On the surface, one would think this is a good thing, and im confident it will be. However, I have friends in retail, who laugh when I tell them what OS I use. Their reason is this, when Linux came out, it was considered the latest and greatest, suddenly the big retailers started stocking linux and some games/apps for the platform, but when the sales werent as good as expected, they turned their backs on it thinking it was all hype. Of course no one bought from the shops! for starters its double the price as online retailers such as www.everythinglinux.com.au here in Australia, and secondly, most of it could be downloaded for free.
However, this is high end commercial software for use in a corporate Environment. Companies are going to be happier paying for software from a big name such as IBM, than free software from freshmeat.net, because of the illusion that paying for it means its better quality and theres more support, this may or may not be true, however, the thing is, that it could go either way, companies might adopt linux because of the support from big names, or they might just stick with because they see no reason to switch, despite the support from big blue and others.If the latter happens, then sales for IBM's linux software will dwindle, and people will automatically think that Linux isnt up to the task because the sales show it
I can see this has benefits both in the gameing market and as cheap PC's. However one problem I see is that as the pace of gameing console developement increases, linux hackers are going to be constantly chasing the cat trying to keep up with the new consoles out on the market.
On the other hand, it means that these cheap consoles which can be used as PC's will be even cheaper, quicker, because they will be redundant so soon (in terms of being the latest and greatest console) resulting in them hopefully being adopted as *really* cheap PC's with a free OS
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However, this is high end commercial software for use in a corporate Environment. Companies are going to be happier paying for software from a big name such as IBM, than free software from freshmeat.net, because of the illusion that paying for it means its better quality and theres more support, this may or may not be true, however, the thing is, that it could go either way, companies might adopt linux because of the support from big names, or they might just stick with because they see no reason to switch, despite the support from big blue and others.If the latter happens, then sales for IBM's linux software will dwindle, and people will automatically think that Linux isnt up to the task because the sales show it
I can see this has benefits both in the gameing market and as cheap PC's. However one problem I see is that as the pace of gameing console developement increases, linux hackers are going to be constantly chasing the cat trying to keep up with the new consoles out on the market.
On the other hand, it means that these cheap consoles which can be used as PC's will be even cheaper, quicker, because they will be redundant so soon (in terms of being the latest and greatest console) resulting in them hopefully being adopted as *really* cheap PC's with a free OS