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Major PC Makers to Ship PCs Sans Windows
z@ph0d writes "This article tells how Dell, Compaq, and Gateway could announce soon they will be shipping low cost PC's without Windows. No word yet on what they'll ship with, but who knows? "
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This is a pretty vague article, with hardly any specifics. It doesn't state which OS these companies might be using:
:)
"The makers are taking a variety of approaches, the paper said. Gateway Inc (GTW) is building a line with no Microsoft software whatsoever, and may jointly market it with America Online, Inc (AOL), which recently invested $800 million in Gateway, people familiar with the plans were quoted as saying."
While I wish I could say linux would be the obvious choice, I don't think that would be the case with these two companies. They're not going to go for an open-source OS just because they don't like microsoft. I think they'd rather give themselves a better cut of profits while keeping prices low, which means they'll probably go for some proprietary OS that they control. For all I know AOL may have made it's own proprietary OS. Somehow that idea doesn't impress me much, even if it is cheaper. I don't know if companies like Dell and gateway "mark-up" the windows OS at all, but given the low margins on computers, I doubt it matters anyway. Sure, you can make money selling a linux OS as well, but how much will it bring you when you are selling low end machines? By using their own proprietary OS they can remove a factor of control from microsoft and increase their profit margins while they're at it. Linux would only remove the microsoft factor. They'll just have to hope microsoft doesn't threaten them for this, which I wouldn't count on. Of course I could be totally wrong. I hope I am
- Play QuickTime movies?
- Use nearly any Netscape plugin or ActiveX control created?
- Choose from a selection of tens of thousands of programs developed to cater to the masses (i.e. point, click, do something), and millions of other programs that, um, "need improvement"?
- Use applications that have a consistent look and feel -- that is, they aren't binding themselves to one of several different widget themes and sets available?
- Find a friend who knows at least something about it? (Think about this from an end-user perspective -- not everyone knows about #linux and comp.os.linux.*)
Sure, Linux can do some cool stuff. But it's Windows that has the "everyone else uses it, so it's OK to use" factor. Can you imagine tech support calls where the user can't fathom why the computer program he/she just bought can't run on his/her new system? ("It said it was for PC, and I have a PC!" "OK, click Start..." "Um, Start? I have a foot/K/nothing in the corner of the screen." "Sorry, that program won't work with your system.")For more information, click here.
The marketroids at Dell doubtless understand this phenomenon better than either of us and would price the machines accordingly. The profit margin on Linux-based machine would doubtless be greater, and they'd be doing their best to sell those rather than the Windows. In the situation you hypothesize, I would think they'd charge slightly more for the Linux-based machine while touting its improved reliability. Or, if the phenomenon is not really that strong, they might go ahead and charge only slightly less for the Linux-based box.
I was chatting to Computacenter (massive EU reseller) about Linux on the Proliant range. They were big fans of the idea, and said that Compaq would be supporting Linux on all Proliant models shortly.
That doesn't mean Compaq are selling boxes direct with pre-installed Linux. It means that Compaq are supporting their resellers who wish to install Linux on Compaq boxes and ship those to customers.
For corporate sales, most of the market is via large resellers who provide value added services, so this is significant stuff.
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This isn't targeted at the "average computer user." Nor is it targeted at people who want to run an OS other than Windows. It's targeted at people who don't already have a computer and want an Internet appliance.
I can see this being positioned similarly to the iMac, which is first an Internet device, second a computer (according to Steve Jobs, anyway). The advertising for this device will just delete the "computer" part. It will probably also be like the iMac in that it will be all in one case and won't really look like a traditional computer. I bet it'll have a tiny hard drive and will probably be in other ways unsuitable for people who want to run a real OS anyway. I don't think this is quite the victory for the anti-MS crowd some people around here think it is.
