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Lenovo On the Future of the Netbook
thefickler touts an interview in tech.blorge with Lenovo's Worldwide Competitive Analyst, Matt Kohut, who spoke about his vision of the future of netbooks, which involves Windows 7, bigger screens, built-in 3G, touch integration, and lower prices. Linux fans will be disappointed to hear that Kohut thinks Windows 7 will dominate future generations of netbooks because it offers a better, more familiar solution, with the benefits of touch. Quoting Kohut: "The other challenge has been, in order to keep the price points down, a lot of people thought that Linux would be the savior of all of these netbooks. You know, there were a lot of netbooks loaded with Linux, which saves $50 or $100 or whatever it happens to be, based on Microsoft's pricing and, again, from an industry standpoint, there were a lot of returns because people didn't know what to do with it. Linux, even if you've got a great distribution and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows. So, we've seen overwhelmingly people wanting to stay with Windows because it just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it's ready to go."
Everything you see today, only larger, faster and cheaper.
Nice "vision". Where can I get a job like that?
You know, I thought the whole point of a netbook was to be cheap and portable. Why would you throw a bigger screen on it? I've got a 17" laptop. It's great for long-term use, since it has a full-sized keyboard. Great use in class, when I was taking notes. And yet I'm *still* considering grabbing a netbook and an aircard so that I'd have something tiny to carry around for if I need to look up something quickly (bus schedules, addresses, etc). Something with a larger screen would just be relegated to laptop uses, especially with an increased battery drain from the larger screen. Seriously, what's the point?
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Linux, even if you've got a great distribution and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows. So, we've seen overwhelmingly people wanting to stay with Windows because it just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it's ready to go."
If Linux netbooks aren't ready to go out of the box, the vendors are doing a poor job.
If people are trying to install non-bundled apps, they might run into trouble. Otherwise, everything should just work. If it doesn't, something's wrong.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This is the brick wall that OSS keeps running into
The OSS community probably has a larger more passionate base of developers documentation writers and advocates and so on but it is also torn in 17,000 different directions the fiasco with glib is a perfect example not to mention the thousands of failed distro "pet projects"
Another downfall is the poor naming convention OSS uses I can imagine what a window is i dont know what-the-fsck a debian or a ubuntu is
stop it with the nonfuctional hippy-hippy names scrolling through a fresh installs applications menu is like taking the helm of a romulan cargoship
mod me as flamebait
I will keep an eye on Thinkpad hardware to run Linux as I have for years, but I will have to remain paranoid and assume the worst until some testing and validation has occurred, whether by me or others in the Linux world.
It is sad to see people like Kohut gaining prominence. He has blogged more than once indicating his belief that the Thinkpad value is in that gimmicky crap software they add on top of Windows (whether the wireless manager, or power manager, or hybrid graphics driver), which truly shows that he has no respect for the robust hardware platform they used to provide. If they had any remaining pride in their hardware, they wouldn't need gimmicky software to differentiate.
What is just so wrong about windows being the future is it breaks the the very first claim about the future of netbooks, 'cheap'. The M$ solution represents licence fees for the OS, licence fees for the office suits, licence fees for the servers to connect them, licence fees for communications both email and web server. In fact a whole range of licence fees that far exceed the value of a netbook and, not just by a bit, but in total by a factor of at least 10.
So the very first claim is an out and out marketing lie, windows 7 and it's accomplices is a hugely expensive solution. This really egregious especially coming from a company out of China, where the majority of people can barely afford a $100 netbook and greater than $1000 dollars worth of licence fees is beyond their annual income.
The future of the netbook is cheap and semi-disposable, as it it's loss or destruction is not to financially painful. Having a netbook with bound software licences that disappear with the netbbook and require r-ebuying is just nuts and, just as pointless is having to reinstall all those, what a really basic applications, again and again.
The reality is that the netbook running FOSS will become the default education device and all the lies coming out of M$ or it's cronies are doomed to failure.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Why is there no major Linux vendor, anyways? Aside from repackaging Windows machines with Linux? Why can't somebody do for Linux what Apple does for OSX?
Because most Linux users are geeks, and us geeks enjoy customization. For example, even though I might enjoy using Ubuntu, a KDE user might be appalled that KDE (and all the KDE applications) aren't installed by default. Gentoo users would find it wasn't fast enough, Fedora users would complain at the lack of Yum and it being Debian based, people who use lighter WMs would find GNOME too bulky, users of paid distros wouldn't like the hand installing of certain patented codecs, etc.
