ARM-Powered Laptops To Increase Linux Market Share

Charbax writes "Last April, Microsoft argued that it controlled the netbook OS market for devices sold in certain Microsoft-friendly US retail stores, while ABI Research claims that Linux actually has 32% of the worldwide netbook market, and that its market-share is growing. At the recent Netbook World Summit in Paris France, Aaron J. Seigo, Community leader at the KDE Foundation, and Arnaud Laprévote, CTO at Mandriva Linux, give us their estimation for next year's Linux market share (video) in the consumer laptop market. Their estimation is that Linux will dominate in ARM-powered laptops and that those may take over a significant share of the overall laptop market by their significantly cheaper prices (as low as $80), longer battery life (as long as 20-40 hours on a small battery using the Pixel Qi screens), as well as lower size and weight. Running some of the Chromium OS builds for ARM available shortly and having a full browser experience on those cheaper and better ARM-powered Linux laptops could make it a significant mass market success to shake up the Intel and Microsoft consumer PC/laptop monopoly in its boots."

Comments

Re:Christ, AGAIN!?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Archos 5 Internet Tablet.

Re:Christ, AGAIN!?

[Cyclops]

Here's one (and I have the SmartQ7 model): http://www.smartdevices.com.cn/

Nice and cheap.

Re:Chrome OS

[Randle_Revar]

Doesn't change the fact that it is a non-standard distro that doesn't even have X11.
I'll stick with Debian, thanks.

Re:Except Chrome OS is shit.

[mhall119]

I think you're missing a very, very big point here, and that is that even if there is a Windows 7 port to ARM, those people would still not be able to play their existing games, or use their existing apps, because those games and apps were written for x86 architectures. So the when the ARM netbooks come out, you will have your choice between Linux and the vast majority of Linux's apps, or Windows and the vast minority of Windows apps.