I like this idea on the surface, but one thing scares me a bit. If Dell decides to ship some of these machines with Windows, and some without, the ones using Linux/BSD/BeOS or whatever they use will undoubtably be cheaper. If I were a clue-free end user, that would imply to me that they were inferior OS's, since the hardware was identical. Now, we all know it's not true, and we've fought similar battles before, but for this to be a positive for us, we need to be very vocal about the fact that just because these machines are cheaper does not mean they are inferior. I mean, if I saw two identical guitars, one of which was made in China, and the other in the US, and the one made in China was cheaper, I would assume that the one made in the US was of higher quality. This, however, is a result of my lack of knowledge. For all I know, China has better processes in place, and the only reason it's cheaper is that they have cheaper labor. I think we must tread carefully into this area, and it can really pay off.
If you need to point-and-click to administer a machine,
Along this line, consider: There are two free versions of (yes, I know it sounds goofy, but think about it) MS-DOS out there. Some sort of simple GUI (GEM? an OEM GUI) that provided only a browser and an e-mail app? That wouldn't be that hard to write if you just made it a context switcher instead of a multi-tasker. Kind of a beefed-up PalmOS. I'm not seriously suggesting this is the case, but I feel like Linux/*BSD would be overkill for a machine like this.
/etc/passwd and there you have it. The /etc/skel would give each new user an account the fires straight into Netscape. The users would never see a shell.
OTOH, it would be easy to hide all the complexity of Linux/*BSD by having accounts that add users, start-up and shutdown the machine, and dial-in and disconnect. Just specify the appropriate commands as shells in
I don't know what it is. Its just kind of fun to know the market is changing.
Diversity is good. Whatever they're going to use, it's better than no choice at all.
I very much doubt it'll ship with Linux. Read the article: they're targetting the WinTV crowd with this. Can you see them getting used to logging in / out of Linux? Shutting down instead of hitting the power button? Dealing with fsck() ?
This isn't about PC Manufacturers being Hardware people again. This is about PC Manufacturers jumping onto the cheap internet computing bandwagon. They announce cheap, "disposable", non-MS PCs within 24 hours of Sun re-launching their NCs? Guess what they're trying to protect, folks!
The article isn't an anti-MS, or anti-Windows article. It's a pro-cheap-network-computing article.
Discussion of OS for these puppies - or rather the OS that will be delivered with them from the factory - is nearly irrelevent, except for the fact that they're not automatically going for MS's OS-du-jour (Hmm.. targetted for early next year... Win2000 comes out Feb 17.. Coincidence?).
henley, who has been watching too much X-files and sees conspiracies everywhere today.
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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
No, actually, you are wrong. Because if you are building a "black box" that you want to lock down, and provide defined applications, to a consumer who has no computer experience, then Linux *is* the perfect fit.
Unlike Windows, the OEM has control over the OS to tailor it perfectly to the box. Unlike Windows, the OEM doesn't have to worry about a user deleting "extra" files. Unlike Windows, the OEM can provide a truely customised, intuitive interface.
With Linux, the consumer buys the box, plugs it in like a VCR, enters in their ISP account information, and tada, instant access to the web.
I don't see how *that* could be beyond the grasp of a consumer. That seems actually easier then Windows.
-Brent--
Hm... I think Linux has great potential in the area of "information appliances". Linux has a number of distinct advantages:
It's portable. Linux will most likely run on any of the systems that Gateway comes out with, as long as they don't ship Windows-only hardware with the boxes. Any portability issues can be resolved quickly, in-house, for the simple reason that the companies will have the source code.
It's cheaper. How can you undercut free? I don't see any companies trying to *pay* OEMs to use their OS. Though BeOS is supposedly free to OEMs that will use it on their products...
It's more stable. Hey, I know. Sometimes Linux crashes, but if these computers are just "information appliances", whose sole purpose in life is Web surfing and e-mail, then it wouldn't be too tough to fine-tune the system until it becomes pretty damn hard to make it go down.
