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HP Pushes Open Source For Small Businesses
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Dec 13, 2008 02:28 AM
from the financial-motivation dept.
from the financial-motivation dept.
ruphus13 writes "HP finally begins to actively push open source in its products. From the post, 'HP has been quirky over the years when it comes to open source. It has been, traditionally, a company that supports open source — especially in larger enterprises... Wednesday, it announced two new open source products, geared to small businesses and educational institutions. HP plans on including its 'Mozilla Firefox for HP Virtual Solution' on more of its business class desktop PCs (to a total of seven models between the HP Compaq dc/dx lines in the US, eight models worldwide). Come December 15th, HP will also offer Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on its HP Compaq dc5850 model. The base SLED-equipped model will cost $519, and features the usual open source suspects for the small business setting — OpenOffice, and mail clients such as Evolution.'"
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What, again? (Score:5, Interesting)
How many times did they claim Linux support and backed out of it later?
Re:What, again? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right, they need to make up their mind or actually stick with what they announce they're going to do.
Parent
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I took a quick look at what HP is offering.
The $500 PC discussed in the summary only has 512 megabytes of RAM. That won't work with Vista which runs like a snail through molasses, but is it enough to run "SUSE" Linux? Or will that be running slow too?
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512 MB ram is probably enough for SUSE in an office setting.
As my second computer, I'm running Ubuntu on an older and slower Compaq that has only 384 MB ram. I use this for general office work (OOo, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc) when I've got my primary computer tied up with a 10 hour photorealistic ray trace rendering. I don't notice any performance difference with office type tasks between these:
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Did I get it wrong? It looks like the base model only has 512 meg RAM. Read more here: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/12454-12454-64287-321860-3328896-3658106.html [hp.com]
HP is IBM; IBM is HP (Score:5, Interesting)
After Lou Gerstner assumed the helm at IBM in the early 1990s, he re-organized the company to focus on services. He shutdown the division manufacturing desktops. He embraced open-source software like Linux. He turned IBM Semiconductor into a contract manufacturer of ASICs. Today, the bulk of both revenue and profits at IBM are due to services. Gerstner's successor came directly from IBM Global Services.
HP followed in the footsteps of IBM and purchased EDS. Just like IBM, HP fired thousands of employees to eliminate redundancies.
Both HP and IBM remain profitable during this ghastly recession. Sun Microsystems, which failed to significantly grow its services division, may not survive as an independent company.
Parent
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Its gonna suck, and suck badly (Score:2)
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Brother makes VERY good linux drivers as well.
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I hope that they are better than their Windows one.
Those damn Brother MFC drivers are a pain and their USB serial emulation used to prevent Windows from going into Standby
The fear is gone (Score:5, Insightful)
At long last vendors have gotten over their fear of Microsoft. There was a time HP and Dell would never consider preloading an alternative operating system. Now they're both doing it, and it's good for the customer, good for Linux and -- surprise -- good for HP and Dell.
The complete marketing failure that is Windows Vista made this possible. (Note that I didn't say the failure of Vista. Microsoft is on the road to salvaging the OS itself, but customer perception of its quality is a lost cause.)
Re:The fear is gone (Score:5, Interesting)
At long last vendors have gotten over their fear of Microsoft.
Just what I was thinking. They're still a 300 pound gorilla but can no longer bully several 150 pound gorillas.
Parent
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HP is shipping Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop linux.
Novell is Microsoft's trained 150 pound gorilla.
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Wow, they lost a lot of weight. I remember when Microsoft used to be an 800 or 900 pound gorilla.
Should make their doctors happy.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I think it would be better if the {the other) machines they sold ran both Windows and Linux (such that customers could run both concurrently). It would be great if a PC manufacturer could say: "Yes, you can run that Windows-ony business app of yours, but you also get (access to) a boat load of free useful software. It would sell. And buyers could throw off Linux if they insist.
That not being the case is still a tail of MS's monopoly abuse still present, I'm afraid.
Bert
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Uh... then you'll have to add $200 to the cost of the PC. Better to leave the Windows off and push Linux as a "lower cost alternative".
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b) He said "every new pc". I know Macs run on Intel now and the Insanely Mac project allows non-Apple hardware to run OS X, but call a Mac a Mac and a Dell/HP/Asus/* a PC, e.g. a computer that has yet to be blessed with the holy Apple logo.
<rant>
And since I am going to be modded down for badmouthing crApple anyways (hello, slashdot!):
Apple needs to stop dictating their App store so much and pissing off develop
Re:The fear is gone (Score:5, Insightful)
There, all of my Apple complaints are off my chest. Man, I feel better now!!
Ok, A/C, I'll bite:
a) Frankly, I don't know many people buying new Windows PCs. They're mostly buying Macs and half are migrating from Windows PCs. The ones buying Windows PCs always give a sad excuse like "my wife needs it for her work".
b) Apple was using the term "Personal Computer" for six or seven years before the IBM PC, which simply co-opted the term from others. Apple probably has more rights to "PC" than anyone.
c) It sounds like you should be worrying more about how obsolete your knowledge base will be in the next decade than ranting against whatever is displacing it. Step into the light. More individuals and companies are realizing that it's irresponsible to put a Windows machine where something else will do the same job. Everything is a threat only if you stay in a box and galvanize yourself against technological change.