Basically, its impossible to find a distro or tactic that works for everyone. For example, I have an EEE PC that had Xandros installed, it seemed like a crippled version of Debian, so I just installed Xubuntu with a custom kernel which I could have done if it came with Windows.
Apple has basically said no to customization throughout their existence, so Apple users aren't used to customization, they like it one consistent way and will stick with it till the day they die. Windows, while it has a lot of GUI customization available via themes, there isn't really a supported way of customizing Windows the way you can Linux. It doesn't take too much work to make a distro of Linux that can fit in 10 MB and have a functional server, userland, etc. Within 50 MB you can have a full desktop distro. When you take Windows to fit in that size you remove some needed parts of the OS.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I want someone from Lenovo to tell me honestly that they believe that a Lenovo computer I buy from them will be ready for me to use in the way most people expect to use their computers when it comes out of the box. I want them to tell me that it will be secure, that it will be free of garbage-ware, and that it will have the most commonly used programs pre-installed. They can't do that. When Dell sells me a computer preloaded with Ubuntu, they can.
It really isn't the fault of Linux, rather the expectations of customers changed the nature of the netbook from the start. The netbook could have been a small appliance to surf the web, do email and such. Instead, the netbook just became a small PC, with all the expectations of a PC. The general layman knows that he/she isn't going to install Office on a Palm or iphone. Those are whole different machines, after all. But the netbook simply became a small laptop PC. From a Linux standpoint, THAT became the problem. Nothing wrong with Linux, just the expectations of the customer changed to expect Windows.
The version for netbooks only runs three programs at a time. So the price point difference will be even higher if you account for a version of Windows 7 that actually works right. Early reports are that Windows 7 isn't that much faster than Vista on low end hardware. The only win I see here is in Steve Ballmer's mind.
And, isn't oddly ironic, that just when MSFT is losing market share and needs a win, suddenly there are articles future tripping on Windows 7. What a coincidence! Trying to make Windows 7 look inevitable just weeks before Android netbooks roll out on to the market. Wow, is that bizarre, or what? Almost like it was...planned.
Not sure how much of an advantage touch is on 9 in screen. A 17 in screen on a netbook makes it a laptop and wipes out all the advantages of a netbook. What's it say about MSFT when they're in such a desperate race to the bottom?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
People like you are a tiny minority in the market, though, that's the issue here. You already use open source software, you know how to adapt to a different desktop environment, you know in advance what your preferred programs are, and so on. Perhaps more importantly, you don't immediately blind yourself to what's written on the screen in front of you just because the box it's written in looks a bit different.
Most users are scared by what they don't recognise, and an awful lot of them still insist on learning to do things by rote, memorising a set of steps rather than taking the (short) time needed to get an understanding of what they're doing. One of the things that always gets me is when someone asks (for example) how to print something - I don't blame them for not knowing how to perform a certain task, but nine times out of ten they could have worked it out for themselves simply by bringing up each menu in turn and reading them until they saw 'Print'. Not only that, they'd then remember for next time, no help needed. As it is though, they'll ask and more often than not someone will just tell them rather than gently directing them to think about it; subsequently they remember "Click the menu at the top left then hit 'Print' near the bottom", which is OK in itself. Then when they come to the next task, say making a new document, they ask someone else, and remember the rough location on the menu...
To them, Linux is not ready to go - I'm surprised how many people seem to be misinterpreting that comment. It's not ready to go because it doesn't look familiar enough, because things aren't in the same place, because things are labelled differently. I find it unfortunate that so many intelligent people still see computers as something that they don't understand, and therefore never make the effort to try to get the basics, but for now that's how things are and that's why Linux is more work than Windows for the average user.
Basically the reason no one wanted to keep a Linux netbook is because the support friends and relatives all drank the Microsoft kool-aid and can't fix the netbook when it stops working or make their favorite website work again. It isn't that the Linux required more hands on, it's that the grandson, neice, or geeky neighbor had never seen Linux or knew how to make it work, so the existing support network for most cheapskates wasn't compatible.
Professional programmer with extensive experience using open source software finds Linux easy to use out of the box; Can't understand why other people have trouble. News at 11.
Man, you linux people are as disillusioned as the Apple fanatics. Fix the damn UI problems and Linux one day might enjoy double digit occupacy on PCs.
They just don't seem to get the point of netbooks.
Bigger screens, bigger disks, faster processors, more memory, Windows7.
That's not a netbook anymore (small, light and mobile) but an ordinary laptop without an optical drive.
Yeah I was reading that thinking, "Isn't a netbook with a bigger screen a laptop? So the future of netbooks is laptops? Huh?"
