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Google makes Chrome OS open source
Google made the early code available to the open source community and claims external developers will have the same access to the code as internal Google developers.... Continued »
Category: Linux Laptop
November 18th, 2009
Google-Microsoft rivalry on with ChromeOS launch
The daily competition between Google and Microsoft becomes ever-more direct this week, with Google hosting a demo of its ChromeOS tomorrow, right after Microsoft’s Professional Development conference.
ChromeOS is Google’s version of Linux for netbooks, much as Android is its Linux for handhelds. It is a version of Bill Gates’ nightmares from 15 years ago, as Netscape was rising, visions that led directly to the case of U.S. vs. Microsoft.
Microsoft got through that crisis unscathed in a corporate sense, but its image was transformed from that of a user-friendly upstart to that of “an implacable force for evil,” as one comedy show said recently, exemplified by the famous Boardwatch cover of Bill Gates as a member of the Borg, the Star Trek bad guys.
The fear, old programming hands will tell you, was that Netscape would turn its Mozilla browser into a full-fledged operating system that, because of its dominance of the browser space, could beat Windows in the market.
Chrome is a lot like that. It is centered on the browser, which abstracts the complexity of Linux from the user. And it’s designed to load fast, a real Achilles Heel for Windows on a netbook. An early version could be available for download next week.
When you’re paying $300 for your machine, you don’t want to wait 10 minutes for the thing to start, and you don’t want to be paying a lot for your software, either. ChromeOS is designed to fix both problems, so I am looking forward to it.
The hope is that the industry which supports ChromeOS will make up in services what it loses in up-front fees. And Google will be able to tie all its online services to ChromeOS, increasing its market share in areas like Mail where it is not yet dominant.
So, Mr. Bill, is resistance futile?
October 29th, 2009
Qualcomm joins open source movement at head of parade
Qualcomm, which has long had a major position in mobile chip sets and standards, has joined the open source movement with an eye to leading it. (Picture from Whenpigsfly.info.)
The company formed a new unit called Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), under a senior vice president, and it joined the board of directors of the Symbian Foundation.
The idea behind the QuIC is to push open source, including systems like Chrome, Webkit and Android as well as Symbian, the company said.
Qualcomm is doing this to support its Snapdragon chip set, a CPU and graphics chip package designed for low power and handheld devices, most based on Linux. These include what Qualcomm calls “smartbooks,” netbook-phone hybrids on which Chinese manufacturers like Acer, Asus and HTC are already working.
The move should also be seen in light of recent moves by Intel to support mobile open source. Matt Asay writes that “pigs are beginning to fly” and he’s right.
But where are they heading?
The efforts of Qualcomm surrounding Snapdragon seem to prove that the “waiting for Godot” story of “desktop Linux” may finally get an appearance by its title character appearing on the stage in the form of a telephone-laptop hybrid.
But open source advocates should also take a jaundiced view of this, not just because it has been delayed for years. As Matt notes, combining open source and proprietary technology in the way Qualcomm wants to do, while legitimate, does threaten to maintain the vendor lock-in that open source is meant to fight.
Just because you draw a picture does not mean the pig is really flying.
October 26th, 2009
Ubuntu celebrates Thursday drop of koala desktop and server
Ubuntu held a teleconference this afternoon to celebrate the Thursday launch of its new desktop and server edition, karmic koala.
The new desktop is built around “Ubuntu One,”a collection of backup, note and contact synchronization and file-sharing services integrated into the operating system, offering 2 Gigabytes of free storage and more by subscription.
The Firefox 3.5 browser and improved audio support are also part of the offering. GNOME 2.28 is the shipping desktop interface.
On the server side the situation is more cloudy, but in a good way with the addition of full support for Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, from Eucalyptus Systems, that lets you create your own mini-cloud based on open source. The clouds feature host and guest virtualization under KVM and guest virtualization under Xen.
Most new features were previewed in April.
A complete online tour of the new desktop is already online. A list of supported netbooks is available, but the company is suggesting you pack a thumb drive with its Ubuntu Netbook Remix when you go to the store, just to make sure. Should make Friday at Fry’s fun.
September 25th, 2009
Can Linux beat the bloat
Linus Torvalds shocked the crowd (well, the group) at LinuxCon this week with three words.
“Linux is bloated.” He added it’s even gotten “huge and scary.”
(This fat penguin, by Squiggums at DeviantArt, can likely be licensed by the Linux Foundation for a reasonable fee. Just change the fish in the thought bubble to a Microsoft Windows logo.)