Linux handles networks a hell of a lot better. If your ISP uses some sort of weird system for authentication, Linux probably supports it a lot more easily than Windows. And if, for some ungodly reason, you need to use non-standard protocols to communicate with somebody, you don't need $300 3rd-party add-ons to make the two systems talk.
Linux is just as user-friendly (if you do it right). Gnome, KDE, and a number of other projects make for interfaces that either match Windows (sometimes by looking just like it!), or even surpass it (KDE, WindowMaker, Enlightenment). Once people get past the "dear god, it's not like everything else I've ever fucking used" factor, it will feel like second nature.
I think Linux has quite a potential in the market. Funny that the article didn't mention that.
While I'm all for some healthy competition for MS, I can't help but wonder if this will really replace Windows with something better. Would it really be that big of an improvement oif users bought an equally restrictive OS that just crashed a bit less?
The largest problem I see with MS products is that they don't put the user in control. Wizards DON'T help! They just make up for a bad or confusing interface - or perhaps just a complex interface that is poorly documented.
Is this new product going to put the user in control? Or is this a non-MS OS directly competing with the goals of MS?
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
So Dell would have to write some documentation and set up a couple of things so that they would be bulletproof. Just because _you_ don't know how to do it does not mean that it can't be done.
The fact of the matter is that most of the stuff you are talking about would be _trivial_ to fix if you were sure exactly what the machine was going to be used for.
A big part of the problem with Linux is that it can be configured to do too much stuff. Cut out all of the server stuff and you can make incredibly resilient client machines that are as easy to use as any Windows box around. It wouldn't have IE (which I would agree is a nicer browser), but it wouldn't crash every fifteen minutes either, and it would cost less.
Microsoft has become the most capitalized company in the world by selling and operating system. It would be worth _billions_ to the hardware OEMs to cut them out of the deal. I imagine that you could get some pretty fancy documentation for that kind of money.
If AOL's involved, maybe it will be the old GEOS/Geoworks Ensemble OS from back in the day. That's what AOL was originally developed on (After they stopped being Q-Link, that is.) That OS was written after the popularity of it on such machines at the Commodore 64, 128, etc. AOL liked it, and used it right away. Then Win 3.1 came out, and GEOS died. (Even though GEOS was by far superior. It was a full multi-tasking OS on even XT's... though it was slow on them:) But it screamed on a 286, even, and Windows could never claim that. It had a nice application package with it as well. The only reason they didn't become popular, is they were totally concerned about bug zapping. (The beta test lasted forever) My dad was a beta test, and they even started paying him $50 for every bug they found. Now you can only find them on palm type computers.. oh well. Maybe that's what will show up, because that would be a perfect choice for an Internet PC.. they could revive the original AOL for GEOS, and go from there. It all waits to be seen.
The trial showed how Microsoft had OEMs, even Intel, on a tight leash. With the trial in progress, I believe Microsoft has had to restrain itself and let the OEMs do things Microsoft wouldn't want them to do, like install Linux or ship PCs without Windows.
I've always felt that even if Microsoft is acquitted or is not slammed as hard as it deserves, if the trial goes on long enough---and I think we're almost at that point---the end result will be victory, simply because even just restraining Microsoft indirectly has been enough to allow market forces to work the way they are supposed to work: without the undue influence of monopoly power.
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In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
Can't believe they'd ever ship without an OS - the average consumer would never buy it.
Shipping a full(ish) version of Un*x is also very unlikely: the costs for AOL of building helpdesk systems to cover X, a shell and Internet applications would kill this idea.
Most likely idea: free Un*x kernel for stability with no user shell. Configure through a couple of control panels. If the user rings with any problems, first support option is to re-install from CD.
Apple had a similar idea with the crippleware bundled with Performa series. Universally hated idea, but they probably saved a ton of cash on support costs: if the average user doesn't need access to a config file, lock them out!
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The Wall Street Journal had two articles on this today (no, they only have a paid site - I read the copy we get in our non-profit's library).
