The Wall Street Journal's influential Personal Technology column -- which is entirely aimed at mainstream users -- in the past has largely ignored Linux because it's not mainstream. However, this week's column was devoted entirely to Linux netbooks. As with all products reviewed, the column is hard hitting and rightly highlights the hardware compatibility issues.
But it also contains the following blockbuster sentence: "Linux on netbooks isn’t going away." Wow. It's one thing for us to say this; it's quite another for it to appear in the Wall Street Journal's widely read computer column. http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090527/little-laptops-with-linux-have-compatibility-issues/ Debate over when Linux will conquer the desktop will continue, but I think the debate over whether or when it will gain a beachhead on laptops -- or at least, sub-laptops -- is over. One advantage has been Apple's absence, which left the entire alternative-netbook-OS field wide open for Linux. (In price and in size, the MacBook Air is no netbook.) Another advantage is because this is largely a home market, companies like Intel, HP and Dell can dabble without having to bet the farm by going head to head with Microsoft on the corporate desktop. It's a little like the early days of personal computers (before the IBM PC) when the home user was king. Yes, Microsoft dominates, but the token price of Windows XP on netbooks underscores Redmond's biggest dilemma: How do you compete with free and still reap windfall profits? The Linux genie is out of the bottle and it ain't goin' back.
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