Part of the problem here may be just how close Linus himself is to the project. He was there at the beginning, and here he is with something bigger than any conglomerate’s Unix ever got. The whole world depends on Linux — servers, clients, phones. That’s got to weigh on a person.
Or it could be nostalgia. I get this way some days driving around Atlanta. I remember when that mall was an empty lot, I see the store where that skyscraper now stands. I remember when the Peachtree Road Race course had just a half-dozen skyscrapers on it, before Elton John and Jane Fonda and the Olympics, back in the 20th century.
Imagine if Bill Gates managed the original Windows project 25 years ago and were still managing that architecture today, with every fix or improvement coming personally past his desk. I get tired just thinking about it.
On the other hand, maybe Linus is right. He’s the doctor. Maybe it’s impossible to build something that works on any machine, that works clean, that’s scrubbed regularly for bugs, that has enormous amounts of functionality, and doesn’t get bloated. A modular architecture can only get you so far.
Now it’s true that, as our Matt Asay notes, there’s Linux and then there’s Linux. The Linux that loads onto a Moblin phone bears little resemblance to, say, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. What they have in common is compatibility, a common way of looking at the world, so they can work seamlessly together.
As Linus’ personal blog notes, he does take vacations and has a good, happy family life. But has he thought of, like, a sabbatical? Take six months off and chill, do something else, travel, really get away from it for a while? This project is too big to depend on one man at the center — maybe that’s the problem.
So I want to hear from the real Linux geeks out there. Is Linux bloated? Are there things that can be done, from an architectural or development standpoint, to make it less bloated?
Linus sounds tired. Why don’t you be the boss for a while?
September 23rd, 2009
Why Africa gets the IBM-Ubuntu bundle and you do not
Irregular readers of this space may be wondering why IBM and Ubuntu are partnering on a Linux bundle for Africa but not here.
It’s something regular readers should have memorized by now.
There is a price lower than free.
Note the go-to-market strategy, as detailed by our fearless leader Larry Dignan:
IBM said it will distribute the SmartWork client through Africa via local service providers such as Inkululeko and ZSL Inc. The aim is to spread the IBM/Canonical software through government and educational institutions and businesses.
The short version is that IBM and Canonical (Ubuntu’s commercial arm) are mainly going to load the software on government and ISP servers, then wait for the clients to come to them.
This is not how developed markets work. Developed markets work through distribution. Vendors must invest heavily to push product through the channel, as well as support it. This is why Taiwanese OEMs abandoned Linux for Windows last year.
Netbook hardware will ship to Africa running Windows, but the IBM download will transform those machines into Ubuntu devices that handle some client functions locally but can also go online to connect people together. This is a good deal for IBM because its investment is low and already made up in favorable publicity.
My problem is the cloud. We already know how bad Africa’s online links are. When the best broadband in South Africa is outrun by a pigeon with a stick memory strapped to its leg, we are talking s-l-o-w. The infrastructure there just can’t handle a cloud-based solution.
Instead of offering the software via download, it might be better to put sticks on thousands of pigeons and just let them loose.
In fact the real hope is that the endorsement of a government or university will make this a standard offering on their local networks.
It’s up to Canonical to make all this work. Founder Mark Shuttleworth is South African by birth. This deal has his name written all over it. It will be an immense challenge to scale this effort up, assuming the IBM name and Shuttleworth’s fame lead governments to support it.
And you have to figure that if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere…but he can’t even try for New York until he has scaled a solution thousands are happy with.
August 8th, 2009
What Asus wants in a Linux
Sell-through and no hassles.
What Taiwanese OEMs want from Linux, in other words, is just what they get from Microsoft.
- Sell-through. Support that will get the product off the shelf. As I’ve said before there is a price lower than free. Taiwan demands a Linux that will pay that price. Intel can, Ubuntu can’t.
- No Hassles. Asus does not want its gear coming back. The high return rate of last year’s Linux Netbooks not only doomed those distros but any distro from a firm too small to provide enough after-sales support to keep the units in the field.
You can summarize all this in one word — support.
Taiwan OEMs like Asus would love to get out of the Microsoft box, because Microsoft controls the relationship and takes most of the money. But if it can’t get support from the software vendor, on the ground, the effort is not worth it.
The question that must be asked, then, looking at reports from Germany’s Electronista that Asus will deliver a Moblin-based netbook this fall, is whether Intel is going to put serious dollars behind the effort, or just point to the Linux Foundation (the official sponsor of Moblin) when the going gets tough.
