Doug LaRue wrote:
** Reply to message from Tracy R Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, 04 Jun
2008 17:02:32 -0700
Don't forget the EEE PC and the OLPC and a couple new ultra-portable
laptops that are coming out with Linux pre-installed. There have been
around half a million each of EEE PC and OLPX deployed.
is this what Andrew was talking about? People buying Eee PCs and OLPC XO's
and putting illegal copies of Windows on them? I hope not because once again,
the average mom/dad/grandma/kid etc is not buying the Eee PC and installing
Windows on it. There's no way they are putting Windows on the XO since it's
taken Microsoft over a year to do it themselves and they still have not released
it.
Well, they won't have to. With the newest Atom stuff coming out of
Intel, even the small computers will probably have enough power to run
Vista--especially if coupled with a solid state drive.
That's a million
desktop Linux users right there. In fact check out this article which I
read just this morning:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/04/1746237&from=rss
I do agree that these devices are probably going to be the breakout devices for
common use Linux systems but it's only going to be after the geeks purchase them
and hand them to spouses/kids/etc. Not because of usage issues but because
retail outlets don't like selling them.
Actually, PCClub was very active in recommending the Eee PC to me today.
I was surprised.
Even more interesting, one of the techs owns one and let me play with
it. He also had no idea about how to pull up a command prompt.
That surprised me more than anything. I expected anyone using the Eee
PC to be a Linux hacker.
Apparently, Asus really has kinda hit a sweet spot with it.
I don't agree that these cheap, subnotebook devices are the breakout.
If they become too popular, Microsoft will respond. The main reason
Microsoft hasn't so far is that they still view them pretty skeptically
and don't want to commit too much resource yet. They also don't want to
make them too good a replacement or Dell and HP will start to get pissy.
So, basically Microsoft is just trying to fight a marketing war to
prevent Linux from getting entrenched anywhere without committing too
much technical expertise. They don't want these to become too popular
or people will start putting even more pressure on Microsoft's pricing.
ie. if you give away the OS, that $400 Microsoft Office package now
starts looking kinda expensive relative to these computers.
-a
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