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Dell Considering ARM-Based Smartbooks
wonkavader sends us this quote from an article in PCWorld:
"In an effort to expand its Linux offerings, Dell is researching new netbook-type devices and will soon offer netbook Linux OS upgrades, a company official said on Wednesday. The company is researching the possibility of offering new Linux-based mobile devices called smartbooks, said Todd Finch, senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco. The company will also upgrade its Ubuntu Linux OS for netbooks to the latest version in the next few weeks ... Smartbooks with Arm chips have inherent advantages over x86 chips like Atom, such as lower power consumption and longer battery life, according to Finch. The chips are also becoming more powerful, as indicated by the growing number of applications on smartphones, he said. 'I think it's natural and reasonable for us to begin looking at them as they begin scaling their processors up.'"
At least now Microsoft can't object to Linux sales on the claim people are wiping them to install bootleg Windows - not on an ARM.
ARM has an advantage such as lower power consumption, but it also has a huge disadvantage - it does not run x86 programs.
It will be the same situation like with PDAs ~10 years ago.
I want some program, it's available for PC, but not available for Psion.
With this ARM "smartbook", I'll still have to lug around a big laptop to be able to run those programs that the smartbook doesn't. I think that in this regard, I'd rather buy a Fujitsu U810 or equivalent.(17cm x15.5cm x 2.7cm but has Atom and is fully compatible with x86 programs; battery holds for >6 hours).
"Just"? Negotiating tactic is most certainly at least the consolation prize, but they seem to be doing well with their Ubuntu systems.
It seems to me that this is more a case of not keeping all of one's eggs in the MS-x86 basket. Using Linux now gives them a head start in developing a polished interface over their competitors and experience in migrating platforms.
Using ARM now gives them time to work the kinks out of the hardware integration so their ARM laptops can be more stable than the competition's when everyone else starts jumping on the bandwagon.
I predict that these things are going to take off. Once people realize that they don't need a heavy OS like Windows in order to enjoy a portable platform that provides email & web browsing, any prejudice against will evaporate. Besides, most people won't even notice that Windows is missing.
One reason PDA's never took off is the man-machine interface. The keyboard is pretty much a must-have for an email & messaging platform. These things are going to be everywhere, especially with carriers eager to sell data plans subsidizing them.
Not every game needs to be bleeding edge to attract players. There are plenty of simple casual games that have a much larger market than the "core" gamer market that will run perfectly fine on a netbook (or what ever the hell they are calling them now). The idea is to focus on game play and mechanics rather than eye candy.
Basically a big Up Yours to Intel and Microsoft.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Because it will sell, and the margins could be high. I imagine something like this would be popular in "developing markets" as well.
Actual netbooks will come. All current netbooks are small laptops, this is something else which is better.
Probably they do have experimental builds, but there's very little point in MS actually making products from them. The reason why you want Windows is because Windows apps run on Windows. They also have to produce ARM builds of all of the software that people need. They can do that for their own stuff, but most Windows software is not produced by MS. It's important to remember that when you get Ubuntu, you get a whole load more software than on a plain Windows box and even most of the software not included comes with source code so it's relatively easy for someone to port it to the new architecture. Not to mention that Windows Mobile has done real damage to the Windows brand by looking so much worse than Symbian phones, let alone Android or the iPhone. They can't afford to keep repeating that.
The Intel Atom is produced specifically to make an i386 platform which competes with the ARM. MS would do much better to commit to that kind of platform. The power consumption is "good enough" and they don't risk splitting their market share.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
ARM is a different instruction set entirely. x86_64 vs. x86_32 differ only in some memory layout, but the binary instructions are 99% the same. So it's easy to write a wrapper. linux32 would not work. You also need an instruction set emulator (e.g. bochs), which would be quite slow.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
better than that stupid term 'netbook".
Remember that Asus achieved a large success in the netbook market by releasing the eee before everyone else got their act together. If Dell could do the same, they could gain another reasonably large untapped market
Or maybe because Ubuntu's next release will have an ARM-release and they already ship Ubuntu.
New things are always on the horizon
What? So no viruses?
If that's the case, then it would seem to that there's even less hope for the average Linux user to attract the notice of malware developers.
Where most people will be scared of trying linux, they'll trust it when it has the Google brand. Where many people might be confused by an OS that looks mostly like Windows but where everything is just different enough to be confusing, they'll probably understand the concept of "Chrome OS is just a browser & nothing else". The remaining question is if ARM + Chrome OS will drive prices down low enough that people will be willing to forego the flexibility & familiarity of a regular Windows laptop.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I honestly don't think Microsoft are this stupid. Getting into the hardware game will give them absolutely no advantage. If anything, it will isolate them from their strongest allies who will definitely begin to step up a unified Linux agenda if MS were to make such a mistake.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
Or ARM desktops, I mean, why the fuck not? Make a tiny machine (think G4 Cube type box), powerful enough for most desktop stuff, with a low power consumption, and I'm sure you could get lots of people/businesses/schools interested.
Good way for them to buy/replace a whole bunch of desktop machines for cheap, that eat up less power/emit less heat and noise and don't take much room. The time has come for us to have dirt cheap tiny machines.
You just got troll'd!
Because the ground's shifted.
I don't doubt sabre rattling will help, but I doubt Dell is anything like as interested as it used to be in exclusive contracts. Being forced to ship Windows with every PC just to get a rate of $50 per Windows box instead of $60 (you think Microsoft would charge any OEM full price, especially one with Dell's marketshare?) makes little or no sense given the current situation.
