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Linux In Robots, Windows in Handhelds
savuporo writes "Robots.net is reporting that Linux-based robots are far more common than Windows-based robotics. Especially various Asian robot builders are increasingly selecting Linux and other open-source software as a basis for robot products and research. Linux is also gaining ground in other embedded applications like PDAs and mobile phones." That said, prostoalex writes "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
I'm well aware that Microsoft make smartphone software. I have a lot of friends with smart phones (most of whom are windows users), but not one of them have a windows smartphone. The microsoft smartphones just don't have the market share.
Also, everyone I knew who had a PDA has ditched them in favour of a smartphone. It's true that the market is merging, but only in one direction - phones are eating the market of PDAs. Just look at the sales figures - this year's smartphone sales are set to be higher than all the PDA sales ever!
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
The Maslab Robotics Contest evaluated both Linux and Windows for our robots, and working with Windows was a real pain. Windows Embedded lacked the configurability and features we wanted, and full-blown XP was way too bloated and GUI-dependent.
We stuck with Linux even though it meant passing up potentially lucrative sponsorship.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
With the sales markup that's over 10$ increase in sales price.
Of course it depends on the product, but if the product costs less than $200, this will hurt profits quite a bit.
in quantity.
Yes, in quantity. But who guarantees that you will sell the product in that quantity? No one. So with Windows, you are forced to take more risk. And don't forget all the paperwork associated with licensing.
Linux isn't free either. You will likely need a RTLinux commercial distro to get anything of signifigance working.
Acutally I work on a power analyzer that runs 100% on freely available software, we use PicoGUI. Anyway, it depends a lot on what you do, but most Linux-developers don't use anything that causes royalties. It's quite common to use commercial development tools, but those don't cause any royalties on a per-unit basis, they are usually a one-time cost. Commercial support is also available, again with no effect on your per-unit costs.