The first one said that they estimate 30-40% of all boxes shipping for consumers this year will be Windows-less, but this includes BeOs and Palm type boxes which are bailing from WinCE, as well as set-top boxen. Some of them were going to use Apple/iMac (kind of confusing, that one).
The second article said that some MSFT technical indicators indicated, for the first time in decades, that forward revenue (upgrades for Windows, Office, etc) at MSFT were down a very large amount (10-20%), whereas the stock has counted on these increasing every year and thus commands high P/E ratio as a result. Which means that the end may be nigh.
Figure in mid-January they'll release stats showing that MSFT boxen were a drastically smaller (70%) amount than usual.
Will in Seattle
What, do you think the OEM's are going to ship howto's with their 'internet boxes'? I doubt it. And going to Linux.com and looking for an answer, would be like me looking in a Ford Ranger manual to figure out how to replace the transmission in my Ford Taurus. There are numerous ways to do it, and I don't think consumers will "accidentally" pop the cd out the wrong way. :)
Besides, it's more likely that these consumer devices won't have floppy drives
Upgrading kernels is a bitch (still haven't figured it out) while in Windows it's a self-executable file you download when a dialog box pops up informing you you need to download stuff from MS's website.I don't think that consumers will be interested in compiling their kernel. These boxes probably won't even have gcc installed. Instead, they'll have some sort of update manager that they'll click and update the box, ala Windows Update.
Lack of some programs that are only on Windows machines is a pain too.Again, these consumer devices probably won't have the capability of installing your own software. So even if it *had* Windows, the other apps wouldn't be useful. This is for people who are interested in a device to do a few limited tasks. Web browsing, e-mail, word processing, and so on.
No Internet Explorer (yes, most people do prefer it over Netscape).Web standards. No functionality should be different. They should need to know whether they are using Netscape or IE.
Rebooting wrong screws everything up (I GUARENTEE(sp) that 3/4 of the new Linux users will reboot by just pressing the reboot button when X crashes, and screw up their file systems.)I doubt if these boxes will have "reboot" buttons. Must likely the button will only turn "on" the device, not shut it down. Also, it was mentioned that the file system could be set up in a more safe way.
Windows was designed/marketed to be a consumer OS. Linux was designed/marketed to be a server OS. And it's easy to tell it when you compare them together.I agree here. But OEM's are finding that Linux works great in the embedded market, and so how's to stop them?
-Brent--
You thought getting those little AOL disks in mail was annoying!
Just imagine when AOL started UPSing whole computers to everybody, with 20 free hours of AOL-OS!
101010.org
the simplest answer
If you compare MSFT's proxy statements from two
years ago to the Sept 1999 one, you find that the
directors of the company as a group have reduced
their ownership stake from 35.8% to 25.7%.
The breakdown by person is:
Gates 22.3% -> 15.3%
Allen 7.6% -> 5.0%
Ballmer 4.9% -> 4.7%
Others 1.0% -> 0.6%
Are they getting out while the getting's good?
While this interesting (but not surprising) move by the major OEMs does spell some trouble for Microsoft (which sounds like some good news to me... maybe they'll fix some bugs now to gain market share), it's still not what I would really like: to be able to buy a Gateway or Dell (I really don't like Compaqs) with NO OS installed. I like some of the systems that said companies produce, I like the warranties and support that they have on their hardware (much easier than having to deal with 8 different vendors when things break... you can just call Gateway and say, "it's broken," and they send you new one). I just hate having to pay for software that I'm not going to use.
I understand why they don't support other OSes. Most people who are calling with problems are completely clueless, so their support techs have to walk them through troubleshooting. (They have to do this so that they're not replacing hardware when it's just software configuration problems). Now imagine if you're (well, not you... you wouldn't be this dumb) running the latest version of, say, OpenBSD on your new Dell, and you can't get sound to work. You call them up, the tech says, "Uh... click on start." And you say, "Uh... no." You actually don't know if the card is broken (unless you've confirmed this in an OS that is officially supported by the hardware vendor). Gateway doesn't know if you're right, lying, or stupid. Are they going to ship you a $110 piece of hardware because you think it's broken? Heh, no.