Those same questions pertain to the chances of a Google Chrome OS netbook, which Germany’s Network News is discussing this weekend. The netbook wars are being played with money, big money, bigger money with every turn of the wheel. Those software vendors who don’t have the ante don’t get into the game.
Linux’ only hope in cracking the Taiwanese netbook market is with a Linux whose owner is willing to pony up the big bucks for both pre-sales and post-sales support.
July 8th, 2009
Will ChromeOS make Google more loved or hated in open source world?
Google’s plans to launch an open source operating system is not only a potential game changer for Microsoft but also likely a big blow for Ubuntu and other Linux hopefuls on the desktop.
But its success depends somewhat on support by the open source community. Google promises to open source its code later this year and will “soon” begin working with the open source community.
Provided those promises are kept, the Chrome OS, an open source, web focused and lightweight OS, will spread like wildfire on netbooks and laptops. A clean interface? A fast bootup? The dream has come true.
For more than a decade I have written about Linux’s prospects on the desktop and quoted many who predicted Microsoft’s massacre at the hands of the open source operating system. Today, Linux holds less than two percent market share and few would make the same prediction today without looking silly.
For many in the open source camp, Ubuntu is (or was) the game changer that would have Microsoft at least scurrying to protect its virtual ownership of the desktop. Michael Dell virtually endorsed it.
Ubuntu has enjoyed some success on the desktop, particularly on the netbook, but I think it’s fair to say that it hasn’t turned out to be the commercial success that once seemed possible.
Google’s Chrome OS — like its counterpart browser — may be the real shot heard ’round the world. Google says it will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010 but I’ll bet it makes its debut on netbooks within a year’s time.
Why talk about it now?
“Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve,” Google wrote on its introductory blog yesterday.
“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.”
Dreamy. This should be exciting stuff for open source backers (and for the rest of the world) but few in the community are celebrating. Google’s commercial strength and market power have always undermined its efforts to get support in the open source sector. For many, Google is simply the next gen Microsoft pretending the carry the open source banner but not really abiding by the core principles of the movement.
In its first year on the market, for instance, the open source Chrome browser has amassed only less than two percent market share while Firefox, the original open source browser, rocks at almost 23 percent share. It’s still too early to judge which one will reign but most in the open source community would prefer Mozilla’s success.
It’s just the vibe I get. Am I wrong?
Google has its open source backers and several prominent people in the open source world are employed by Google. Perhaps its seemingly inevitable success is probable whether or not it the general open source community cares. What’s your take?
Is Google more loved or hated today by the open source community? Why? Dies it matter?
And what impact will the introduction of the Chrome OS have on Google’s reputation in the open source community? Please weigh in.
July 8th, 2009
I can't wait for Google Chrome OS
My take on the Google Chrome OS, announced on Google’s blog last night, is fairly simple.
Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.
Timing is everything in this business. Tech trends are like surfing, where you can hit the wave too early or too late.
In terms of Netbooks like my HP Mini, this looks late.
A mainstream OS has to make it in the channel. It has to be available at Fry’s. And, to repeat, there is a price lower than free.
Netbooks are different from laptops of any weight in that they have no moving parts. Like phones, they’re just chips and a screen. CompuTex showed that storage will no longer be a limitation on Netbooks, with units holding 64 GBytes of chip storage available this Christmas for a price of around $300.
Once we get past that main criteria — no moving parts — what else should a Netbook have and do?
- It needs to look for network access immediately, on start-up.
- I want a usable keyboard (yeah HP) and a usable mouse (boo HP).
- It must sync with online resources, and through them with your handheld.
The main difference between a Netbook and a phone is the position of the user. You use a Netbook seated. You use a phone standing up. Beyond those interface issues they should be the same thing, and the Internet is the glue that makes this possible.
My iPhone shows me what’s possible, and how far we have to go in getting there. I can sync my contacts, but I can’t yet sync my calendar. I should also be able to sync my music, my settings, all forms of messaging, and basic online data like my stock list, maps, and notes.
(Oh, if Apple would do a Netbook OS.)
If Chrome OS can do all this, and get into mainstream distribution channels, it can do well. Frankly Windows is not suited to Netbooks because it’s a memory hog, it takes too long to boot, it requires expensive add-ons (especially for security), and the cost is way out of line with that of the hardware.
But some work still needs to be done on the Chrome browser itself. It does crash, still. I often find it hard to change pages within tabs — I have to hit the enter button repeatedly and hard.
Google enters this market fight with serious open source street cred and an online lead. But that may not be enough.
I’d give it two cheers.
