Linspire CEO Offers S. Korea To Replace Windows 279
Spy der Mann writes "Noticing the Microsoft threat to withdraw Windows from South Korea, the Linspire CEO, Kevin Carmony, just offered to license every computer in the country with Linspire, for just $5m. This would be around 10 cents / person. 'South Korea could save around a quarter of a billion dollars. More importantly, however, it would break South Korea loose from the monopolistic grasp of Microsoft, which the country currently finds itself under,'"
A mixed bag (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Linspire is targetted at Windows users. They've tried to make it easier to install, use, and maintain. Obviously lots of linux zealots hate it because they feel it's "dumbing down" Linux, but that's the only way Linux is going to capture any significant marketsh
Re:A mixed bag (Score:5, Funny)
He, he could. He could direct all of Korea to Linux
newsgroups & mailing lists, where geeks will flame
Koreans to code fixes what bugs they find.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
And oh, yes, add the obligatory:
4: Profit!!!!
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
With the precedent in place, and the Unicode kinks worked out, Linspire can then target other Asian markets.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I want Linux to succeed here in S. Korea, HanSoft's 3.2 version is already free, and it isn't doing their market share any good.
Not a chance of this happening in the private sector.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Nice of you to dismiss one of their largest MMORPGs as "crap", too. Unless it is supported flawlessly, no other browser, let alone OS, stands a chance. And I use Wine all the time, and it is FAR from flawless.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
What is this 'support' you speak of? The article mentions licencing only.
'Support'? 'Usability'? A Ledi craves not these things.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Linspire=HUGE updates.
This is a recipe for disaster. Linspire doesn't have the resources to pull it off. As a marketing plan, it is a good idea. As a realistic plan, it doesn't sound too good.
$5 million sounds like a decent amount of money for Linspire, but for long-term support, it is just a drop in the bucket.
I would almost guess that Bill Gates put them up to this. Watching this fail would bring joy to his holidays...
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:4, Insightful)
New hardware to handle the load = $$$
Big pipes to service traffic = $$$ (even in Korea)
Cost to maintain data center = $$$
Like I said...$5 million doesn't go too far when you have to set up that type of infrastructure.
They're not talking about something small here - they're talking about supporting an entire country. You can't do that from your mom's basement.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
And you don't download from Bittorrent...you download from Linspire.
THAT is why this is a big deal.
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
This is true for Windows Vista, not Linux.
"Big pipes to service traffic = $$$"
I don't think i understand what you mean. Supply chain? Network downloads?...
"Cost to maintain data center = $$$"
I'm sure these are lower than if Koreans go for the hardware-sucking and license-hungry Vista...
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
There's this "bittorrent" thing I've been hearing about...
Re:A mixed bag (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite being Linspire (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree you have a point here, but I think if you could move an entire country over to Linus, for even a little while, it would be a huge step in the right direction. Even if it is a terrible distro, I think a lot of people would be willing to switch from Linspire to another Linux distro. The switch from a crappy distro to a good one would certainly be easier than individuals switching from Windows to Linux on their own.
Hell, maybe everyone will use it and decide to go bac
Re:A mixed bag (Score:2)
No, because they would have to bundle Cegeda with Lindows too, and support that. South Korea is effectively the world headquarters of gaming, and the PC varieties of those games run on Windows, NOT Linux. Unless you want the people to overthrow the government, you're going to need to provide them with some way of playing their games on their new Linux-based PCs.
Of course, I would imagine that if Microsoft pulled out of South Korea, a more likely scenario is that the
Open letter to S. Korea (Score:4, Funny)
I've got a better offer. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've got a better offer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've got a better offer. (Score:5, Insightful)
What about they try to find a local solution that will be better localised, that will have local support, that will create jobs, that will keep their cash inside the country, all this meaning that it will help develop a local well adapted independant IT which will benefit their country as a whole?
When you have a giant... (Score:2)
Re:I've got a better offer. (Score:5, Informative)
Nice marketing stunt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an interesting dilemma for the S. Korean Govt. Giving in to Microsoft would be like negotiating with terrorists - if you cave in to them, it sends the message that blackmail works, and they'll do it again.