So as much as it would be nice, I don't see the OEMs spending money to support other OSes that represent microscopic market share.
*sigh*
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"In Cyberspace, no one can hear you be sarcastic"
Yes, I ran into this recently when purchasing a laptop. I was able to find a dealer (Hitron in Silicon Valley) that was willing to sell me a nice Chembook laptop without an operating system. They had to laod windows on it for burn in, but then just wiped the hard disk after burn in.
All in all things worked out very well. I got myself a *very* nice laptop without having to pay for an OS that I didn't want.
Maybe this trend will result in being able to purchase laptops from Dell etc. without Windows.
Without a doubt this is a move towards an AOLOS (maybe that's what they'll call it). That's why this story didn't excite me too much. So it looks like more and more people will believe that AOL IS not only the Internet, but is in fact synonymous with computer.
NC's aren't going to work in the home, they can't make the price point (which seems to hover around $200), and what sane individual wants to rent applications. NC's are the PC equivelent to DIVX, at least for the home market.
+&x
Microsoft uses unearned revenue to smooth income. Basicly the reported revenue (sales) on Microsoft's income statement is a weighted average of the sales over the past 18 months. Each year Microsoft recognizes most of the money they get for selling office etc. but puts the rest on the balance sheet as a liability (unearned revenue). Then over the next 18 months, they take the liability off the balance sheet and recognize the revenue. The reason the number on the balance sheet is smaller now (this unearned revenue) is that Microsoft reduced the % of revenue that was postponed. I think this change is a respones to the the SEC investingating Microsoft for "cookie jar reserve accounting." At the end of the year the reserves were $6 billion and I doubt that this indicates that Microsofts sales are falling.
ROFL. I wouldn't mind. I put Linux on them and start my own Beowulf cluster. :)
My journal has hot
1) I thought OEMs typically pay a large up-front cost for unlimited license to redistribute MS's Shipping PCs that don't run Windows actually costs them because they don't save any money in and have to retool their factories.
:)
M$ used to have a "per processor" licensing arrangement where OEMs would pay per CPU that they shipped. The DOJ told them no, no, shame-on-you and so they stopped doing that. The result was that OEMs now have to pay double and sometimes even triple for each copy of Windows that they used to pay. The fee is much higher than that $100 you pay at the computer store for a retail copy. (And its negotiated per OEM so the price is different for each OEM)
2) Norton Ghost can back up an entire system installation in a hidden partition. Some OEMs use this when a user really screws up their system: run this magic utility and your system will be just like it when you bought it.
Crap like this is why I custom build all my own machines.
My journal has hot
Everybody seems to be all gung-ho linux. Linux is nice and all, but your average user will have problems with having to wait to push the power button. Linux is a server, and it is good at it, but some other OSs do things like this better.
why BeOS?
1. BeOS is one of those who does some things better. With it's journaled file system (read database data integrity) you can punch the power button once every 60sec for a month and not destroy your files.
2. It boots very very quickly. Having linux and BeOS on the same machine I sometimes like to boot into BeOS simply because linux is too darn slow to boot.
3. BeOS while not free is darn cheap.
4. It is fast on slow hardware because of it's OO API, and extreme multithreadedness, because of it's real-time (ok quasi-real time) layer, and because of it's highly configurable microkernal architecture.
5. It's stable (as is linux) due to pre-emptive multitasking, paged memory, yadda yadda, yadda.
6. Pretty, consistant UserInterface
Having said BeOS would be good I also admit that Linux would work too, you would just need a better file system.
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
i've never tried this, but how about
:)
linux ro init=/usr/bin/emacs
(you'd have to be insane imo
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
At the University of Wisconsin, like many other institutions, we already pay Microsoft millions of dollars a year for a site license for Windows (and Office, and some other MS crap) So when we buy a machine with already pre-installed, we're paying for Windows twice.
