re: A computer with training wheels
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(4444 messages posted)
Steve wrote:
|The new 200 to 300 dollar Netbooks are really Starter Computers.
|
Wally World started selling sub-$300 desktops several years ago
--and those run Linux.
Those seem to do what Joe Average needs to do with a computer
(not supercollider-level number crunching).
When you compare what Joe needed 10 years ago to now,
the specs required of the box really haven't changed much.
|Users are not really paying for the OS.
|
The prices M$ has been charging netbook makers for OSes
is starting to fall toward the Reasonable category. In some cases,
it appears M$ is giving away their product rather than lose mindshare.
M$ is trying their hardest to gerrymander the portable x86 market,
manipulating prices according to what hardware products Windoze is installed on.
Manufacturers are self-censoring what products they produce because of this.
MS's tactics are indended to monkeywrench Linux
and the customers are suffering because of it.
|I noticed the Linux Netbooks are basically priced the same as the Windows ones.
|
As the manufacturers are becoming better at configuring/pre-loading Linux,
their labor costs to do that
are becoming equal to the labor costs of loading Windoze.
The offsetting factor that keeps a payware OS competitive is the crapware vendors
who pay a bounty to get their Windoze-compatible junk installed on new boxes.
As more peripheral manufacturers get hip to The Linux Driver Project
and learn that they can get device drivers written for free,
things will become even more competitive.
Things would evolve even sooner if the anti-trust regulators would do their jobs.
As the market moves ever more toward portable devices
(the desktop market is essentially saturated),
ARM processors and Linux will eat Intel's and M$'s lunches.
To see the future, look at M$'s financials of late and their layoffs/resignations.
Intel's recent conviction shows how desperate they have gotten
(and how dirty they play).
...and maybe you've noticed
that portable devices are increasingly coming with Linux in firmware.
You can do a fast boot to that environment and do a quickie check of something
or do maintenance on a broken Windoze install.
|
All messages in this thread [show all]
 | | | |  | re: A computer with training wheels (gewg_: Tue, Nov 17, 2009, 5:03 pm) |
| |
| |
| |
Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum
|
|