Consequently, South Korea's might feel their best interests like in making the switch, trading the short term inconvenience of the migration against getting out from under the thumb of one of the planet's more rapacious corporations.
This could get very interesting :D
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:2)
I don't think most normal S. Koreans will even hear about this. It's not like somebody is in a position to decide all South Koreans will now switch to Linspire. It's no different than if some off-the-wall Linux distro from Mongolia offered to wipe out Windows piracy in the
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:2)
Your just spouting political [yahoo.com] nonsence [bbc.co.uk], to deal with terrorists you need to setup negotiations and cave in to some of their demands.
Prior to the UK dealing with the IRA there was a complete ban on broadcasting [charter88.com] the words of Sinn Fein leaders and the terrorsts kept on bombing [bbc.co.uk].
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:2)
Now, now. Don't mince your words, say what you mean :)
Personally, I always interpretted the "no negaotiation" business to mean non-negotiation in hostage and blackmail situations. Trying to address the complaints of your aggressors and find some common ground between opposing positions is always going to be a good idea.
But so long as you conceed the aptness of the terrorism analogy, does that mean that you think South Korea owes Redmond some concessi
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:2)
If Korea switches to Linux they will have a heck of a lot of technologists ready to support Chinese companies when they switch over to their new OS (Could be Linux could be something built from the ground up.)
Re:Nice marketing stunt (Score:2)
Crippled Linux? (Score:2, Funny)
Linspire will replace crippled Windows with Linux - cheap
Re:Crippled Linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Crippled Linux? (Score:2)
Re:Crippled Linux? (Score:2)
OTOH from your message it doesn't sound like you asked for formal support.
Re:Crippled Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Just because it's funny doesn't mean they're joking.
Yeahm (Score:2, Funny)
Is S. Korea Linspire CEO's to offer?
Is S. Korea a viable alternative to Windows?
Are there any benchmarks on S. Korea's performance on general desktop tasks?
Isn't this solution a bit excessive?
Certainly.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Certainly.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Certainly.... (Score:2)
On the contrary, in the early-to-mid 90s, consoles were quite popular, even though they were partially rebranded. Samsung and Sega agreed to market the Master System, Genesis and Saturn under the Samsung logo while Hyundai and Nintendo co-branded the GB, GBC and SNES. Sony also released the white PSOne here as well, so illegal wouldn't quite fit.
Samsung Saturn [engadget.com]
Samsung Master System [smspower.org]
Check the history section [wikipedia.org]
Support? (Score:5, Interesting)
He's going to provide support for 50 million computers at 10 cents each? Would be quite tough.
If there is no support involved, I'd like to provide South Korea with Linux for 50 million computers in the form of either CentOS [centos.org], Fedora [redhat.com] or Ubuntu [ubuntulinux.org] for free and free with "community support".
What's the deal?
Re:Support? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's going to provide support for 50 million computers at 10 cents each?
Poor journalism, it was for licensing not support.
Microsoft pulls stunts, why should not Linspire. Who knows, it might work. If it does not it is free publicity.
Re:Support? (Score:5, Funny)
He's going to provide support for 50 million computers at 10 cents each? Would be quite tough.
Wouldn't be hard at all, if he's just going to match the support Microsoft provides.
Re:Support? (Score:2)
Most Koreans Websites IE only (Score:4, Informative)
In Korea, Computer = Windows PC with IE (Score:5, Interesting)
Korean computer culture seems to be even more homogenised than it is in other countries. Everyone uses Windows; everyone's on MSN Messenger; everyone has a Cyworld Mini-hompy[1]. My iBook received interesting responses: those that had heard of Macs thought that they were tools for graphic artists.
In addition, there's a big limitation in that SEED, a Korean 128-bit encryption system used in online banking since the days of US 40-bit-only export restrictions, is only supported in IE; although there are moves to port it to Firefox, it hasn't been completed yet, as far as I know.