Additionally, most of the larger departments already have a customized install of Windows that they use - we take them out of the box, drop in our CD, and blow away whatever crap the vendor put on the drives.
So, while this might be useful for the people who want to buy a Linux/BSD/whatever box from Dell, it's also wonderfully nice for people who do actually want a Windows box.
Hey you guys-
OK, let's think about Gateway, or Packard Bell. I work for an ISP, they all ship out with Lucent or rockwell Piece-of-junk WinModems, onboard SiS chipsets and the like... and other things that have yet to be supported by Linux... how are they going to do this? Are they going to get some better hardware, or write drivers themselves? Just a thought,
--phil
I think the most important part is not the cost or hassle, but that the manafacturers are starting to recognise that something other than M$ exists, and that it is a viable and popular alternative. Maybe perhaps motivated by their realisation that they can make money out of this, rather than any community spirit, but still, it's a step the right way...
I have one of them all-in-one-no-name cheap mobo's and it has SiS chipset and and SiS vid chip. work fine with Linux and the newest X. Winmodems? Who needs them when there are cablemodems DSL :)
If you're lucky enough to have them. I live in a major metropolitan area, and cable modems are only available in certain suburbs. (And I can't afford a move right now).
DSL is available but its still like $200 a month. People who are going to buy low-end machines that these companies intend to offer certainly cannot afford $200 a month for DSL, let alone even know what DSL is or have ever even heard of it.
My journal has hot
Linux (or any Unix variant) is not suitable for the consumer market. Probably never will be.
What of Mac OS X then?
the most elegant C++ API
Personally I think C++ is a load of bull. One of these days people will wake up to the fact that C++ is a pile of cruft grafted onto something that should have been left alone because it was nearly perfect.
... there was a major computer manufacturer. The manufacturer had historically produced high-powered machinery with full-blown operating systems, but in recent years had seen some erosion of its sales at the low end from less-capable but much less expensive brands. The Big Company decided to get in on the new trend and introduced its own line of low-end computers.
Since its customers needed more than hardware, the Big Company offered their machines with a choice of operating software: users could have the industry standard or a new product made specifically for the new machines. The standard software naturally commanded a premium price: $40 extra.
Now according to your theory, users would have overwhelmingly preferred the standard, premium operating software over the freebie included with the machine. That's not what happened, though. Anyone recognize the story?
Hint: Monterey, California
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
But it would be to risky to presume that that policy will continue indefinitely. With Linux, you need not have any such fear.
This announcement is simply the inevitable result of economic forces, and is a continuation of what we've seen for many months on the ultra-low end of the PC market (check pricewatch.com) PC makers are starting to preload Linux, in order to guarantee themselves $0 cost for OS licensing.
The big guys will probably make the install a bit more idiot-proof (KDM/KDE, predefined user account, no services enabled, StarOffice, icons on the desktop for all important stuff), but I'm pretty sure that this is where they are headed. They see the writing on the wall. You just can't make money selling low-end boxes with a $50-80 Windows license attached.
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Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
If Dell decides to ship some of these machines with Windows, and some without, the ones using Linux/BSD/BeOS or whatever they use will undoubtably be cheaper. If I were a clue-free end user, that would imply to me that they were inferior OS's, since the hardware was identical.
Have no fear - in the end Adam Smith and the law of supply and demand will always win. IOW, cheaper==++sales. If the the "more expensive is better" crowd needs to be taken care of, offer an option that includes a full boxed set of your favorite Linux distribution - that should get the price up high enough, as well as provide plenty of late-night reading material. (Or early morning "thinking material", depends on your personal preference:)
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
In a separate article, the newspaper said a move toward Web-based computing, together with expectations for a negative ruling in the federal antitrust case against Microsoft and a close reading of its revenue numbers, are leading some money-managers to cut back their holdings in the software giant
:)
This close reading of its revenue numbers refers to Microsoft's future unearned revenue, which consists of revenues set aside from the sales of W'98, WNT and Office to pay for future improvements. Essentially, it reflects previous sales that have not been recorded in the income statement. Microsoft pioneered this practice for software companies starting with W'95... it is more common in other areas (magazines for instance).
