There are some flaws in your reasoning.
Howard Owen said:
[snip]
My point might be
better stated
thus: "If you can possibly afford to do it, Red Hat, you might consider
offering
WS for zero dollars, and without support, just now. The strategic
situation is
such that a stable, low cost desktop platform upon which large support
organizations
can build very large scale deployments would do two things.
Most corporations (right or wrong) view no cost as a disadvantage. When
asking companies for bids for a contract, it is common practice to throw
out the highest and lowest, because the high one is trying to make to much
money and the low one is either cutting corners or not understanding the
job at hand.
First, it
would
accelerate adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop, a trend that is
real and
growing.
Having no support at home isn't that big of a deal. Having no support in
a business, with my job on the line if something goes wrong is. There is
no way in Hell *I* would do a large scale roll out of an OS without
support.
Second, it would ensure that _your_ platform is the most widely
adopted
Linux desktop OS. This would of course give you enormous opportunities
later,
and you wouldn't even have to act like Microsoft to realize them."
As above, low cost doesn't mean widely adopted. You will find out in the
Linux space, the distro that gets highest regards is the one the person
administrating it is familiar with. This can be changed if third party
requirements exist (i.e. Oracle certs for the Enterprise line).
--
William Hooper