June 22nd, 2009
Channel ambition is not a conspiracy
Dietrich H. Schmitz Dietrich T. Schmitz has posted to Groklaw a piece quoting my CompuTex coverage and claiming a dark conspiracy.
I hate to disagree, especially with someone boasting such a fine German name as Dietrich H. Schmitz Dietrich T. Schmitz(next to which Dana Blankenhorn sounds almost Irish*), but what happened at CompuTex was no conspiracy. (Note: Cut and paste, Dana. Don’t copy names from memory.)
What happened at CompuTex was channel ambition.
MSI is trying to become a brand. Microsoft’s channel support can make or break those efforts. Chairman Joseph Hsu has bet the company on a strategy of eating into HP and Dell, and Microsoft would like nothing better than to help him punish those two companies for straying from the Microsoft way.
The question is whether that is a conspiracy or sharp business elbows.
Schmitz calls it a conspiracy. Many here were enthusiastic about the possibility of the ARM chip powering Android phones and Netbooks, and saw their hopes dashed at CompuTex.
But as I noted during that show, a company gets twice as much from a PC with their brand on it as one they make for someone else. MSI needs this money to survive in a world where its Chinese partners can undercut them. The margin justifies MSI’s existence.
It is also true that Linux cannot afford a presence in the channel. It’s not how we roll. You can’t invest in retailing if your product costs nothing. There is nothing to invest. That’s why Linux and open source depend on the Internet.
A monopolistic practice occurs when two sides are offering the same deal and one side gets all the business. But in this case both sides were not offering the same deal. Microsoft offered channel support, Linux a hearty handshake and rhetoric about freedom.
There was some indication at CompuTex that Taiwanese OEMs like the rhetoric, as evidenced by the answer Li Chang gave to my own question. Given the habit of reporters there not to ask questions, and executives there not to answer them, what Mr. Li offered was a soliloquy.
But here’s the deal. There’s more to the Taiwanese market than MSI, Asus and Acer. There are literally dozens of OEMs over there looking for a taste of channel success.
What Linux needs to succeed is a way to offer more than was offered MSI.
The question is, how would you structure a deal?
* Before you send me a nastygram on the name joke, the name Blankenhorn is German, but my mom is very Irish.
June 17th, 2009
Will Ubuntu remain a minor player
Click2try announced it is hosting a version of Ubuntu, and applications, which people can try free and rent if they like it.
It’s the most innovative thing I’ve seen from Ubuntu in months. And, yes, they didn’t even do it.
It is time for open source advocates to take off the rose-colored glasses and ask if Ubuntu — more appropriately its Canonical business arm headed by Mark Shuttleworth — is ever going to be a factor below the server level.
I have always assumed that Ubuntu was the desktop play, but it has been blown out in netbooks and seems to have no presence in phones.
Part of the problem is the channel because, as I have written here before, there is a price lower than free. Acquiring a retail presence costs money, and since a free operating system has none it’s not happening.
This is doubly true in mobile, where subsidies have to go up the stack to carriers and even manufacturers. The market is a bazaar where everyone wants you to pay before you can play.
This limits Ubuntu’s options. You can only get so far on downloads and the charisma of your chairman. Can Ubuntu get farther, or is it doomed to be a minor player?
I know Ubuntu has many friends here. I like to think I’m one of them. Ubuntu has opened many markets by offering localized versions of its software in many languages.
It can rely on others’ efforts, like the Linux Foundation, to draw in applications by supporting the Linux Standard Base. It is also supporting Moblin, hosted by the Foundation, as its mobile phone solution.
But all this is low-hanging fruit. If Ubuntu can’t gain any retail foothold, if it can’t win share in netbooks or on phones, how far can it really go? And how should it get there?
June 16th, 2009
CompuTex Linux found in Israel
A day after returning from CompuTex in Taiwan I received an e-mail from Yoram Nissenboim. CEO of a Linux distro that was active at the show, called Affordy, based in Tel Aviv with a U.S. office in New Haven, Conn.
Affordy makes TITAN LEV (Linux Extended Version), a distro designed for Windows users. It comes bundled with 150 applications, he said. “It requires less CPU and memory resources than Windows, looks like Windows, runs Windows applications and is fully supported.”
The reason I didn’t see Affordy at the show was because the company did not have a booth, just a meeting room. “The organizers wanted to put us in the software area and we didn’t think it’s the most effective place for us to be.”
I can verify that. The Linux software area was at the Grand Hyatt, miles from the main show floor at the Nangang Exhibition Center. Showing at a Grand Hyatt booth would have found me, but missed the hardware OEMs who spent their time at Nangang.
