AOL has no interest in going head to head with MS in the desktop OS market. Microsoft already has this locked up, and believe it or not, Windows works reliably enough for ALL of their non-techie users.
There is no point in trying to make converts out of the millions of aol users. I don't care how friendly linux is, my grandma isnt doing that type of system maintainance on the computer she got from QVC. (heck it might even void the warranty)
What we could see however, is a set-top box or internet appliance type of device rolled out by AOL which would have limited features and software intended only for use with AOL's internet services, running on a Linux operating system. A pre-packaged system of this type *would* be attractive to non-techies, especially if it were cheap enough.
People might go for something like this, done right of course. A system like this would cut out any OS licensing costs involved with a Windows-based solution.
If they could come up an appliance that did everything you could do on AOL with a PC easily, no one would care what OS was underneath.
Who knows, they might even give these things away if you sign up for the AOL service for a couple of years.
Slashdot Mirror
AOL has no interest in going head to head with MS in the desktop OS market. Microsoft already has this locked up, and believe it or not, Windows works reliably enough for ALL of their non-techie users.
There is no point in trying to make converts out of the millions of aol users. I don't care how friendly linux is, my grandma isnt doing that type of system maintainance on the computer she got from QVC. (heck it might even void the warranty)
What we could see however, is a set-top box or internet appliance type of device rolled out by AOL which would have limited features and software intended only for use with AOL's internet services, running on a Linux operating system. A pre-packaged system of this type *would* be attractive to non-techies, especially if it were cheap enough.
People might go for something like this, done right of course. A system like this would cut out any OS licensing costs involved with a Windows-based solution.
If they could come up an appliance that did everything you could do on AOL with a PC easily, no one would care what OS was underneath.
Who knows, they might even give these things away if you sign up for the AOL service for a couple of years.