Microsoft to Limit Capabilities of Cheap Laptops
pcworld.com
pcworld.com
Like any business, Microsoft wants Dell to pay what XP is worth to Dell, and Asus to pay what XP is worth for the Eee. It can't simply charge one amount to Dell and another to Asus. So instead it uses arbitrary specifications to create a category of XP license that is unattractive to Dell and cost-effective for Asus.
You can argue about the ethics of this up and down, but when you start looking for it, you see that we're awash in market segmentation. Often, the most egregious examples of it actually have consumer benefits: take airfare, where the total ripoff fares I pay for last-minute business travel effective subsidize tickets for tourists who would not otherwise be able to fly.
This is a good thing.
If a consumer wants, e.g., a umpc with a touchscreen, they will be forced to get a linux one. Getting more people to try linux (and giving the linux hardware an intrinsic edge), is probably one of the worst things microsoft can do to itself and one of the best it can do for linux.
I think this is amongst the first time MS has directly had to respond to Linux as a threat on the desktop though.
Those forthcoming 9" Linux Eees for $500 with 20GB SSDs look really enticing. Emacs + Firefox + a terminal is really all you need.
Again, it's Microsoft againt progress.
Too bad we don't enforce the laws that we have on that topic.
1. This is part of the push for Vista over XP -- computers than can run Vista must run Vista, otherwise, XP is offered to avoid forfeiting the market to Linux.
2. This is a precursor to a campaign to cast Linux as a cheap operating system for low-quality computers. Hardware manufacturers can't resist offering these Ubiquitous Linux PCs, but if there's this extra incentive to keep the specs tight enough that these things can't quite be used as general-purpose computers, that can theoretically trap Linux for consumers in a sort of technological ghetto.
Or, since the left hand and right hand appear to be barely on speaking terms inside Microsoft these days, one hand might really be earnestly pushing for #1, while the other hand cackled and bought in based on #2, and thus they agree.
Unfortunately, current client trends are counter to Microsoft's strategy. Firstly, people are buying laptops rather than desktops. Both are getting cheaper. Secondly, Microsoft follows the classic monopolistic tactic of racheting prices. Successive versions of Microsoft software a typical more expensive despite initial costs already being re-couped. These trends create a situation where the cost of an operating system and pre-installed applications take an increasingly large share of the retail price. This creates a third trend of laptop manufacturers who opt-out of the "Windows tax" and only supply units with tailored open source software.
In two years, we'll probably have a device which is a mix of laptop, mobile telephone and Nintendo DS. It would be a clamshell design with two 11 inch screens with the bottom one being touch sensitive. You cannot rely on Microsoft to support such a device. Nor would it be viable to include Windows. So, such a device would mostly be used with open source operating systems.
This design has already been tried. Unfortunately, it was quite a few years ago and it was a commercial failure. However, since then, the technology has improved, the cost has fallen and the volume of people who only want to run open source software has grown significantly. This would make a similar attempt much more likely to succeed.
It is understandable that such a trend would adversely affect Microsoft. Therefore an attempt to steeply discount Windows on limited hardware has two benefits. It creates an artificial divide between premium hardware and almost disposable devices where Windows is viable on both. Secondly, it reduces the inclination for low cost manufacturers to abandon Windows.
What, exactly, did Apple ever do to make you believe that they are a benevolent force in the technology industry?
But Apple is a more benevolent force than Microsoft in that they owe their market share to the quality of their products rather than to taking over the PC standard from IBM.
Meanwhile, Linux is eating their lunch in this segment.
Well, no. Apple's idea of a cheap, lightweight computer costs $300 to $500, fits in your pocket, and (optionally) doubles as a cellphone.
(If you don't agree with this interpretation of Apple's product line, wait a couple months after the official third-party iPhone apps arrive and consider it again...)
You can't type on the iPhone very quickly, of course. It won't run emacs or vi very well. It probably won't run a web development stack, or a decent Java compiler. So if what you really want is something like an EEE you should buy an EEE. There's no reason why Apple's idea of a cheap, lightweight computer should match yours...
Whether or not the iPhone is in the EEE's market segment depends on what you think that segment is. I'd say that it's squarely in the "super-light super-cheap portable box for checking mail and web" segment. If you're talking about the "light, cheap portable box for fixing your website via SSH from a coffeehouse in the Florida Keys" segment, it's a lot less clear.
Pesonally, I have a phone that runs both ssh and vi (a Samsung i760 Windows Mobile 6 phone with a touchscreen and slideout keyboard), and I'm still interested in getting an Eee.
Make really nice products.
Apple have as much motivation for systems to stay expensive as Microsoft does. The lower prices go, the larger the premium becomes for their products vs. one running an Open Source operating system. There certainly are companies pushing the price of computing downward, but Apple is not among them. Apple does, however, occupy a vital role in keeping Microsoft busy on the "expensive but pretty" front, while Asus and others chip away at the low end of the market, eating MS from the bottom...the very same way MS and the PC market ate the mini-computer and mainframe market from the bottom and the way MySQL is eating Oracle's market from the bottom. (I'm picturing Daniel Day Lewis with a really long straw at this point, though I don't know that that is an entirely apt analogy.)
Besides limits on the screens and hard drives, to be eligible, the systems can have no more than 1G byte of RAM and a single-core processor running at no more than 1GHz.