Better to see customers than a reporter.
So, what happened?
As a result of the show we received an initial order from one OEM for 400 licenses for test purposes. If the test succeeds, follow-up order will be for 10,000 copies. Five other OEM’s are in the stages of technical qualification. Once this step is complete, we expect orders to come in from Taiwan, Malaysia and Latin America.
Nissenboim put his prospects into three categories:
- Firms looking for an upgrade from Ubuntu, such as J&W Technology Ltd., based in Hong Kong with four offices in China.
- Companies whose systems are too slow for Windows but can run a Linux, like DIS Technology of Malaysia.
- Companies that currently have no Linux solution but are considering one, such as Jetway of Taiwan.
Affordy is willing to localize its Linux based on OEM orders, and currently supports English, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Arabic. “We plan pmadding Chinese based on requirements,” Nissenboim added.
So, what’s the pitch? Nissenboim was happy to bring it:
Linux provides good performance on netbooks and every Linux provider has made an attempt to enter this market.
In the rush to enter the netbook market, every Linux provider has taken a similar approach - use their existing desktop distribution and trim it down to be able to fit and run in the constraints of the netbook hardware.
In the case of OpenSuse, for example, Novell’s biggest achievement is to be able to shoehorn their desktop enterprise distribution into a netbook - shoving a three ton elephant into a shoe box.
Even though such attempts were successful, they were all done from the available hardware perspective and not from a user experience perspective. As a result many customers who bought a Linux based netbook expecting a low cost extension of their desktop computing experience ended up frustrated and disappointed.
TITAN LEV is the only Linux distribution that was developed from the users’ perspective providing a richer and different user experience than any other Linux distribution.
So, have y’all seen TITAN LEV, what do you think of it, and do you have any questions for Mr. Nissenboim?
June 11th, 2009
Fight Windows tax with a penguin stick
Two of the big trends at the recent CompuTex show were Windows and chip memory.
Vendors all showed Windows exclusively, even on netbooks costing under $300 at retail.
The latest models had a lot more chip-based memory, called SSD (Solid State Drive) in Taiwan, with drives the size of a credit card carrying 64 Gigabytes for under $140.
Hardware vendors don’t much care about the “Windows Tax,” Microsoft’s plan to push upgrades of the Windows 7 it will ship with netbooks (at a reported $3 each) to Home Premium, which costs much more.
Microsoft hopes that its alliance with Chinese and Taiwanese OEMs will also lead to a surge for Windows Mobile, which will be delivered as an embedded operating system at that low price.
It’s a real market threat.
Netbook owners will be encouraged to pay the upgrade price so their gadget becomes a real PC.
During CompuTex I found a possible answer to this at the side of my own netbook, where I hung a 32 GByte Corsair Flash to make up for the fact that my HP Mini came with just 2 Gbytes of main storage. (Shown is the 64 GByte version.)
Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin, whom I met for the first time at the show, did not need a Corsair on his HP Mini, and noted it came with Ubuntu installed, from the HP online store.
But with stick prices falling and companies looking for ways to increase their value with software, there should be an opportunity to load Linux on a stick you can practically give away, or sell sticks with software that will swap out Windows for Linux and save the old install in case the customer wants to go back to it.
Call it the Penguin Stick. Make your netbook a real PC for no money down. Avoid the Windows Tax and upgrade your performance.
By putting Linux on a stick, you have hardware you can get a price for, and that price should enable retail distribution, which is Linux’ main weakness.
It may be OK for Linux to be invisible, but it’s not necessary.
June 3rd, 2009
To Jim Zemlin this CompuTex represents progress
My impressions about a failure of Linux to break through at CompuTex are based on observations of this year’s show floor. I was not here previously
But this is not Jim Zemlin’s first rodeo. The executive director of the Linux Foundation told me he is seeing great momentum for Linux at this show.
I spoke with Zemlin (right, at right) following his talk before a few hundred people in a conference room at the Taiwan World Trade Center (TWTC), a subsidiary venue for CompuTex. The main exhibits are in the Nangang Exhibition space several miles away.
There are really two shows here, he said, one that you see and one that you don’t.
“If you look at the show floor you’re only seeing half the picture,” he said.
“The argument I just made is real and people in Taiwan understand it and are looking for an alternative to Windows. They live in a world of very tight margins, of hyper competition, they struggle every day to differentiate. That comes from software, and Windows does not provide that diferentiation.”
