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HP Dumps Linux for Windows XP MCE in New Media Player
An anonymous reader writes "There hasn't been much said about this, but HP's new z545 Digital Entertainment Center appears to be a Windows-based re-spin of an earlier Linux-based model that HP unveiled three years ago at the Tech X NY trade show in New York, and which was sold for some time as the de100c Digital Entertainment Center. Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left."
What seems to be most clear from the article is that HP is interested in developing these devices but not interested in actually doing a significant amount of the R&D for it. With Linux, though they had a large amount of control over the featureset as well as the functionality at a low level, they probably spent too much money performing the customizations. With Microsoft doing all the development, HP is free to focus on the look and feel of the device rather than the OS level driver tweaking.
In this day and age, the operating system is pretty much a commodity. It is the software features on top that give a device any sort of real value. Since a device like this never exposes the underlying operating system to users, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money developing something yourself, especially when someone else has already invested the development effort.
So blue screen jokes aside, this is probably a good business decision for HP. Maybe not so good for those embedded Linux engineers who don't have a job on that team anymore, but fiscally the best choice for the company.
"There hasn't been much said about this, but HP's new z545 Digital Entertainment Center appears to be a Windows-based re-spin of an earlier Linux-based model... Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left."
Or maybe not much is said about it because it's not such a big deal if a company launches one more Windows-powered device?
Seriously, it's not like this makes them all evil or something (although some would say they already are, what with them having killed Alpha in favor of Itanic etc).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Microsoft has had this recent trend to push a stripped down version of Windows XP on all "Media Devices." I was at the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology were M$ launched the Windows Media Center or what ever its called for devices like this. While linux might do it better M$ has done all the hard work for these companies and made it intigrated into Win XP so its "easier for users." Ive played with a few of these and found it anything but easy. This is just M$s way of competing with the iPod.
...does it run Lin... oh, right...
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
what hurts me though are the $$ that finally get to naughty bill for the embedded windows. HP should consider bare-bones.
I'm guessing we won't be privy to information surrounding this, but if by some coincidence someone with access to the information at HP is reading this..?
I'd like to see some data comparing the two devices in terms of reliability, customer satisfaction, rate of returns and junk like that.
I know why *I* would prefer one version of the product over another because if I know there's Linux inside, I want to play with it. But Joe consumer doesn't usually know one way or the other so I'm interested in a manufacturer's perspective on this. They care about whether a [version of a] product is widely accepted, MTBF (mean time between failure), rate of returns and junk like that.
If the main difference between the two devices is the OS underneath, it would be a terrific opportunity to see the impact that the OS choice makes in the creation of a consumer product is concerned.
HP's been at the top at some point technology-wise?
I'd argue that HP has been going downhill in terms of innovative products even *before* Perens headed out.
Is it possible that HP used the earlier iteration of the device to push home it's economies of scale message with Microsoft?
There has been a few stories recently where local governments, schools and SMBs have used Linux as leverage to get MS to drop their prices.
HP is just as much a customer of MS in the OEM market as anybody else...They would have to negotiate what they pay for their OEM licenses that they include with their consumer PCs. Any drop in what they pay MS for the OEM licenses translates into pure profit for HP without changing the sticker price.
Granted that these media centre devices have a reasonable chance of providing market penetration where PCs will not go (I'm thinking the poorer end of the socioeconomic demographic), and the aforementioned "linux as leverage" strategy, MS may have been prepared to give up some percentage on their OEM license fees for ALL of HPs product range to get MS MCE onto these devices.
I think they did this to be able to use WMA format.
I would be surprised if Microsoft provides a linux compatable WMA codec, and I do not know if they license the algorithm or code. Is there any information whether WMA can be licensed to use on linux?
If not, then this is probably the reason.
badness 10000
Through my job it telecoms, I've been to a number of IBM sites in my travels and the Linux presence is openly on show at all of the sites I've visited whereas the missus says she's never heard Linux mentioned at HP, even though she's involved in their internal IT support.