The concern is that this quarter marks the first ever drop in this slightly arcane (and not too accurate) indicator.
I would not be too optimistic that this company is in any sort of trouble. When you are sitting on $20 billion in cash, and absolutely no debt... you tend to have some staying power
for most people.
And if that shell is a decent browser, that takes them right past "oh, God - what the hell is this?"
They never see anything but a boot-squence and the browser. No OS at all, as far as the user is concerned.
Now, Linux could do that very handily. Some guy at Dell sets up a Linux box just so, with exactly this harware, one user account, disables security so that account opens on boot, makes the browser the default shell, cuts a CD of all the config files, and that's it.
Down sides:
1) The big one - at the moment, there is no browser. Netscape will not do. It crashes too much. On a real setup, you just delete the lock file and fire Netscrape back up. I have a batch file to do that in four keystrokes and an annoyingly long wait. But when the browser is the shell, that looks like a sort of warm reboot to the naive user. Quite uncool. You need a rock-solid browser.
2) The licensing. This box doesn't provide real easy access to the source code. But maybe throwing in a CD that the user will probably never see is good enough, as long as there is also a CD with the standard config on it to recover from what the occasional curious user does to the system.
Sanity For Today
Farley Flavors (of Fabulous Fast Food fame)
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Most average people aren't really going to be interested in installing a different OS. In fact, most people fear installing an OS period, even Windows. They want it already there, already set up so they can start frantically double-clicking all the icons.
/. early in the summer describes a plot by AOL-Sun-Netscape to render Windows obsolete. There is also talk of "AOL Everywhere", as if the AOL interface (God forbid) would become the operating system. Ellison and McNeely's vision of ditching all your locally installed software for web apps is likely what they are talking about.- ----------------
Alternatively, though, perhaps an OS in the traditional way we think of an OS is not what they're looking at. The article describes a PC that would mainly just be able to surf the web. The article mentions the fact that AOL invested $800M in Gateway, but does not mention the Netscape-AOL-Sun deal. Likewise, an article on
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I seriously doubt they'll ship any flavor of Linux. The article said the machines "will be designed mainly to surf the Internet" which indicates to me that they'll be targeting people who don't want a computer -- they just want something to browse that "web" that they hear everyone buzzing about. For that market segment, Linux would be about the worst possible choice; contrary to what some people around here might believe, Linux is *not* ready for the average computer newbie.
No, they'll probably ship it with some proprietary system (perhaps even based on Linux) that boots right into a web browser (probably Netscape, particularly since the article mentioned that AOL might be involved in one of the ventures) and does literally nothing else.
Bizarre that it wound up anonymous, but I suppose that's life.
D
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Vital signs for Be aren't half bad, if you know where to look. Revenues are growing, and last time I looked, the stock price was holding up to about level with the offer price. That indicates to me that investor confidence is decent. Granted, not excellent, but hardly in "dead" mode either.
In terms of usability, we have things like e-picture, which is a very nice web graphics application, GoBe Productive, which is a fine office-style application, and of course NetPositive the web browser.
Linux users with a reasonably open mind would probably like GoBe Productive - it's not hideously bloated like StarOffice, and the functions it supports are smooth and cleanly designed. That's an unusual way of describing a contemporary office suite, isn't it?
If it weren't for the lack of JavaScript support in NetPositive, I'd say BeOS would do superbly as a Windows substitute. I would certainly not write it off by any means. When Mozilla is released, most of the problems associated with BeOS should disappear.
The main problems with Linux in my mind are cosmetic. I'm typing this message on an old SGI workstation which has far less computing power than my Linux boxes, but I like it better anyway, simply because it's pretty. I can read most of the fonts without wincing. BeOS is like that; they've put all the detail work into the user interface so it looks nice and will be immediately appealing to the consumer.
