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Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times)Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times)Posted Apr 4, 2009 0:01 UTC (Sat) by dkite (guest, #4577)Parent article: Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times)
Would netbooks even exist if linux hadn't been available?
Derek
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Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times) Posted Apr 4, 2009 0:58 UTC (Sat) by agrover (subscriber, #55381) [Link]
If Linux didn't exist, wouldn't some other OS have assumed its place as the main free/libre OS of choice? Either *BSD, or maybe Alan Cox would've started Coxxyx? :)
Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times) Posted Apr 4, 2009 5:43 UTC (Sat) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]
Possibly.
Microsoft has been determining the form of laptops and desktops for a long
They did a rather quick 180 however.
Derek
Whatever was needed Posted Apr 4, 2009 9:54 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Imagine the buzz at Microsoft HQ when they read somewhere that a Taiwanese manufacturer had already shipped more than a million Linux laptops... I guess they set a commando team to work immmediately."The year of the Linux desktop" is still in limbo, but the year of the Linux netbook came and went. Sadly it is XP almost everywhere now.
Whatever was needed Posted Apr 6, 2009 10:42 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Yeah, Linux on the netboox seems to have been a 2007 thing.
Last year when the Eee 901 came out (a couple of months late) I was going to buy one, but it took so long for the Linux version to arrive that I'd lost interest (I'm working under the assumption that the Linux version did eventually materialise, a few months down the line - okay I've just checked and two of the three online shops I tried have the Linux version, though not in stock).
The cynic in me can't help but think that the use of Linux was a way of forcing MS to provide XP for a couple more years at a cut-down price.
Whatever was needed Posted Apr 6, 2009 22:04 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Probably OEMs were not even that cunning. It was just that Linux could be made to work in those puny machines; I can imagine that Microsoft tried to sell them Windows Vista or (gasp) CE and the Taiwanese recoiled in pain, so they went to Linux vendors.True, they got cheap XP licenses this way for 10% of their machines; but they also risked their relationship with the OS of choice for the remaining 90%. Right now they have sweet deals with Microsoft, the machines work well with Linux and everyone is happy. Except us Linux geeks who have seen the best opportunity as of yet come and go.
Risked their relationship? Posted Apr 6, 2009 22:42 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Risked their relationship? Remember, the only companies that MSFT treats with respect are those that have somehow shown their capability and willingness to go Linux. (Matthew 18:12 Marketing?)
Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times) Posted Apr 5, 2009 20:50 UTC (Sun) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link]
Reading the "Coxxyx" name made me regret that Linus had in fact started writing his kernel for a while...
Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times) Posted Apr 5, 2009 23:54 UTC (Sun) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]
Nah, Alan would have done AberMUDos, if he can turn a bulletin board talker
into a bloodbath of a MUD then why not an OS too.. ;-)
Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times) Posted Apr 4, 2009 14:30 UTC (Sat) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
Would XP still be sold (and supported) if Linux had not made netbooks possible?
BTW, $25 for XP shows how far MS are going to go to remain the desktop everybody uses. I think Vista pre-installed is more like $60 at least...
Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry (New York Times) Posted Apr 9, 2009 12:43 UTC (Thu) by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033) [Link]
Spot on!
More significantly, it's XP (which Microsoft users like), not Vista (utter crap, and so bloated there's no way to make it usable on a curent netbook). Microsoft were trying to kill XP by withdrawing it from the market, netbooks rather damaged that strategy.
And I suspect that most folks will prefer light weight over Vista capability, so MS won't have any future tech lifeline. A current Atom CPU is fast enough, running XP or Linux. Which will sell best, a netbook that runs Vista at a usable speed, or a Linux or XP netbook that's half the weight because it gets the same runtime from much smaller batteries? Mine's the six-hundred-gram one.
Now, why is it that no-one makes a netbook with a higher-resolution screen? Methinks Microsoft has a hand in that. Asus or someone, please launch a Linux-only high-res netbook, it'll force MS's hand the same way the original netbook did.
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