This shouldn't really come as a great shock to anyone - having worked for Lucent in the good old Carly Fiorina days, that woman typifies the role of "corporate whore" and will name drop just about any cool and emerging technology she can just to make her empty speeches sound more impressive.
Digital is no more, Tru64 is dead and HP simply never were and never will be a true Linux player - they're basically just a hardware arm of Microsoft these days.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I tend to think theses consumer devices sells mostly to users just willing to use them plain.
What is the proportion of hobby hackers, buying theses devices and choosing Linux based ones with stright intention to actualy hack them ?
Do average consumer care much about the nick names of the internal componants they don't even know about it to be there ?
This thing has an operating system ? (Oh great, and how do I enable this function ?)
And it even run Linux inside you know ?! (Well, I just need to watch and record video and music)
Well, it may look a squewed point here.
Who buy what and, what are the consumers IBM is looking at ?
Wouildn't hacker be more satisfyed with these nices open sources projects, like MythTv, Freevo or VDR loaded in a custum mini-itx home build media center ?
As of now, I'm not sure if selling stuffs for hackers is relevant for IBM.
Léa Gris
Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left.
The joint started going downhill when Carly Fiorina took over.
I suggest you get actual data.
Hum :)
Please swap IBM/HP.
Léa Gris
I think it's a smart move. The Linux geeks will put Linux on it anyway. Those who want Windows get it for cheap. Everybody gets what they want, everybody happy.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
HP is dead. It used to be a scientific/technical company on the cutting edge of science and technology. It has ceased to be anything of any importance. Instead of hardware that people will never part with (I'll give up my 48G when I'm *dead*), Carly Fiorina has turned that company into a "Brand" that markets a commodity. Brands are a dime a dozen. The HP brand trades on its history and when people realize that HP is not the HP of history, the Brand of HP will be worth exactly what Carly has turned it into:
Nothing.
HP symbolizes to me what happens when MBAs and Accountants run businesses. When your goal is merely meeting the numbers at the end of the quarter, you do not see the long view of the future. You simply go with the lowest common denominator, stagnate, and lose customers in the long run. The death of such a company does not take long. Witness the Race to the Bottom between Compaq and Packard Bell. Both are gone, and it only took a year or two to happen.
Thanks, Carly, for killing one of my favorite companies.
--
BMO
That would be hilarious if true. Source please?
Oh wait, memes don't have to be true. I keep forgetting.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
The quality of HP computers has been declining significantly during the past three years while the prices did not in order to compensate for the increased marketing efforts. If HP wants to survive they better focus on improving their products, supporting Linux, and not pushing junk.
Honestly, who gives a damn what OS it runs? As long as it works, let it go.
Microsoft stated they wanted to be the major company for home media, and following that trend of embrace, extended and buy out, you can expect more companies to choose microsoft due to cheap contracts with almost free support.
Microsoft is already trying to take the HDDVD consumer market with WM9, this is just another area for them to get a foothold.
It will be the same tactic they have used in the PC Vendor market for years. Microsoft will give the product away, vendors will bite, use the product, then get locked it.
And companies no longer look for the long term goals, just what makes money the next quarter. If HP was smart, they would stick with linux, develop the software they own, and pay no licensing fees. You think they would have learned from their past experiences with Microsoft.
Call me jaded, but I see the trend everywhere, sell/buy now, whatever makes my books look good this year. This is how CEO's dump and run companies, and why mergers are so common.
Now, think 5 years from now, HP's product will look like everyone elses, what will be the difference? Nothing, they use the same software, the hardware is off the shelf. The CEO's will sell HP, another merger. Meanwhile, another billion for Microsoft.
It's good to be the only vendor, the only one choice. Er, lack of choice I should say. I bet Microsoft's stock goes up again tomorrow from this news.
You've got a lot of balls calling the majority stupid. Don't you read history, do you know what happened to people like Socrates and Galileo? And heck, they were right.
I'm not sure I understand the logic here. IIRC, Socrates and Galileo were both in the minority at their time. They were persecuted for it and they turned out to be right. So how does this back up your point?