What I wonder is which is more cost-effective: Giving Linux a better look, or giving Be a better web browser. Considering how fun NetPositive is to use on web sites which support it, I wouldn't bet against the latter.
D
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Oh, come now, NetPositive can handle images just fine :-).
:-(.
I agree, though, sometimes I really hate client-side scripting. Nothing wrong with the concept, I suppose, but what it's really best for is slowing down and crashing browsers - no matter what platform you're using
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1) I thought OEMs typically pay a large up-front cost for unlimited license to redistribute MS's software.
This was outlawed by the consent decree that MS signed in 1994 (or thereabouts). The "large up-front fee" was dependent on the number of machines shipped, with the result that you describe.
Shipping PCs that don't run Windows actually costs them because they don't save any money in licensing, and have to retool their factories.
Exactly. There was a disincentive for PC OEMs to ship other OSs. The US courts felt that MS was illegally taking advantage of its market share. PC OEMs now pay license fees based on the total number of boxes shipped within each of the OEM's product lines, rather than the overall total number of boxes shipped by the OEM. When a product line is first created, a lot of decisions are made regarding the hardware and software involved in that product line. Apparently it has now become profitable to consider NOT using Windows. The consent decree seems to have worked.
2) Norton Ghost can back up an entire system installation in a hidden partition. Some OEMs use this feature when a user really screws up their system: run this magic utility and your system will be just like it was when you bought it.
True. But it doesn't restore your system to the state it was in before the crash - all the customizations and tweaks and extra software you installed is GONE. OEMs would also have to pay a license fee to Norton to use the Ghost software.
My thought was to simply use some sort of auto-install software on a bootable CD that would reload the system partition. You limit the configuration changes the user can make to those that can be stored in the config partition. You don't let the user install any additional software. You sell the machine as what it is, an internet appliance, since most people don't want the infinite configurability and customization of current PCs. (Note - don't confuse "most people" with "most people who now own PCs").
How are we going to play minesweeper on the instore machines!?
I'm worried.
Note that the article states low cost, Internet machines. I'm thinking a strange AOl OS, so you have machines that are all-AOL, all the time.
Is it possible for this to happen?
Frankly, I have no idea, but Gateway will certainly include AOL. Is AOL avaliable for Linux or BE or any of the non-Windows, non-Mac OSes?
This is incredible and I wonder why I didn't see it coming sooner. It makes perfect sense for PC OEMs, in this era of shrinking profit margins, to do all they can to eliminate costs. If the consumer wants a only a simple word processor and web access with email, why do you need a huge OS? Why incur a hundred-dollar cost*? Why not use a $$$-free OS? And while you're at it, why not make it easy to restore the system to the original configuration without destroying user data?
From the article, it appears that MS is trying to develop a similar solution, but here's where the backlash kicks in. (I am so tickled I am laughing as I write this). Microsoft is known for their predatory pricing practices and their bullying behavior. If you've been burned by them before (and EVERY PC OEM has), and if you don't have to deal with them, why bother? I suppose Microsoft could, say something like "If you ship those Browser PCs without an MS OS, we will increase your MS license fees." That would be corporate suicide, given MS's current legal situation.
I have no idea how this will be implemented, but here's how I would do it. Create a "system" partition to contain the OS and software, a swap partition, a config partition, and a data partition. Only give the user access to the data partition. Store application configuration information on the config partition. If the OS dies for any reason, boot to the special CD that ships with the PC, and the "system" partition will be wiped and reloaded. On the software side, it would be virtually maintenance free, and user data would not be wiped out if you had to delete the system partition.
*Those familiar with MS licensing practices surely realize that PC OEMs are not charged the retail price of ~$100 for each copy of Windows they load. However, when considering the cost of Windows, you'd be a moron to leave support costs out of the equation.