OT: Siemens sees Linux desktops at 20% of market by 2008--recommends GNOME over KDE

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Rolf Magnus wrote:

> On Friday 15 August 2003 18:37, Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> 
> 
>>   "Siemens has no 'religious' attachment to a particular distro
>>    or desktop environment. Before settling on Ximian, Siemens
>>    evaluated plain vanilla Gnome and KDE as well. Siemens found
>>    KDE to be more 'Windows-like' than Gnome, but that lead to
>>    problems when non-technical users expected a more Windows-like
>>    experience. Gnome, particularly Ximian's version, was 'different
>>    enough" to set user expectations that the experience would be
>>    less like Windows, which led to fewer adoption problems.'"
> 
> 
> I don't fully understand that.

I had pointed earlier to that referenced study and asked for
an invitation of the Siemens people who had been conducting
the quoted study to present it at Nove Hrady. But there
seems to have been too little interest by enough KDE contributors
to make it really happen. Or there was no money for an invitation.

> They prefer Gnome for "non-technical" users, 
> because those are more familiar with Windows and KDE is more similar to 
> Windows than Gnome? Or do they mean that those users are sick of Windows and 
> want something that looks "different enough"?

They seem to have found this:

* users initially accept KDE very quickly because it looks
   more like Windows.

* this makes users more likely to think it *is* like Windows
   in concept and in many details.

* when users find out it is different, they start objecting
   to the change.

I don't know by which factual backup this thesis is supported.
We don't have access to it. Maybe we should politely ask for
it? (Some voices I heard also suggested this argument may just
be a justifcation to support the pre-judices of the people
responsible for the study...)

Cheers,
Kurt