Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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).
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.