Linux To Take Over The Low-End PC Market?

An anonymous reader writes "Desktop Linux has a recent commentary on the inevitable growth of Linux on the cheaper end of the desktop market. According to the article, the availability of under-$500 usable hardware, combined with a free operating system, free desktop office products, and free or cheap 'software as a service' online applications, opens a new market in which Microsoft cannot compete. 'Microsoft will fight this trend tooth and nail. It will cut prices to the point where it'll be bleeding ink on some of its product lines. And Windows XP is going to stick around much longer than Microsoft ever wanted it to. Still, it won't be enough.'"

Comments

Re:Microsoft will not bleed ink

[ciaohound]

Don't be impressed by the big accounting word ("amortized," in case you missed it). If they're forced into maintaining the XP code base longer than they had planned, those are real expenses.

Re:A little off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you enjoy scripting, one of the best sites around is Heiner's SHELLdorado.

Re:Microsoft will not bleed ink

[Pecisk]

You meant Ubuntu 7.10? Because it has Wine (installed by several clicks trough Add/Remove...), and it works out of box. Office 2003, World of Warcraft (Yes, I have account, and yes, I play it everyday), uTorrent... You name it.

Nitpicking over analogies

[cp.tar]

Keep in mind that to do this, you entirely re-complie the kernel (and probably half the OS, i'm not much of a linux user). So yes, it's a swiss army knife but you have to put an edge on each blade when you pull it out.

Not really, no.

A Swiss Army Knife has different blades, tools and utensils for different purposes.
Each platform is a different purpose; a recompiled kernel (and userland) is a different blade/tool/utensil.

It is not users that need to recompile the kernel, which would be putting an edge on each and every blade -- it's the distro maintainers' job. Users just select the blade they need.