlicensed copies of windows. And believe me they are very well aware of Microsoft's piracy policy, but who cares. The OS is easy to use and widely accepted.
Indeed linux is a very robust OS specially for server apps. I was administering slackware linux from 2000 to 2005, used it for our file server, Apache, MySQL, Squirelmail for our email server [atleast until I left the company :)], our local RDBMS Postgres, and a whole lot of server apps. It is very very stable, we sometimes just force a restart once a month just to refresh the servers.
However most end users still prefer to use windows over linux, due to the simple fact that they are at ease with it, & resist change. SIMPLE...
Cost is neither an issue anymore, at least here in Doha. No individual has been imprisoned for being caught using unlicensed windows, that is as far as I know. Majority of the big companies here are also using unlicensed copy. So whats the big deal.
BOTTOM LINE? Windows is still widely accepted as an end user platform. Linux performs well as a server, but still lacks most of the features that windows has to offer. One example is program installation. You have to read tons of readme files to install a simple program in linux. In windows? The plain old "SETUP.EXE"
(Manny Pacquiao Lives...)