Yeah, that sounds like the "SUV" thinking that got the US car industry in trouble- "The future of cars= Larger, lalala, I'm not listening".
:).
Totally ignoring the netbook market.
A lot of people want something that they can use like a laptop (do work, use gmail, facebook, MSN etc), but it MUST fit their _handbag_.
The laptop market is not going away anytime soon, neither is the netbook one.
FWIW, I'd rather have a wearable computer that is actually practical (very usable) and won't result in the special forces shooting me in the back of my head. But I guess there are only a few like me
Spoken like one of those OSS trolls that keep saying: "It's OSS, if you don't like it, fix it yourself"
If a restaurant serves something not up to standards, most people won't go in to the restaurant kitchen and tell the chef how to fix it, nor do they start a new restaurant.
They just go some place better (it may not be that great, but they don't care).
The other thing - with all the Linux people "fixing it themselves" at a drop of a hat (which has many plus points), it's hard to have any standards on anything.
Standardization is needed, so there can be helpdesk support scripts. Without standardization they'll spend 5 minutes just figuring out where a button is. That's one of the reasons why corporations are pushing back on Vista - Vista is so different from XP.
Nah, not just the car industry, but consumerism in general.
Everything needs to be bigger, better, shinier then the last one round.
Problem is that for the corps, the quickest way to do that is to slap a new layer of "chrome" on the old product and let the marketing department run riot. Nothing really new comes out of a approach like that, and things have been running on hot air and promises for 2-3 generations now...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
No, he hasn't. Go into any Walmart and ask them to show you the 5 most popular printers. 5 will get you 10 that 4 out of 5 if not all 5 will be Lexmarks. To install any printer in Windows on a Netbooks all anyone has to do is Google "name of printer xp driver" and boom they have got it. Total time? Maybe 5 minutes if you have a slow connection.
Now try that with Linux. if you have a business network printer (and what are the odds a home user will have one of those?) then you are good to go. if not you are liable to spend hours praying to the CLI Gods that this next command will get the damned thing to work. Unless you are one of the millions of home users with Lexmark all in ones, then all the prayers in the world ain't gonna help you.
Now why in the hell can't some Linux developer develop an "Ndiswrapper" for printers? Why? hell the "Winprinter" is just calling the Windows GDI for everything, it ain't like there is any actual hardware in the damned things. It certainly has to be easier than defeating the "Winwireless" and "Winmodem" with their 400 different chips and funky software. Hell Lexmark and the other low end printer makers are so cheap i bet they ain't changed the guts in them things for years. But until the day comes that I can set up a Linux box in my shop and know that any printer they pick up in Walmart works I just can't carry them. It is just too much of a support PITA. After all, having a big list of stuff you CAN'T use doesn't really sell a machine, you know?
I'm betting that is why the Netbook manufacturers are keeping the majority of their sales firmly in the Windows camp. Because it is a hell of a lot easier for a support tech to say "Google /name of printer/ XP driver" than it is to say "open up bash and type these dozen commands" or "Sorry but you are NEVER going to be able to print, much less scan of fax with that. Sorry". I'm not trying to flame here, this is just what I have run into attempting to sell Linux machines. In the end the amount of hours wasted on support made it cheaper to simply add in the "Windows Tax" into the price than it was to sell Linux. And nearly every damned time it was printer or all in one problems that killed the sale.
Solve that like you did the "Winmodem" and Winwireless" and you have a real shot at gaining marketshare. But if my customer takes it home and picks up a printer at Wally World and can't print? Than "free as in freedom and beer" becomes a hell of a lot more expensive to support than just paying the $89 for XP Home. Hell I had less support headaches just giving them Win98 CALs than selling them with brand new Ubuntu installs. At least I can get those damned cheapo printers to work in Win98.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
(next day) ... and then you should see it."
"Hello, I have trouble with my Windows computer. The internet isn't working."
"Ok, what version do you have?"
"Windows"
"Erh... no, 98, 2k, XP, Vista..."
"Umm... yes."
"Ok, something different. When you open your browser..."
"My what?"
"Your browser. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera..."
"Where is that?"
"In your start menu. Go start -
"I have "update windows", is it that`?"
If someone is clueless, giving him another system won't fix it. Educating people would. But that costs money.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can have your Superspoodle application too, just give me your credit card...
I wouldn't bother correcting him. If you want to run Linux, you have a clear warning not to buy Lenovo. From my family's personal experience, I'm not sure I'd buy Lenovo either if I wanted to run Windows, with the amount of non-functioning vendor-specific software supplied.
Andrew Yeomans