Moore's Law Is Microsoft's Latest Enemy

Glyn Moody writes "Until now, the received wisdom has been that GNU/Linux will never take off with general users because it's too complicated. One of the achievements of the popular new Asus Eee PC is that it has come up with a tab-based front end that hides the complexity. But maybe its real significance is that it has pushed down the price to the point where the extra cost of using Microsoft Windows over free software is so significant that ordinary users notice. As Moore's Law drives flash memory prices even lower, can ultraportables running Microsoft Windows compete?"

Comments

Slashdot

[hotsauce]

Only on Slashdot would an article ask if Windows can compete with Linux.

*Shakes head*

Get out of mom's basement once in a while, guys.

Re:Pertains to density at a given price

[sm62704]

But Wikipedia is not accurate! Uncyclopedia says

Moore's Law
Moore's Law was enacted by the Florida legislature in 1999. This law makes it a felony to posess or sell any film or documentary produced by Michael Moore. Moore's Law had its beginnings when a Florida Legislator heard some old Geezer complain about the damned kids on his lawn saying "there ought to be a law" and told his fellow congressthings that the old guy had said "we need more laws." As all the legislators are hearing aid wearing geezers themselves, they took this to mean that Michael Moore should be outlawed. Florida Governor Jeb Clampett, President George Clampett's brother, signed the law so quickly that the friction of the pen caught the paper on fire and the law had to be passed again.

Many slashdot nerds believe that Moore's law has something to do with computers, but this is patently false.

Re:Moore's law has nothing to do with price

[rucs_hack]

Moores law can also be applied to the correlation between the increase in ones Unix knowledge, and the corresponding decrease in ones attractiveness to the opposite sex.

Dammit.

Yeah, but

[geekoid]

he wins in jackassory!

Microsoft will threaten Asus

[Undead Ed]

Standard Operating Procedure for Microsoft is to have a little chat with Asus about their 'nice little business'.

It could go something like this:

Microsoft, "You have a nice business here; you sell a lot of motherboards."

Asus, "We sure do. The motherboard business has been very very good to us."

Microsoft, "And we at Microsoft have always been good to you, right?"

Asus, "Well... there was the tablet fiasco. Remember how you convinced many of us...

Microsoft, "Nevermind that. I am talking about all the help and access you get in order to write all your drivers for Windows. We have always been there for you, right?

Asus, "Well... Vista didn't...

Microsoft, "Forget about Vista for now! Just how far would you get without confidential access to all our operating systems?

Asus, "We couldn't sell any motherboards to Windows users, just Linux, BSD, Solaris...

Microsoft, "In other words, You Would Be SCREWED!"

Asus, *hangs head* "What do you want?"

Microsoft, "We are not happy about your $200 little laptop running Linux."

Asus, "But we can't stop it now - we have taken orders..."

Microsoft, "We want you to offer it with Windows!"

Asus, "But Windows is too big and too expensive and...

Microsoft, "Let me tell you what you are going to do. (1) You are going to raise the price to $400 instead of $200. (2) Then you are going to offer a Windows XP version for $395. (3) Then you are going to make a larger version that will actually work with XP.

Asus, "But our original version is underpowered and doeesn't have enough storage for XP and Office..."

Microsoft, "Too bad. Our customers have to become used to much less performance - haven't you tried Vista yet? And you leave the storage problem to us - once we trim out all the useless crap XP will fit - so will Office. It will still be slow but who cares."

Asus, "But our customers..."

Microsoft, *screaming* "They aren't YOUR customers!!! They are OUR customers!!! The only reason they buy your motherboards and computers is to run OUR operating system. And if you don't cooperate with us, you just may have all kinds of problems getting the information you need to create the drivers for your new products. UNDERSTAND?"

*CRASH*

Asus, "Yeah, sure. We understand Mr. Ballmer... Could I get you another chair?"

Microsoft, "Maybe later. Where are the girls?"

And so it goes, Microsoft Standard Operating Procedure for the last 25 years.

Ed (UnDead)