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
This company isn't really HP, it became something else when Carly Fiorina took over running the company. In any case, Carly Fiorina said at the beginning of this year, that she aimed to put rigorously enforced DRM on all HP's devices. Meanwhile MS is busting a gut trying to sell its new DRM technologies to everyone. It's easy to see how Linux just doesn't fit into that strategy particulary well, and Microsoft does.
O.K so all of my bias, etc aside. I think this is a good idea for HP. Let's think about it.
1. Assuming a semi stable enviroment (which I class WinXP MCE as) the user will probably never see much of a difference between Linux or MS. They won't see the underlying difference.
2. There is no equivalent of MPlayer for linux that won't get HP in trouble. If they start selling off these things with linux on them they'll have to use MPlayer to get any sort of decent functionality and MS/Apple/everyone else will sue the pants off them.
3. Linux is inherently OSS. It isn't going to be as easy to build DRM checking into it as it is for Windows MCE. Now I'm not sure if HP is onto a good idea or not, but let's say it is. So this thing gets big, and without DRM they become a target for the RIAA. Now they aren't in a situation like Apple/iTunes, but things could still get ugly.
--
The last digit of pi is four.
I find it hard to compare the functionality of these 2 systems.
The first one had:
- a cd rewriter.
It offered:
- playing of music.
The second one has
- 2(!) tuners
- a processor which can easily decode 3 dvd's parallel
- a video card which will be able to play doom3 (once the linux install is done)
- look at the I/O (which is the most important thing)
So, it is easy to see why the first one was a big miss: It didn't have/promise any functionality.
The big minuses about this system:
- a fan/harddisk. You don't want fans or harddisk hums in your living room. They are really anoying!
- $2000 for that?
- No DVB (digital tv), so it is already outdated before it is selling. (you can attach a DVB-USB device. Ah, and which software is going to support that? Just wait for the linux install guys).
Why did you choose the word "meme"?
I'm so fucking ashamed of my country. I've lost all hope. It seems like we're fighting a war against the blindly patriotic and evangelical christians, and we're hopelessly outnumbered.
My whole world has truly turned upside down - my own sister voted for Bush, for crying out loud. She just keeps parroting back the "flip flop" thing and the "Iraq violated UN blahblahblah Saddam was a threat blah blah blah". It's like she's joined some sort of cult or is in the grip of some hideous mind control.
It's a nightmare, and I can't wake up.
do this anouncement means the hype of "linux everywhere" is over ?
let's face it, guys. all products/technologies goes though an over-hype period during its life where it's sold as fix-all do-all solution for all mankind's problems. then people realize that it's not quite like that, the product/technology is loathed because it didn't deliver, the it gets to the point we all hope linux gets to: it becomes a mature technology.
maybe it's already mature enough for the server and some embeded appliances, it's maturing quickly in the handhelds and maybe now it's time to tackle the media-center maturing proccess. maybe not from greedy brands like HP, but maybe from some unexpected source. after the media center is taken, maybe the hype of "linux on desktop" will be already fading, which will means the start of the maturing proccess in this field too, but i'm digressing here.
let's give time for linux to mature as a media-player and wait. a breakthrough in this area will certainly come from a really inovative comapny. i'm just certain it wont be HP.
What ? Me, worry ?
it is my internet radio which runs windows (ce?) and even with upgrades it is not able to play the latest windows media streams. go figure.
I buy a machine with windows embedded and they(hw company+ms) are not even able to keep it compatible within their own framework.
His name is Balmer...
Whos to say that perhaps at a meeting not long ago an MS salesman dropped a none too subtle hint that if HP continued using Linux on a mass market system then licensing of various things on the PC side may become trickier or more expensive. We all know how MS operates and even a company the size of HP has to ask "how high?" when billy says jump when it comes down to usage of the OS that runs on the platform that brings in a large part of HPs profits.
