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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.
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.
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
I doubt it.
It's the DRM media angle.
In the near future everybody is hoping that DRM-enabled digital media will make a big splash, and if you want to play that stuff you need Microsoft.
It would be stupid for HP to release a device now that would be incapable of playing most forms of protected media six to twelve months from now.
I hope that DRM crap won't take off, but I doubt HP is willing to take that risk. So they spend more money on MS's crap in the hope that it will keep their device relevent in the forseeable future.
It's not like it's going to cost them much, almost people who buy computers nowadays pays the MS tax, so worst case for HP is that they'd have to raise the price of their products by 40 dollars (at most).
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
Honestly, who gives a damn what OS it runs? As long as it works, let it go.
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.
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.
>The joint started going downhill when Carly Fiorina took over.
/. way... Moron.
If things were going good, she'd never have taken over in the first place.
>>Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left.
This (by the article author, not the parent post) is such a fucking dumb-ass comment... Spicing things up the
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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
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.