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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."
I've showed a few friends and relatives some of the virtual machine builds of Chromium OS. These are "everyday people". A couple of them are school teachers, one is a doctor, one a pharmacist, and the other a college student. None of them are overly technical.
Basically, they all said it was shit. They didn't like how they couldn't play their existing games or use their existing apps, for instance.
Only the college student uses GMail. The rest of them use Outlook or Thunderbird and their ISP's email system, so they didn't see any benefit there.
One of the teachers already has a MacBook from her school, and says it works perfectly fine at the Starbucks when she gets her morning coffee. Plus she can use all of her other apps.
None of them said they'd use Chrome OS on a regular basis. It just didn't do anything useful for them.
With all the hype about Chrome OS recently, I think people are forgetting that Ubuntu and Debian also have ARM ports, so you can pretty much run anything on an ARM. Of course, that wouldn't be any different from the current situation, so it probably doesn't really matter.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Linux is expected to dominate ARM-based netbooks because Windows doesn't run on ARM, full stop.
The small internet appliance market sort of started in Japan, so it might be worthwhile to look at what's happened to the trend there. The same application and comfort level issues existed there and yet the netbook and appliance market has continued to grow, and continued to poach traditional PC and laptop sales.
30 years ago I used to hear people ask,"What would I do with a PC?" 15 years ago companies would tell me they get along just fine without the internet and electronic mail. I heard the same thing about iPods and iPhones. So when average users don't see the utility of new technology, that doesn't mean you should close the book on it.
I've noticed over the years that price and efficiency eventually win out. Every time Linux netbooks break a price barrier, $150 then $100, you'll see more people take an interest.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Well, you can't buy this one in BestBuy, but you can buy it in the US. I'm planning to order one after I recover monetarily from christmas. It's an ARM based notebook running Linux, and it converts in to a tablet. http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
I'd say it'll have a niche, I just wouldn't count on it being a really huge one, or it being their "main" PC by any stretch. I for one would pay less than $100 for one, just to have a little laptop to surf when I'm at the doctor's office, but I doubt I would get on the thing more than an hour a week, if at that. But most guys here seem to act like if the ordinary folks were just exposed to Linux, or that if you can find the perfect "Average Joe" distro, that suddenly Windows would find itself on the ropes. But it ain't the OS, hell working PC repair since the days of Win 3.x I can say that most folks don't know WHAT OS they are running, it is the little programs I call the "gottas".
You see every average Joe and Jane I've worked for has had 1 or more programs that according to them they "gotta have", period. And they ain't gonna care how pretty or secure your OS is if it can't run the "gotta", well it just ain't gonna be real useful to them. Like the retired graphic artist down the hall, who even though he has a nice new AMD XP box I built, had to be taught by me how to use a KVM switch and have me build him a NOS 1.5GHz Win2K box because his new AMD wouldn't run his "gotta", Macromedia Xres. The girl whose PC I just fixed brought her camera software, which turns out she has carried over through 3 cameras now, because that software is her "gotta".
So you see it isn't that Linux is bad, or that folks just need to be exposed, it is the "gotta have" software that keeps folks in Windows. A lot of my customers are looking at either sticking with XP or getting Windows 7 Pro simply because their "gotta" won't run on Windows 7 without XP mode, and without their "gotta" it just isn't that useful to them. So while I'm sure it will sell some to guys like me that know what ARM is and just want something cheap, I don't know how well that will translate to Joe and Jane. I have a feeling that they are gonna have to warn folks at retail or have a lot of these things get returned when folks that don't know about anything but Windows, which there is quite a few of those, believe me, try to install their "gotta" and find that Windows x86 don't run on Linux ARM. And if they lock it down with Chrome I don't think even I'd take it. I want to choose what apps I have and have the option to change distro, thanks anyway.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.