Serious pressure on Microsoft
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| vainrveenr Jan 22, 2008 12:21 PM EDT |
Will Yahoo Tech writer null's predictions come to pass:?
Quoting:Asus says that Windows XP-based Eee PCs will hit the market before the end of the quarter. (Sorry, Vista lovers!) Both the 4G (4GB drive) and 8G (8GB drive) models will offer the OS. Pricing has not been announced, but since Linux is free, it will undoubtedly be more if you want Windows. I'd expect to see the 4G model to hit somewhere between $469 and $499, depending on how angry Microsoft is at Asus for doing the Linux machine in the first place.From this, it also could be entirely possible, depending upon continued sales this quarter of EeePCs with Linux pre-installed, that MS could either 1) Extend Windows XP's official availability & support well past the June 2008 deadline 2) Offer a VERY competitively-priced Windows version custom-tailored for the Eee PC (remember Windows CE?) 3) "Encourage" Novell or Xandros (via their IP Patent deals with MS, remember?) to come through with another very competitively-priced Linux custom-tailored for the Eee PC (_fully_ GPL'd anyone guess ??) Other thoughts on these possibilities or other courses of action (or re-action) by Microsoft?? |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 22, 2008 1:02 PM EDT |
Quoting:Other thoughts on these possibilities or other courses of action (or re-action) by Microsoft?? Sure. They push XP on the Eee. Sell a bunch. Discontinue XP and then tell people it's their own fault that they didn't buy a laptop with a "Vista approved" sticker. |
| theboomboomcars Jan 22, 2008 1:06 PM EDT |
[quoteAsus's move into the Windows world with the Eee could quickly lead to a price war in the notebook market.[/quote] It seems odd to me that the EeePC is considered a cheap laptop, I got my lappy a year ago for $399 new. It is a real laptop with a 14" screen, a 40gb hard drive, DVD/CD-RW drive and 1gb of ram, today you can get an even better laptop for the same money, though I did have to go through the aggrivation of removing windows. The only reason the EeePC looked interesting to me is that is came with linux, but I cannot afford $300-$400 for a toy right now. It doesn't seem to be very competitive in the notebook market. |
| jdixon Jan 22, 2008 1:15 PM EDT |
> It doesn't seem to be very competitive in the notebook market. How much does your laptop weigh? The EeePC weighs two pounds. That's a significant selling point. |
| jdixon Jan 22, 2008 1:17 PM EDT |
> Discontinue XP and then tell people it's their own fault that they didn't buy a laptop with a "Vista approved" sticker. That seems their most likely course of action, yes. Of course, Asus then tells it's customers: Well XP is no longer supported on the EeePC, but Linux still is. We'll send you a free disk to perform the install. :) |
| theboomboomcars Jan 22, 2008 1:27 PM EDT |
Quoting:How much does your laptop weigh? The EeePC weighs two pounds. That's a significant selling point. It weighs about 5lbs with the power brick. It is much bigger than the EeePC, which is one reason I would say that the EeePC is not really competitive in the notebook market, it is different. It is almost like saying that a Honda shadow would be a better buy than a Honda Fit, it gets better fuel economy and is cheaper. But they are two very different tools, and would have different uses, etc. Saying that with windows the EeePC would compete in the low end notebook market is a faulty conclusion, which is what I was trying to point out. There are already notebooks in that market, which are better equipped than the EeePC for notebook duty. Though I am not saying there isn't a market for cheap sub notebooks with windows, I just can't see where windows would be better than linux on such a device, but to say it will start a price war in the notebook market, when there are already notebooks for less with more, is abusrd. It may start a price war for windows based sub-notebooks, though the other ones on the market could actually run windows and an application at the same time. |
| vainrveenr Jan 22, 2008 1:37 PM EDT |
Quoting:Sure. They push XP on the Eee.Makes sense. And yet the "they" here may just as likely be Asus then Microsoft itself. Null's above-quoted prediction of a final 4G "price of $469 and $499, depending on how angry Microsoft is at Asus for doing the Linux machine in the first place" would seem to place noticeably more of a burden on Asus than on MS to get Windows XP pre-loaded at a low enough price-point to increase Eee PC sales. According to Null here, the degree of MS's loss of OS control and anger at Asus are nearly as considerable as the typical factors of one-time profit and maintenance of MS Windows' OS marketshare at-all-costs. |
| jdixon Jan 22, 2008 1:37 PM EDT |
> I just can't see where windows would be better than linux on such a device, Short of needing to run an application which is only available for Windows, is there ever a time when Windows would be better than Linux? I don't know of any. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 22, 2008 2:00 PM EDT |
Quoting:Asus then tells it's customers: Well XP is no longer supported on the EeePC, but Linux still is. We'll send you a free disk to perform the install. That's not the point. Windows people want Windows, not Linux. So what you get is customers who are angry at Asus because Asus sold them an unsupported OS. It makes Asus looks bad, which just might be the kind of punishment MS would like to see :-) Quoting:And yet the "they" here may just as likely be Asus then Microsoft itself. IIRC from articles just after the first Eee appeared, Asus didn't want to sell a Windows Eee *because* XP would be discontinued soon. It wasn't until MS approached Asus that Asus announced they'd be releasing an XP edition as well. What MS told Asus is up for grabs. It could be anything from armwrestling to as simple assurance that XP wouldn't be discontinued anytime soon (which has proven true. XP OEM has just been extended for another 6 months at least). |
| Steven_Rosenber Jan 22, 2008 2:17 PM EDT |
What troubles me is that I really don't think that we users, as a community, as well as the companies that are out front with Linux on their boxes (Dell, ASUS, HP, Everex), are NOT adequately making the case for FOSS in general -- and Linux in particular. For a company like Dell, they're probably selling 10,000 Windows boxes for every Linux box (I don't know the figures, but some of you probably do), and they don't want to step on Microsoft's toes any more than they already are. Joe and Josephine Average computer user need a Linux distribution that does everything their Windows OS is supposed to do, only better and easier. And they need easy-to-understand documentation that teaches them how to use the system. And they need a relentless marketing campaign that emphasizes all the things Linux has that Windows and/or OS X do not. And at this point, that means Ubuntu ... |
| vainrveenr Jan 22, 2008 2:29 PM EDT |
This concept of the "they" here as likely being Asus then Microsoft itself -- due to MS's loss of OS control and anger at Asus -- seems to be solely Null's concept of this from the Yahoo Tech piece.
OTOH, we see that the overriding concern for maintaining MS's Windows OS marketshare on the successful OLPC laptop has unquestionably been enough of an impetus for Microsoft to approach Negroponte; IIRC, nobody claims that MS is "angry" at the OLPC organization. Bob_Robertson's comment at http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/26653/ might be right on in terms of something like MS may initially have told Asus: Quoting: Here's some for free, kid. Really. |
| NoDough Jan 22, 2008 4:18 PM EDT |
Heh. The XPeee |
| ColonelPanik Jan 22, 2008 5:14 PM EDT |
vainrveenr, Sorry dude, we are all about open source drugs. Grow your own. (could this be the end of the war on drugs?) |
| jezuch Jan 23, 2008 4:11 AM EDT |
Talking of drugs... I'm increasingly amazed how nicely Philip Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch"[1] fits this Microsoft vs Linux thing... Can-D vs Chew-Z, that is ;) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_El... |
| azerthoth Jan 23, 2008 8:22 AM EDT |
Actually I increasingly see M$ as one of the biggest supporters of a Brave New World, if we are to make literary references. |
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