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I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from usI'd say they got exactly what they wanted from usPosted Apr 23, 2008 20:53 UTC (Wed) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203)Parent article: Negroponte on OLPC's commitment to Sugar
My guess OLPC got from us (us being the OS/FS crowd) exactly what they wanted. Which was exactly what Asus got. Microsoft's attention. Both wanted XP really really cheap. Both knew that the most reliable way to get it was to wave the Linux flag and prove viability. As long as OLPC looked like vaporware Microsoft was perfectly content to allow RedHat and a bunch of idealistic volunteers to waste their time developing software to run on it. Once they shipped working hardware and showed every sign of shipping a lot of units Microsoft had no choice but to offer up XP to keep their monopoly position. OLPC knew this would happen and almost certainly planned on this outcome from day one. Had they really planned on staying with the Penguin they would have used an ARM based one chip solution and saved a lot on the 'ol power budget. The ONLY[1] reason to insist on x86 compatibility is keeping the door open to Windows. Note that most of the same applies to Asus except they were producing in partnership with Intel as a flagship for their new low power chipsets so using an ARM wasn't an option. From day one they were including all of the drivers for XP with each unit with the expectation many/most would be reloaded after purchase. And note that just as soon as they demonstrated volume sales[2] they used that to negotiate a really sweet deal for XP. I kinda doubt even Dell got prices on XP so low they could sell Windows and Linux for the exact same price except they toss in 8GB of flash as a bone to the poor saps who buy soon to be abandoned Linux version. [1] Remember that OLPC lacks the excuse of needing the x86 only Flash plugin since they don't ship it. [2] To be fair, the original plan was to retail for $199. When that didn't work it probably made business sense to rethink the Linux decision since $500 machines do have the margin to cover a Windows license.
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I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from us Posted Apr 23, 2008 23:56 UTC (Wed) by accensi (guest, #11754) [Link] Microsoft only wants to play on mature markets. That is the main point. Asus need to open the market, used Linux and now made a deal with Microsoft (or was forced), where price should be the same for both versions, even if necessary to put a little more hardware in the Linux version. Almost fair, probably to avoid regulation issues. This month in the Brazilian edition (#41 - April '08) of Linux Magazine (the German branch, not the American one), with an interview with the Strategies Manager of MS Brazil, where he presents this "strategy" in full terms. The article is only available online for subscribers of LM.
I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from us Posted Apr 24, 2008 1:33 UTC (Thu) by midg3t (guest, #30998) [Link] Could you mention or quote any of the key points of the article?
I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from us Posted Apr 24, 2008 14:41 UTC (Thu) by accensi (guest, #11754) [Link] Links is http://linuxmagazine.com.br/article/para_facilitar_a_inte... As I said, it is restricted to subscribers. I will try later night to do some summary from the copy at home.
I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from us Posted Apr 25, 2008 11:30 UTC (Fri) by accensi (guest, #11754) [Link] Found an online link: http://linuxmagazine.com.br/noticia/entrevista_ms_brasil You can use Google Translate for get an English version Go to the answer of the 3rd question.
I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from us Posted Apr 24, 2008 0:00 UTC (Thu) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] [1] Remember that OLPC lacks the excuse of needing the x86 only Flash plugin since they don't ship it. Indeed. It's not that Adobe is not amenable to porting the Flash plugin to non-x86 architectures; the Nokia N8x0 tablets are Linux/ARM-based and sports a proprietary Flash plugin. Not the fastest thing on earth, but considering how buggy the Linux/x86 version is, not bad.
I'd say they got exactly what they wanted from us Posted Apr 24, 2008 1:21 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] To be fair, the original plan was to retail for $199. When that didn't work it probably made business sense to rethink the Linux decision since $500 machines do have the margin to cover a Windows license. Confuses costs and prices. Asus have the hot machine of the year. They're obviously going to sell it for as high a price as the market will bear. As for hiding the Windows costs in the margin, they've gone the other way and reduced the hardware costs of the Eee 900 running Windows. They're retaining that fat margin for as long as they can (ie, until MSI and HP actually ship a competitor rather than talk about shipping a competitor). That says something very interesting about the low cost of their Linux, even with its heavy modifications. And note that just as soon as they demonstrated volume sales[2] they used that to negotiate a really sweet deal for XP. Based on the differences in hardware, the Microsoft license cost looks to be around US$40. That isn't a sweet deal, in fact it's so high that it looks like Microsoft are penalising Asus. I wonder if Asus rejected a sweet deal from Microsoft which proposed dropping Linux from the product altogether? Perhaps the hardware difference is a clever counter-move? From day one they were including all of the drivers for XP with each unit with the expectation many/most would be reloaded after purchase. And your evidence that this actually occurred? (eg, nmap scans of Asus Eee MAC addresses on your network.) I don't have any problem with Asus providing Xp drivers -- we've long argued that vendors should be more neutral towards the operating systems running on their hardware and that argument works both ways.
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