Re: GUI Interface

On Fri, 2006-05-12 at 09:39, Tony Caduto wrote:
> Kenneth Downs wrote:
> >
> >
> > I guess it depends on your definition of trivial. Linux represents
> > 100% of the desktops at Secure Data Software. Therefore lightning
> > will be deployed in the trivial percentage of zero.
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
> >
> Good for you,
> You can rationalize it anyway you want, but linux has like 2 to 3
> percent of the world wide desktop market and Apple has the next big
> chunk followed by Windows with over 90%.

This is true for generic desktops, but that's not your actual market.
Your market is desktops that need to access a PostgreSQL database, which
is a subset of the overall desktop market.

In this case, I'd be willing to bet that there are easily as many linux
desktops accessing PostgreSQL servers as there are Windows desktops, and
that the Mac comes in a distant third to either of them.

Where I work, we have about 30 developers who access PostgreSQL at
various times, and about 8 or so Windows users, and 2 Mac users.

At my last company, the numbers were pretty similar. We bought about 30
licenses for EMS PostgreSQL manager, and about 10 of those were for the
windows version.

> I like Linux as much as the next guy, but it's primary role for now is
> on the server not the desktop.

Uh, I think your thinking in the past. Linux's role on the desktop is
slowly growing, not shrinking. Most startups have a fair percentage of
desktops running linux nowadays.

This thread reminds me of an interesting conversation I had in my last
job. We had a CIO who was enamored of Microsoft's products. He was
trying to convert all our development to the .net platform. During a
meeting with some junior sales sheeple from MS, I brought up the point
that many of their fancy features didn't work without IE. The sales
person pointed out that 98% of the market was running IE. I pointed out
that our biggest customer, Boeing Engineering, had about 40,000 linux /
unix on desktops. He looked me in the eye and said "Bullshit!" He
honestly thought I was lying to him. I pointed out that our second
largest customer was Martin Marietta, and that they had well over 10,000
linux /unix desktops. He would NOT believe me. I had to walk him over
to our sales people and have them repeat what I'd already told him.

My point is that what my mother runs as an OS doesn't really matter.
It's what your potential customers run as an OS that matters, and that
is NOT as nearly cut and dried as you might think it is.