Zemlin’s talk was scheduled after a talk on the Moblin project, which Intel has since passed on to the Foundation. The talk on Moblin seemed to draw more excitement than Zemlin’s discussion of Linux. Dozens of people left the room after he began speaking.
This did not discourage him one bit, just as the Taiwanese habit of listening quietly and offering little reaction to what is heard did not discourage him. Nothing seems to discourage Jim Zemlin.,
In response to a question about Moblin and Android, he admitted that Android currently has an advantage, because of the HTC phones already on the market. But he predict Moblin will shine in the coming “convergence” world where laptops and phones become one.
“In the next 6-12 months, when you start seeing Moblin devices in the market, when it’s productized, you’ll see developer interest go crazy,” he predicted.
While we sat we also compared netbooks. I showed him the HP Mini 1000 I bought at Fry’s, which only had Windows versions. He showed me an identical device (only with more internal memory) he had bought at the HP web site, for the same price I paid, and with Ubuntu Linux installed.
As in so many things Zemlin’s answer to problems in the channel is to find another channel. Actions to live by.
June 2nd, 2009
Sorry Linux but the chicken came first
In the old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, I got the answer this week, at least as it relates to computing.
The chicken came first.
I started my day on a hunt for Linux, preferably desktop Linux.
It was depressing. It’s not just Asus and MSI who have gone Windows in Taiwan, it’s everyone. The Microsoft booth dominates in a corner of the show floor. Instead of bragging on what they have done, they are pushing embedded systems for games and home servers. They are pushing outward, not defending their turf but attacking.
I visited the SUSE Linux booth, the only obvious Linux presence on the main floor. Where is my penguin, I asked. Where is the gear running Linux?
Intel has some, I was told. So I went to the Intel booth. After some shrugs and shaken heads, I was taken to a bank of three monitors showing network applications, under Linux. All were behind glass. You could look but you better not touch.
I wandered over to AMD. AMD dressed girls in high boots and short skirts. They are still showing what is known here as “fighting spirit.” Certainly they would be fighting for the penguin.
Where is Linux, I asked. I was pointed to a corner of the booth, where an AMD embedded system was shown, naked, running Ubuntu. But not for the office. This is an OEM product, I was told. Next to it stood the application. A slot machine, apparently developed for the Macau market.
June 1st, 2009
In netbook market, Wintel monopoly healthier than ever
I am filing this week from CompuTex, the Taiwan computer show. (Think Comdex, written in Chinese.)
I came here in search of successors to the Linux Laptops I wrote about here a year ago.
What I found was that the makers of those laptops, Asus and MSI, have switched entirely to Windows.
Microsoft has one of the largest exhibits at this show, as large as Asus and MSI’s own stands. The three companies seem to have embraced the fourth floor of the Nangang Convention Center, one of four halls housing the latest from Taiwan and the rest of the Far East.,
The two Taiwanese companies are taking different approaches.
- Asus is sticking with the same basic footprint as before, but offering larger keyboards on units where it has larger 10 inch screens. It is also adding more flash memory to keep prices in the $4-600 range they held last year,.
- MSI sees netbooks as the bottom of a laptop push. It’s offering very thin models (think MacBook Air), with much wider screens, along with large keyboards and space near the front to rest your wrists. Weight starts at a little over 3 pounds, rising to just 4, and these should over time become true laptop replacements.
I was told by another show visitor, a Chinese-Canadian, that there was a speaker on Monday talking up the Android operating system on ARM chipsets, but the battle appears to be over on netbooks running the Intel Atom chip. Microsoft won.
Booth personnel I talked with basically confirmed what I wrote about this in May, that there is a price lower than free. Microsoft can pull demand through Best Buys and Fry’s with collateral, promotion, and other marketing aids. No Linux vendor has the money to compete with that.
As a result both Asus and MSI look as much like conventional PC vendors as HP and Dell as you can possibly look. In stores this Christmas they may be their successors, because their netbooks look really good.,
But the old Wintel monopoly, for now, is healthier than ever.
May 18th, 2009
Linux and the channel
Linux Pundit Bill Weinberg has produced two posts this weekend asking why we don’t have Linux laptops, what I would call Netbooks running Linux.
His answers are conventional. Microsoft price cuts. Ubuntu looked less than impressive. Maybe it will go from the phone up rather than the desk down, he concludes.
The answer, I’ve found, comes down to one of the first terms I learned when I joined the computer press, over 25 years ago.
The channel.
We think of stores as being the home of demand. They are not. They are where demand is satisfied.