I've now gone back to my Nokia 6310i - it does all I need it to do alongside my Linux-powered Sharp Zaurus PDA so Microsoft can go figure...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
HP has lost it completely. In their zeal to compete with Dell, Gateway and IBM they made a couple of accidental gunshot wounds to the head:
* Spun off several sources of invention and innovation when they spun off Agilent.
* Purchased Compaq in an ill advised grab for market share. Their reason: they wanted Digital's professional services...
* Alienated their dealership channel by trying to be Dell and sell direct.
They will lose their independence sometime in the next few years when someone else wants to try to knock off IBM and Dell and wants HP -er- COmpaq -er- Digital's professional services unit.
And HP's CEO is an idiot.
-- $G
you are not dave from Lxer by any chance are you?
Developing software is hard work. Developing products is hard work. Dealing with customers is hard work -- especially big ones like HP. Seeing the future, writing a spec and releasing a feature set requires time, talent, capital and a willingness to take a risk -- in this case, a big risk.
Linux got a leg up on Microsoft when HP released its Linux-based product. Then, no one cared enough to do the hard work needed to compete with MS. Don't complain about a bad decision at HP or another case of MS taking over a new market. Linux didn't lose the game. Linux never came out for the second inning.
No problem...be patient...:-)
Listen Everyone,
I am putting a home stereo system together for the living room and really like the looks of this device. Now can someone point me in the right direction where I can buy a similar featured device that runs Linux? Before anyone points out that I can build one with various howto's across the net, I don't have the time.
As a consumer, choice is good but functionality is better!
The guy has a point, it wouldn't be the first time MS has strongarmed someone!
I think it's just the inevitable outcome when you start whoring yourself out to everybody - they sold out their PA-RISC and Alpha in order to be Intel's Best Friend, they're selling out their "strong" commitment to OSS in order to be Microsoft's Best Friend (all quite sad, because Intel and Microsoft already have a best friend - Dell. Who wants to see HP dead).
And it totally sucked. It work horribly, I couldn't believe a company with such a brand such as HP would produce such garbage. I quickly returned if after trying it out. Let's hope their Windows based player has more QA involved before they release that one.
I personally maintain several Linux/*BSD boxes internally, there are quite a few employees running some flavor of linux on their desktop, usually Mandrake, SuSE or RedHat/Fedora (there are even corporate images of a couple of distros) and there is a fairly large open source team here. While on some level what your wife says might have some truth, you shouldn't paint the whole company with the same brush.
"DRM doesn't seem to have hurt sales of DirectTV, XM Radio, cable PPV, DVDs or the iPod."
There is no DRM on any of these things.
All of these things (with the exception of the iPod) have access control on them, but no DRM. I can make recordings all I want of DirectTV, XM (and Sirius), PPC, and DVD's.
And the only reason people are buying iPods with 60GB hard drives isnt' to fill them up with 10,000 songs at $.99 cents a copy, they buy iPods because its an MP3 player that has no effective DRM.
Really, the examples of real DRM (DIVX, for example) have been glorious failures.
[With Microsoft doing all the development, HP is free to focus on the look and feel of the device rather than the OS level driver tweaking.]
I doubt it. HP contracts out the industrial designs most of the time. They will even do that for some of the UI stuff. More than likely, they just outsourced the entire product and just stuck their name on it. The're doing this more and more, so you can doubt that a lot of their new products will be very innovative.
How long exactly does the community have to stay patient till we accept that Linux is useless for 95% of home & desktop uses?
Every year, we see "200X to be the year of the linux desktop". It just is NOT going to happen. Business will never accept the added risk and complication of a linux operating environment.
If its just another device running XP - where's the distinguishing factor that makes this one better than the competitors which also run XP? Why should customers buy HP's device when so many others, perhaps cheaper ones, have exactly the same user interface for better or worse?
Where's the innovation?
I lost my job with HP because they exported my job to India. If you'd like to voice your opinions to her directly, her email (the last time I checked) is carly.s.fiorina@hp.com
If you're unable to reach her, its probably because she had her email account closed due to too many inquiries. Its not like she can't call India and have them give her a new account anyway.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
We care because:
MS-based Multimedia OS==DRM. DRV==restriction.