1. Mini-homepage, a sort of personalised blog/music/photo-sharing site. They are literally miniature, too: even on a large monitor, the 'mini-hompy' is limited to a few hundred pixels in each direction in the centre of the page.
Re:In Korea, Computer = Windows PC with IE (Score:2)
In South Korea ... (Score:5, Funny)
And in Massachusets.... (Score:2)
It's a mean game (Score:2)
If you give up Windows... (Score:5, Funny)
Where do I sign up?
Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
humbug! Free software blows M$ away in Korea. (Score:3, Insightful)
The quesion is, can a single company do as much as an entire country can on it's own
no way this happens until... (Score:5, Funny)
Insightful, not funny (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, for about six months. After six months, all the game manufacturers start pushing Linux in a big way, since there's no way any of them would leave Korea of their own free will -- and they sure as hell won't let Microsoft pull them out without a good fight.
South Korea's got some 17 million PC gamers. How many does America have? If you count consoles, it's probably no contest, but I'm under the impression that PC gaming is a bit of a niche market in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if South Korea has more PC gamers than the entire US, even with only 1/6 the population.
No, the day Microsoft pulls out of Korea is the day that Blizzard and NC Soft shift focus to Linux. Once that happens, the hardware vendors start writing decent drivers for Linux, and all of a sudden Linux doesn't suck as a gaming platform anymore, and Windows becomes an "also supported" platform.
This is a bluff, and Microsoft stands to lose a lot from it. They've set the charges and are pushing the plunger from inside the parking garage.
That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at Mozilla and Firefox and you see what a difference a little marketing can make.
Re:That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:3, Insightful)
Ubuntu seem to be successfully marketing their distro at Mac-coveting, Greenpeace-supporting students, we need more of the same. Bring it on...
Re:That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:2)
Name 5 reasons the ordinary PC user would want to use Linux -- that don't involve negative comparisons with Windows, and don't involve Unix oogware such as latex or emacs.
(...)
Re:That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:2)
Re:That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:2)
And Firefox and OpenOffice are primarily deployed on Windows -- not an argument in Linux's favor.
Re:That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:2)
Re:That is EXACTLY what Linux needs (Score:2)
IMO its better than expecting Korean teeny-boppers (who have much better things to do with their time) to learn arcane installation techniques in order to play non-free media formats in the varied ways a modern OS does.
The full Linspire may not be free, but you won't have people pulling their hair out linking rtsp:// type protocols to their browser, and getting threatening warnings from their friends w
Just this?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, and how much would be the cost of Win->Lin transition? Training thousands of people? Porting millions of lines of code? Translating all the stuff? and so forth. Whoever told this must take a look my signature!
I thought monopolies were bad? (Score:2)
Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer, just offered to license every computer in the country with Windows
Re:I thought monopolies were bad? (Score:2)
I agree, but there is a wider picture. If the givernment mandates Linspire that's bad, but mandating Linux - with Lindows being the initial distro of choice would be a much more positive thing.