The home of demand lies on the other end of the telescope. It lies in the marketing collateral, the co-op dollars, and the mass advertising strategies of manufacturers.
In PC manufacturing there is only one name that counts. Microsoft. Everyone else is an OEM.
Everyone suffers from this.
I tried out some Linux laptops last year and, while there were some glitches they held promise. But when it came time for me to lay down cash, there was no Linux kit on the shelves.
What I learned from a month owning a Microsoft Netbook is that I wish I had a choice. Despite a lack of moving parts, my HP Netbook is a battery hog. I could get 10 hours with a Linux laptop. The same box running Microsoft runs for fewer than three.
There’s more. My Linux laptop booted almost instantly. This Microsoft monster takes two minutes to get there.
Want to talk cost of ownership? You have no choice with Windows but to load the thing up with anti-virals and registry cleaners. They all have to load before you can do any work.
And then there’s the cost of time. They all have to check things out for you. Any nasties out there — any updates? Come back when we’re done, junior — get a cup of coffee or something.
When I get back from China, I’m erasing the 8 GByte stick memory “hard drive” on my HP Netbook and starting over.
All this changes when you move from the phone down. There you find there is a different manufacturer. Your mobile phone carrier. And everyone else is an OEM.
Who do you hate more, Microsoft or the phone company? Because those are your choices. Even Apple must, in some ways, dance to the tune of the carriers. There is no free market for phone tech — just a carrier oligopoly.
In mobile devices carriers control the channel.
We can cry about that if we want, but that’s the reality. And this gives Linux its opportunity. Because carriers don’t want the headaches of Microsoft any more than we do. Since they create the demand, they get to decide.
By handing the design job off to variations on a Linux distro — LiMo, QT, Android — carriers get flexibility with no loss of control. It’s still true that nothing gets on their network without approval, but in their world Microsoft becomes just another OEM, like Apple for AT&T.
So is Bill right? Will the Linux laptop fit within the palm of your hand?
Maybe. But so long as carriers control the channel it won’t be Linux as you know it. It will be Linux as they want it.
April 28th, 2009
The campaign for real keyboards
The latest Netbook rumor is out, this one straight out of Goangzhou and involving a unit running Google’s Android operating system.
Once again, there is something important missing.
A keyboard. (The picture is from an excellent review of keyboards at our Australia affiliate, CNET Australia.)
Westerners need keyboards. Real keyboards. Keyboards you use 10 fingers on, the 8 main digits held up like you’re about to play the piano, the thumbs resting comfortably on the space bar.
I want my index fingers to feel a line or at least a bump beneath them, so they know they’re properly placed on the f and j keys. And I want enough real estate on that keyboard so my fingers aren’t bumping into one another on their appointed rounds.
And I want enough travel when I press down the key so I know I pressed it, and don’t have to guess.
I want a real keyboard.
This should not be hard to do on a Netbook. It should not be that expensive. OK, so you make the case bigger, and maybe the screen bigger. But the case width can be wider than the screen if screen cost is the issue.
I have a theory as to why we are having this problem. I have yet to meet a Chinese or Japanese business associate who types the way I do.
Typing an ideogram means a multi-step process to get something on the screen, but each ideogram is a word. The languages are saved using two bytes, not one. You keep your head down and work out the formula for each ideogram. It’s a different process, more mental than physical.
Not so with English, or similar alphabetic languages. For me each keystroke just gets me a letter, it takes several to make a word, so a Chinese hunt-and-pecker may be a faster typist than an American 10-finger dude, assuming he or she has some practice.
Whatever the cause of the problem it is becoming something of a personal cause for me. When I read reviews complaining that Netbooks are “toys,” regardless of their operating system, it’s the keyboard they are really talking about.
What CompuTex needs is a campaign for real keyboards.
April 24th, 2009
Microsoft and the PCjr
While reading all about how Microsoft wants to give away a “crippled” version of Windows 7 to Netbook buyers and then try to upsell them, I kept harking back to the early 1980s, my earliest days in computer journalism.
I was thinking of the IBM PCjr. (Get a full-size print of this classic PCjr ad for just $11.99 at Adaholic.)
The PCjr was a crippled version of the IBM PC, then the market leader. This particular ad ran the same month the Apple Macintosh was announced.
What most people remember about the PCjr was its “chicklet” keyboard, but it was not-quite-a-PC in many other ways. It was less expandable and cheaply made. It was a failure.
Today’s Netbooks are crippled in similar ways to the PCjr, one reason I’m heading to Taiwan in June for CompuTex. You could ask, as Ed Bott does, why then can’t you just live with the limits of the cheapo Windows 7 “starter edition” software.