Restriction==it doesn't work for us, or at least not the way we want to
It's called a bandwagon. If more companies keep jumping on it, then it tends to become the default path-of-choice. Do you really want 99% of media products out there to be laden with MS DRM?
That's MBO. Hell, Abbott Labs was using this in the 80s, caused a huge number of energetic people to leave, including me. I bailed when I was told by my manager that my accomplishments had no bearing on my performance review, that my review was written at the beginning of the cycle.
I took that one to her manager, he confirmed it, they had my letter that week. What a bunch of dorks.
"You've got a lot of balls calling the majority stupid. Don't you read history, do you know what happened to people like Socrates and Galileo? And heck, they were right."
They laughed at Socrates, they laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at the Marx Brothers.
"Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left."
The story is about HP: Hewlett Packard not Hewlett Perens.
The parent is deciving. Both media centers ARE PC based, but the similarity ends there. The old linux one is a crappy celeron, whereas the newer windows based version is a P4 3.0 Ghz. They do not share a case, or remote, or anything else. Basically, HP had an old pc entertainment center running linux, then they came out with a new one running windows. I have a feeling that they are not the only company that has done this...
For what you spent on that HP system, you could have had an EPIA M-10000 box and had a hell of a lot more capabilities- I mean, why bother? I'm pretty sure it's going to flop hard in light of the fact that D-Link's got a better product out for $199- and isn't muddied with desktop functionality (Why would you need that? Surfing the web on your TV? Unless you've got an HD capable monitor, you're not really going there- TV's are evil, resolution-wise.) and works with wireline and 802.11g
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It's a 3GHz P4 mobo designed to hook into a TV, etc. Not the 566MHz Celeron that was indicated in the grandparent post.
It's probably going to cost ~$600-1000 and might be worth dinking with to put Linux on. However, I stand by the thinking that you can get comparable functionality without going to them for it. This is going to flop on expense more than anything else.
Again, like my original reply, why bother? Because it's there? You can do as good or better for that money- and not pay the Windows tax on the stuff.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I believe his point is the persecution. Getting your ass kicked because you acted superior to your peers doesn't strike me as a particularly pleasant thing. Unless RMS starts promising eternal salvation (which wouldn't surprise me), I somehow doubt it's worth getting martyred for just some stupid pieces of software.
Honestly I don't blame them in the least for making this decision. Playing media on Linux is a real pain nowadays. Media codecs are all proprietary, and very few, if any, are licensed for Linux. Also, DRM is a very big concern for content producers, so using Linux would mean figuring out how to hamstring the device to deny users the ability to use their media. Heck, Linux media is all about taking Windows codecs and using them through software anyway. What a licensing hassle! I think HP is better served in not doing the research to try and straighten out the media concerns of Linux. After all, it's better to have a marginalized product than to have a marginalized product that advances a community with proper codec licensing.
Where's the innovation?
Marketing and price.
What distinguishes HP from eMachines on the shelves of Best Buy? Since they are both generally crap, they make up for it with neat-looking plastic on the front, putting RCA jacks in the floppy bay of some models, and putting meaningless words like "accelerated", "professional", "educational", and "multimedia" here and there. Throw in a free crap inkjet printer somewhere, and the marks march right on out of the store with a new found credit card balance. Brownie points to the salesman that gets them to buy a network hub, even though they have only one computer.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
There's a lot more to a media player than the OS. You must be some kind of moron if that's all you can see. How about the analog section of the device? How about the battery life? How about the storage space? How about the physical dimensions? How about the stability of the company? How about the service? I mean for fuck's sake, there's more to life than your favorite OS you stupid git.
HP symbolizes to me what happens when MBAs and Accountants run businesses.