And what is the current situation? The current situation is that consumers are no longer locked to Windows. They are willing to consider alternatives. They've proven that with the Mac.
Now, if this were five years ago, then yeah, GNU/Linux wasn't ideal at that time and honestly needed either to be part of a corporate roll-out with a decent system administration group to support it, or to be sold to technically inclined users. But this is 2009. Ubuntu's GNOME is easily the second easiest to use and cleanest environment after Mac OS X, with Windows Vista a distant third, and XP coming below that, and Vista isn't even something people want.
So you can sell GNU/Linux to ordinary users. The only things keeping most people from switching are the same as for Mac OS X - proprietary lock-in. Anyone who doesn't care about that, who doesn't have some must-have app that must absolutely run on their Netbook, can switch now, and there are massive advantages in them doing so.
From Dell's point of view, if Microsoft wants to come to them and say "Well, sorry, but if you're going to stick Ubuntu on your netbooks and actually make netbooks incapable of running Windows, then we're going to jack up the license fees for the copies of Windows you do sell", then Dell can smugly laugh. "Go right ahead", they'll say. "We'll pass on the costs to our customers, or we'll pre-install more "demos" to make up the cost difference. Sure, a minority will switch to HP, but the rest are going to end up either sucking it up, or buying a netbook where we don't have to pay anyone a cent. And, guess what, Ubuntu's so much nicer than Windows, and always going to be cheaper, so we think for many of our customers, the switch will be permanent. So, Microsoft, what are you going to do? Are you really going to make us charge people more for Windows and encourage them to look at Ubuntu?"
[Cue idiots who'll miss the point and post a complaint about how Ubuntu's worse because they spent two days trying to get some obscure sound card to work or because they prefer KDE or... it doesn't matter. You're in the minority. Oh and hardware compatibility isn't going to be an issue anyway.]
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This is not speculation. Maybe you've heard of the Zune HD? The Zune HD is using a new Nvidia Tegra chip and is designed to be a competitor for iPod touch and iPhone. One of the things Microsoft is advertising is "the full internet experience." Just like Apple is going to use iPhone OS and ARM chips for their tablet, Microsoft will probably use Nvidia Tegra, which is mostly a couple ARM cores with some Video and Audio processing cores as their platform for future computing products.
Apple and Microsoft have both realized that people do not need desktop power in a portable computing device. As long as it can do decent web browsing, run javascript apps, listen to music, watch video, and read email, what more do people need to do?
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
"And Apple is getting 7 hour run times out of their normal laptops."
Great, let me know when I can buy a Apple laptop with a 7 hr battery for $200.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
they are already experienced at using ARM because they already ship GNU/Linux on ARM in their computers with the quickboot bios called "Latitude ON". It's an ARM processor and memory on the mobo along with the x86 chips and boots Montavista Linux. So I would say that they are already experienced at this to know how well it does work and would like to capitalize on that ability. As stated, it also takes Microsoft out of the picture regarding existing contracts and changes the ways Microsoft can pressure them to do what Microsoft wants them to do in the design and software packaging whatever that may be.
IIRC, on those laptops with "Latitude ON", when running on the ARM subsection, that laptops have runtimes counted in days, not single digit hours. And they can play video, do web access, email etc so Dell is in a position to lead or help lead in this sector. Their work with Ubuntu on x86 is another major plus for them and with ARM Inc working with Ubuntu on the ARM platform, that's a strong partnership( Dell, Canonical, ARM ).
This is an important one to follow and it would be great to see something from Dell this year.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Four words buddy: Lexmark all in one. The most popular printer here by a country mile. Hell I can walk down the hall of my apartment building and find a good half dozen or more of those suckers, and I had nothing whatsoever to do with their purchasing decisions. Then there is those USB Wifi and TV tuners (which good luck getting THOSE things to work in x86 Linux with all the chip changes they do with those things, much less ARM), those USB based cards you get from the phone companies now to let you hook up through their network, hell I could go on forever. And I have tried selling Ubuntu, the last one 9.04 I think? (I suck at version numbers) and found that around 20% of items sold in my local supercenter have support. The rest were paperweights. Not good from a sales standpoint.
You see, the problem is those things can be worked around if one researches and makes an informed decision. problem is, and from building, selling, and servicing PCs since the days of Win3.xx I can tell you this is the case with a good 85%+ of the computer buying public, they can't tell you jack shit about WHAT they got, much less anything like what Arch it runs on. Hell I still get "Windows something" when I ask a customer what kind of computer they have. Not the year, not Intel or AMD (because frankly they don't even have a clue there either) but just "Windows something". So the question is how bad is the return rates on these things gonna be, and will it be worth it to keep around.
Now I can see these things carving out a niche, especially in education where you don't want them actually running anything you don't want them to, hell these will probably be great there. Unless of course all the textbook manufacturers refuse to release in anything but some proprietary DRM laden format, which of course will be X86 Windows only. But your average Joe and Jane? Honestly can't tell the difference between Intel and AMD, much less have a clue that ARM is a niche arch that will only run a subset of Linux software compiled for it. Geeks just don't understand how totally clueless the average consumer is. When I ask a customer what kind of PC they want do you know what I get? "Big and fast, with a nice flatscreen!" that's it. So good luck trying to explain the ARM VS X86 to them. Me? If these things get cheap enough I might pick up a few and try to sell them to the local college kids. For a simple portable notepad with Internet it would work great. But I wouldn't try to sell them to Joe Public on a bet. Too many returns when their stuff don't work.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.