Why? Because Moore’s Law does not stand still. Today’s Netbooks are terribly limited but within two years, you will be able to get much better product for about the same price.
That will be the Linux opportunity. Personally I can’t see using a lot of applications at once on today’s Netbooks. But that’s not because of their processor or memory limitations. It’s that four-finger keyboard.
Today’s Netbooks are road machines, cheap, rugged Internet clients. Tomorrow’s may be the server to a handheld client, perhaps one running Google’s Android, which the Linux Foundation folks insist is a Linux distro. If your client and server become compatible, that’s the usability sweet spot.
That’s what Microsoft should most fear. Moore’s Law holds that better-and-better comes faster-and-faster. It’s not the 2009 Netbooks that Microsoft needs to worry about, but those that will emerge in 2011and beyond. Their price will stay low. Their capabilities will simply rise.
By then, Windows 7 Starter Edition really will be the PCjr and a server-client Android combination may cost no more than a few Internet service contracts.
April 14th, 2009
Why Microsoft won round one of netbook wars
During yesterday’s blackout in Atlanta I took my family into the wilds of Gwinnett County, for food with a side of Fry’s.
It was there, while my kids perused the latest video games, that I learned why Microsoft won this round of the Netbook wars.
And there is no doubt they won it.
There are, at Fry’s, a number of Netbooks on offer, including two that are true Netbooks — no moving parts. Others had 160 GByte hard drives built-in, which I think violates the spirit of the design.
None ran Linux. All ran Windows.
The salesman was a Linux enthusiast, however, and was able to explain just why you can’t get Ubuntu there.
Free is not the lowest possible price. If you want to get sell-through at retail, you have to support the product with collateral materials, with ads, with sales training and support.
Ubuntu, as a company, is not scaled to do this. Microsoft, on the other hand, has already delivered this, for years. Thus the few Netbook units on display run what is now, essentially, the “free” version of Windows, XP Home. Once you get into a true laptop, you’re still stuck with Vista. I avoided that section.
I walked out with an HP 1010NR, refurbished. Its “hard drive” is an internal 8 GByte stick, but I was able to add another 32 GBytes for just $50 (with rebate) and, with a slick little case, spent less than $350 (including tax) for a perfectly usable Internet-capable machine.
I made a special point of checking out the keyboard. It’s not perfect, but it is much better than those on the Asus and Acer Netbooks I have seen before. Chinese OEMs don’t yet understand that some westerners are touch typists, and need a certain amount of room so the digits can play it like a piano.
Well, the total damages came to $450. The kids wanted games, and I needed a battery-operated alarm clock in case the lights go out again.
This will prove useful for my coming trip to…China.
More on that later.
April 8th, 2009
How will Netbooks change our computing lives
Royal Pingdom has a post up about how Netbooks change the way we live. (Picture from JinJin80, a chef’s blog.)
It’s mostly tongue in cheek. Wardriving from the bathroom. Comparison shopping on the High Street. Copying recipes in a neighbor’s kitchen.
A lot of these are also smartphone applications. As I’ve said the difference between a smartphone and a Netbook in 2010 will be its case. Many will share chip sets and software.
Which leads me to ask, more seriously this time, how will Netbooks change our computing lives?
Despite the Microsoft triumphalism, they can’t be seen as a winner. Yet.
Winning the OS war here meant dropping XP at $3/copy. Even if you add old versions of common applications to that bundle, fact is you’re not making money, and you’re making your margins wafer thin.
You’re not going to spend $300 for software on a machine that cost you $200, maybe less. You’re going to use what came with the device, and treat it as disposable.
Instead of being an end in itself, which a laptop becomes, a Netbook is a means to the end, the end in this case being the Internet. Its competition, for better or worse, is the iPhone, and it competes based on an interface that can accommodate 10 fingers and a PC screen’s aspect ratio.
All of which means that the most important sale for a Netbook owner will be an automated “sync” service, one which assures any files you create or improve on the device are updated to a Web site that becomes your data’s real home.
Cheapskates may want to just use a stick memory and wait until they get home to sync up, so don’t go writing big business plans — even this service is going to be low-priced and low-margin.
My point is that, with a Netbook on the road joining your laptop back at home and the desktop at your office, not to mention the phone in your pocket, we are creating data in a lot of places, some of which we may want to save.
Which brings me to the picture above. Mise en place may be the big opportunity Netbooks make obvious.
What do you think?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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