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 COLUMN
Desktop revolutions HARDLY A WEEK goes by these days without some expert on the future of technology declaring that "Linux will never make it to the corporate desktop." And I have to admit that some of the arguments supporting this conclusion seem convincing.
Although these observations are persuasive on their face, they pale in the light of the lessons of computing history. Recently, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the creation of the IBM PC. Anyone care to remember the comments that accompanied the birth of said device? I am old enough to remember hearing corporate vice presidents declare that PCs would never replace dumb terminals because PCs were too expensive. In most cases, "never" didn't last the decade. Look at the history of the PC itself. Remember when MS-DOS was king? How about when WordPerfect was the standard in word processing? Have you kept up your Lotus 1-2-3 skills? Can you even remember how to navigate Windows 3.1? Things change quickly in the computer world. If one human year equals seven in the life of a dog, then it must be 20 in the life of a computer. Five years constitutes ancient history in this industry. Beyond that, no one can seem to remember how things used to get done. So what does this mean with regard to Linux? It means claims that Linux will never make it to the corporate desktop have to be seen from the perspective of computer time. Every five years to seven years or so, everything on the corporate desktop changes -- absolutely everything. Today's software Cadillacs are tomorrow's boat anchors. And how will corporate offices migrate to this new desktop? Is the transition between products ever really as seamless as the advertising hype would lead you to believe? If I had just a tiny fraction of the money that companies spend on desktop training with each major product release, I would be an unimaginably wealthy man. The truth is, the currently popular desktop applications won't survive more than five years, regardless of what replaces them. And companies will pay to train their people on the new products -- whatever those products might be. The only question is what the next generation of software will look like. With this in mind, I support the notion that Linux will never make it to the corporate desktop -- provided you understand that "never" could arrive as early as 2002. Russell Pavlicek is an independent open-source consultant. Contact him at pavlicek@linuxprofessionalsolutions.com.  RELATED SUBJECTS  Operating SystemsDiscuss this article in our online forums MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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