As opposed to who? Techies? Techies that would demand open source everything, and drive the company into the ground faster than you can say "profit!" To lump all MBA's together is short sighted. In case you just fell off the turnip truck, almost every large business on the planet is run by MBA's. So before you go knocking an entire educational track, you should look into who runs the companies that made all of the computer stuff you posted with, or the people running the companies that you get your bandwidth from, or the people that run the companies that made the clothes you're wearing right now, etc.
I don't respond to AC's.
I guess I can stop imagining a beowulf cluster of these.
why buy one of these - I bought a tv card for my pc and now I have one of these - I can record shows and do what I want - I am running fedora by the way - I am sick of all these little dedicated devices - it is just too much - I use my pc for everything stream media - record tv shows - create home videos - why would I want to buy one of these when I can have a pc and it can do everything - webserver, video recorder, music streamer, the list goes on and oh ya - word processor. I am into simplifying these days and I don't want to have all these fricken devices in my life that need managing. just give me my handspring visor and a pc and I can get all my sysadmin work done.
All major PC manufacturers will be creating PCs for this purpose (why would they want to miss out on a new high-end market). I'm coding a service for MCE2005 at work at the moment, and HP is known as being the provider of the most exceptional systems. Don't know if that will hold true forever.
Both the RIAA and MPAA require their content to be DRM encrypted before being sold digitally. Microsoft already has a system that has yet to be cracked, so they threw up a system that uses graphics-rich webpages to control Windows Media Player.
If the price of the units get down to $500 instead of $2500, this will be a big hit. The DRM on the files is fair, since it lets you burn them to disc.
From my point of view, we need to do whatever it takes to move on from current cable TV, it feels so archaic.
You answered your own question. The point is that the majority are not always right. Those in minority that think for themselves to form their own opinion usually end up being right.
I assume that since the new one is MCE and sports a 3GHz P4 (how are they gonna cool that and keep it quiet enough for an A/V rack???), that it stores/plays video.
The older device was a much slower CPU also. With a 566MHz Coppermine/Celery, it was very much less capable of doing video.
See also this yahoo group.
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drunk: anne
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drunk: haha i nel i din no u!!!!!
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bystander: Yep
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drunk: yeh
bystander: Ooh...probably one of my friends im'd me from your place then
drunk: huh......do u liek bratvuzt?
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drunk: sorby, bratwurst. wit bcans
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Previous message was not received by bystander because of error: User bystander is not available.
They were right and they still got flogged.
I guess inference isn't your strong point.
I'm sorry: "Rah rah rah! GWB is a douchebag and a lot more than 51% of the population disagrees with me, but that doesn't matter because I'm sad and I want to cry loudly about it! To hell with fair elections, I want Kerry!"
They were right and they still got flogged.
Yes, Galileo and Socrates were right. They also weren't in the majority. Let's do a time-delayed replay:
You: You've got a lot of balls calling the majority stupid. [What about] Socrates and Galileo?
Me: IIRC, Socrates and Galileo were both in the minority
You were trying to make the point that we shouldn't call people stupid if they are in the majority. And you gave 2 examples in which the majority were wrong.
I gues logic isn't your strong point.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
Theses are the top ten, have not changed for Bush/kerry election.
Not quite. NH went for Kerry this time around (and Iowa was not determined). So the top ten:
New Hampshire 104IQ 34,702 Kerry
Oregon 103IQ $29,340 Kerry
Massachusetts 103IQ $39,815 Kerry
Wisconsin 103IQ $30,898 Kerry
Colorado 102IQ $34,238 Bush
Connecticut 102IQ 43,173 Kerry
Illinois 102IQ $33,590 Kerry
Iowa 102IQ $29,043 ND
So, out of the top ten, it's 8 to 1 in favour of Kerry. This is probably completely insignificant. However, in the future it might be wise to only post statistics which support your position.
because hp is widely known as the company that makes all the right moves.
All the torrents you could want.
Listen.
You are in the minority, you idiot.
You want to keep agreeing with me?
I am listening.
I may well be an idiot.
I am in the minority.
So were Socrates and Galileo (your example, not mine).
And heck, they were right.
So remind me again why we should never accuse the majority of being wrong.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?