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Elonex ONE Subnotebook Shows Right Path For Linux

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-fuss-just-tux dept.

davidmwilliams writes "Whether it was to your taste or not, there's no denying the ASUS Eee Linux subnotebook was a massive sales success. Demand far exceeded initial production so it's not surprising competitor models are on their way. Just like the Eee, the Elonex achieves cost savings by bundling freely redistributable open source software including, of course, the Linux operating system (specifically, Linos 2.6.21). Those who use the Elonex ONE may well understand it uses something called Linux under the hood, but they don't really have to grasp what this means. They don't have to care that the WiFi hardware was carefully chosen to be one of the exclusive few which has supported Linux drivers. They don't need to tamper with the way their family computer is already set up."

3 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. What market? by grizdog · · Score: 5, Interesting
    They say they are targeting the education market, "every child should have a laptop", which is great, but isn't there a big market just as a thin interface/word processor? I can think of lots of people who don't play games, and wouldn't need any more than this to satisfy their computing needs, maybe with a bigger monitor at home, maybe not.

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the years. It used to be that people who didn't like computers, but had to use them for a few things, avoided Linux like the plague. It may be that these very people are about to embrace it, if it gives them all they want.

  2. Elonex ONE by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apparently the Elonex ONE is just a rebranded version of this system, i.e. a digital photoframe with a keyboard/mouse and wifi grafted on (which is how they manage to keep the cost down).

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  3. Commoditization of Complements by $random_var · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As Joel wrote, a good business strategy is to drive the price of the complements of your product down to commodity levels. Decreasing the cost of operating systems will make laptops more profitable, so a lot of the companies entering the subnotebook field will be stimulating linux (and other open source) development. We've already seen this from VIA; I can't wait to see if some big US brands start openly supporting linux development.