There is an important difference between mandating "Windows" and "Linux". In the first case you are supporting a, third-rate, monopoly OS. In the second you are supporting a large number of competing supplers
Re:I thought monopolies were bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
You see, having lived through the whole PC revolution, I contend that MS did not hitch a ride on the coat-tails of the IBM-PC. In fact in my view it is the other way around -- they drove the bus! Until MS came along the pattern was for hardware vendors to also sell you their OS. Everything was closed. Even Apple (a darling of this forum) was closed (and still is). It's "us or the highway" was what all the hardware vendors declared. As it turns out, though, IBM screwed up by outsourcing their OS and not demanding an exclusive (I'm sure they would do it differently if they could have a "do-over"). Gates was no dummy. He developed versions of MSDOS independent of IBM, which ran on IBM machines. And yes, MS got a bit lucky when clones emerged, though frankly if they hadn't have secured rights to sell MSDOS to those clone manufacturers then it would have been much more difficult for them (the cloners) to achieve compatibility. They would have had to "clean room develop" an OS, which is significantly more difficult than clean-rooming a BIOS (which was hard in itself). [note: why is that? it's because a BIOS is a middle layer which is pinned from both ends, an OS is only pinned from the bottom unless you can get your hands on every application ever written to test compatibility at the top] So basically it was MS that broke the hardware vendor's lock on operating systems. This led to competition in the hardware world, which led to cheap hardware. All of that led to Microsoft's hard-won dominance in the marketplace in a self-perpetuating spiral. One more note, by insisting on binary compatibility, MS has managed to maintain their dominance (and at the same time fostered the cheap hardware revolution) all the way to today. Intel/AMD were forced to keep binary compatibility (come out with a new chip that wouldn't run Windows? preposterous), which again led to much competition in the processor world, which led to amazing performance at ever cheaper prices. Counter-examples: Sun SPARC, Intel Itanium, IBM PowerPCs (used by Apple). None of these processors had binary compatibity with another vendor's parts and, surprise of surprises, they are all fading away. You can say all you want about MS business practices, and the quality, security and stability problems with their software, but you cannot deny their significant role in laying the foundations for cheap, compatible hardware which enabled things like FOSS and Linux to emerge.
Re:I thought monopolies were bad? (Score:2)
Re:I thought monopolies were bad? (Score:2)
Re:I thought monopolies were bad? (Score:2)
That will need a lot of putty (Score:4, Funny)
Re:That will need a lot of putty (Score:2)
Asianux would make more sense (Score:2)
In general, I hope countries around the world try to move to localized distributors of Linux. This is the real strength of Linux.
Replacement? (Score:5, Funny)
It definitely sounds like an interesting idea, but how is South Korea going to run on my machine? Plus, having the whole country installed on my drive sounds like it will take up a _lot_ of space...
Generous Offer (Score:5, Funny)
That is one generous offer by the Linspire CEO. I give up Windows and he will give me South Korea? I would take him up on the offer but I would be kind of nervous about North Korea blowing it up. Plus Windows probably has a lower cost of operation than entire country of South Korea.
clarification (Score:2)
if there is another product for sale (linspire) then MS does not have a monopoly.
Re:clarification (Score:2)
Re:clarification (Score:2)
There is, indeed, a difference. Just because it isn't black and white doesn't mean it isn't there. Few things in the world represent polar opposites....
Where can you go to get a Linux preinstall? Does that same manufacturer sell the Linux system (or *gasp* empty system) cheaper or more expensive than the equivalent Windows box
Free publicity, and not too shabby a deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of the merits of Lindows v. all the other Linux distributions out there, this is all about marketing, and it was the right thing to do. Microsoft cannot even afford a counter offer, since this will set the same kind of precedent and every government in the world is going to demand a blanket license like that.
Linspire is shit (Score:2)
Interesting for gamers? (Score:2, Interesting)
This could be a good thing.
Not gonna happen (Score:5, Informative)
Hell, almost every machine at Space 9 (a huge technology store) comes with the latest Vista beta installed. It's going to take a lot more than offering Linspire to the whole country to make a switch like that. I agree it's just free marketing.
Yes, games. (Score:2)
C'mon, everybody! Sing along! (Score:2)
An el cheapo stunt (Score:2)
After all, Microsoft is a bully. If they are going to beat up a country, it will be an i
maybe they need a different master (Score:3, Interesting)
-- Richard Stallman
Sounds like a fine deal... (Score:2)
Personally, I think its a great idea. I can be used in a lot of places and the real-world $$$ savings would significant. But everyone dum
isnt computer gaming a way of life in S. Korea?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Opportunistic (Score:4, Insightful)
I take it you hold MS Windows to be a user friendly operating system. Sp does that mean if (thought experiment) Windows were to be open-sourced it would suddenly become user-unfriendly?
Or were you just trolling?
Re:Just what linux needs a bunch of commie support (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just what linux needs a bunch of commie support (Score:2)
Re:energy is liberated through blasphemy (Score:2)
Starcraft (Score:2, Funny)