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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%."
Since years we've been reading the PDA is dying, and unlike all the "BSD is dying" crap this actually means the market is shrinking. As long as Windows isn't a big player in the mobile phone market, that's nothing to boast about. And their mobile phone products suck - they've even crashed. That is something mobile users aren't to accept, because other key players seem to have it worked out better.
Linux gets slowly but steadily adopted into more and more mobiles, same with carrier grade Linux with the telcos.
Add this to robotics, which is associated with the biggest increases in productivity, there seems to be a bright future for embedded Linux, which is really contending with stuff like vxWorks or Symbian, not so much Windows.
Linux and free / Open Source software are used more heavily than commercial software for research and development projects.
Who would have thunk it?
This is the same as saying "Users choose Windows, Hackers choose GNU". It's not something specific to the handheld or the robotics market. It's the same that happends in the Servers Vs. Desktops dept. In areas where there is a Hacker in charge, for example, sysadmins, developers, etc. a Unix like OS will most certainly be choosen, and GNU is in most cases the best choice, because of many reasons, including ethical and comercial ones.
It's not easy to reach the end user. Specially because it's expensive. Some companys spend more on publicity than in development, why?, because that's the way to reach the end-user market.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I think you hit it on the head when you say the five year old palm does everything you need in a PDA. But I think you're wrong when you say the solution is to deploy more advanced technolgy. Unless there is a killer app for this tecnology, it will likely only hasten the move away from stand alone PDAs. The original Palm experience was about stripping stuff to its essentials. Adding to this minimality without a killer app is only detracting from it. This is why the PocketPC user experience still lags the PalmOS experience of five years ago. Not to say it doesn't have some cool stuff in it, it's just awkward and irritating to use -- take this from somebody who as a developer has multiple PDAs.
If anything, the reason the PDA market is dying is that people don't need palmOS 5, much less palmOS 6. There is nothing compelling in the PDA form factor to drive new sales.
Convergence is not some brave new world where people will be watching movies on their cell phone, its really a contraction and subsumption of the old world into to the phone handset. People are rejecting having more capabilities stuffed into their PDAs, and voting with their feet by either going with plain old cell phones, or smart phones, or devices like the blackberry, which is frankly pretty rudimentary from a technology standpoint.
It's an emotional thing. The developers of PDA technology have lost touch with the user. There is only one company that understands this well enough that it could really revitalize the PDA market: Apple.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Linux gets slowly but steadily adopted into more and more mobiles...
That's quite an assumption to how things will play out. I'm not so certain the first statement leads to the second.
While I understand that some companies (Nokia, due to its ownership stake in Symbian, being the most significant) have a vested interest in Microsoft not being the OS of choice in a phone or smart phone, I wasn't aware that the consumer had much choice in what ends up in the phone. My understanding is that the relationship between the software supplier and the phone maker (and the phone maker and the carrier) is more significant than what the user is interested in. The challenge is that the consumer criteria for purchasing a phone are the brand name of the phone, the design (straight vs. clam shell), the camera (or lack thereof), cost, ringtones, SMS capability, games, and other features; the OS is mostly (if not completely) transparent to those decision criteria [remember Marketing 102: people buy solutions to problems, needs & wants; they do not buy products]. If I got a new phone, I would ask what OS the phone is running; however, I bet most people don't care. As a side note, I don't actually know if Microsoft-based phones display a MS logo on boot; however, you should consider that people might associate failure (e.g. crashing) to the brand name of the phone as much as the OS it is running.
There may be long-term damage if the systems do not work properly, but it will take a long time to play out (The replacement time for phones is 18+ months in the US last I checked). This (along with the lack of major press on the issue) is probably enough of a reprieve that Microsoft can fix its problems. This is a much better place (from their point of view) for Microsoft to get itself entrenched - because it only needs to maintain the corporate relationships with the manufacturers (and to a lesser degree the carriers)... Then, with "good enough" products, they can survive.
The same goes for Microsoft's push into IPTV and its deals with SBC and others. There isn't a need for a consumer to make a choice - if you subscribe, you're using Microsoft's products; your only non-Microsoft choice is to not receive the service. While some staunch anti-Microsoft individuals may be willing to take that step, many others (I would argue most people) would just as well have the service, even if it means dealing with a Microsoft product. If Microsoft wins any cable companies, some consumers may have no choice at all if they want to have on-demand services.
It is, in truth, a brilliant play by Microsoft into areas where it is harder to make a consumer choice to remove a specific type of software. I highly doubt we will see the day where the software has to be independent of the phone or set top box, as was the case with mainframe computers when IBM got itself into anti-trust problems. So Microsoft is here to stay, even if they have to share the desktop.