Parent
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Macs are for either graphics designers, people who don't know any better (yet have deep pockets) or college kids who, in addition to making a fashion statement, aim to be "different" although most computer science majors switch to Linux fairly quick after discovering it.
You know nothing about OS X.
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Damnit. Did I leave my webcam turned again? How did you know?
Re:The fear is gone (Score:4, Insightful)
You have more confidence in Windows 7 than I do. Do you have some reason for such confidendce? Vista was similarly advertised as a wonderful upgrade, but its promised features (such as WinFS) somehow managed to fail, miserably, when actually tried and many of them were pulled from the final product. The new user interface is pretty silly, its intrusive DRM and security features are painful for users and encourage similar stupidities of always hitting 'yes', and the policy games played with releasing 'Vista-only' drivers and products are awful.
There seems no reason to think that the policies that led to Vista have changed, even if its preliminary tests are promising. Preliminary tests of Vista were also misleading in their performance tests.
Parent
Re:The fear is gone (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because Vista's DRM isn't turned on yet. Microsoft says they'll turn it on starting year 2010 (via an update of course), and then good luck trying to play all your burned CDs and DVDs that lack DRM.
Also:
I wouldn't be so sure that businesses will immediately jump to Windows 7. Being a contractor I get to see a lot of different companies installations, and Not One has upgraded to Vista. They still prefer XP even though it's almost three years since a new OS arrived.
Parent
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Yes, every vendor of any OS can release an update that changes the behaviour of it. That's kinda the reason for updates. Alas, this hasn't happened yet and it won't - there is no base for all the "evil conspiracy" hype around Vista.
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Oh okay. Well maybe I misunderstood then. I though the "protected media pipelines" were put in Vista for the purpose of blocking unauthorized copies of music from playing through the OS. Assuming I'm wrong, why did Microsoft put them there?
ALSO:
I'm not blaming Microsoft. I'm blaming the MPAA and RIAA; they're the ones who decided, starting 2010, to make CDs/DVDs unplayable in PCs that lacked DRM security. Sure Vista will play anything now, but come 2010 that will no longer be true.
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Oh okay. Well maybe I misunderstood then. I though the "protected media pipelines" were put in Vista for the purpose of blocking unauthorized copies of music from playing through the OS. Assuming I'm wrong, why did Microsoft put them there?
No, this would be a total disaster if they actually tried this. They'd have to block ALL APIs that allow unencrypted audio from unsigned applications, and that would break nearly every existing application that currently plays any sort of audio, not just DVD and CD playback. There are too many legacy audio pipelines they'd have to cut off (DirectSound, MCI, WaveOut), and even the native Vista audio API WASAPI allows unencrypted digital output. They'd even have to detect and block third-party audio pipeli
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And they tend to have less money to spend on IT so they will just go with whatever comes with the computers they buy. The company I work for purchases only from Dell for the simple reason that we can still get XP, the boss has seen Vista and what it does to system resources. He hates Vista (he already complains about how slow his quad-core, 3GHz systems is with XP64) and has told me flat out that he will not use Vista in the comp
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That's because Vista's DRM isn't turned on yet. Microsoft says they'll turn it on starting year 2010 (via an update of course), and then good luck trying to play all your burned CDs and DVDs that lack DRM.
Anyone can write an application that pumps a raw digital audio stream through the Vista audio subsystem. There are no requirements at the primary (WASAPI) or legacy APIs (MCI, DirectSound, WaveOut, etc) for digital encryption of the audio stream or even an application signature. This sort of DRM update you speak of, in addition to being completely technically infeasible, would utterly break every single audio-enabled application on the Windows platform today, such as browser plugins, professional audio de
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there are many cases where you have to download software separately, compile it on your own, install it somehow.
Really? "Many cases?" Name me five programs that an ordinary office or home user would need to compile if they're running a recent distro like Fedora or Ubuntu. I've used Linux for a dozen years now, and lately the only things I need to compile are obscure server apps. I can't think of a single piece of software running on my and my daughter's Kubuntu (Intrepid) machines, nor on my Fedora 8 de
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Technically, Vista was ok. If it would've been released 2 years earlier, it would've been great. Windows 7 is the polishment to Vista that XP was to 2000. History repeats itself.
Win7 is yet another attempt to sell Vista. First MS wanted to sell Vista. When they saw that fewer buy it than expected, they made a Service Pack but didn't get enough sales again because businesses wanted to skip Vista altogether. Solution -- take the same system based on the same kernel, slightly improve it, make a new wallpaper, bribe reviewers with expencive laptops to get positive reviews and call it Windows 7, maybe it'll sell now.
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Well, they haven't completely implemented Palladium, renamed 'Trusted Computing'. But if you work with CygWin and other open source tools, the poor interactions with their anti-viral and software management materials can get pretty painful. Getting OpenSSH, VNC, and Apache going under Vista were not fun for me.
This is particularly played out in the Windows Media Player: as near s I can tell, they implemented a lot of additional DRM in the Vista version, and have been backporting it to XP to keep people from
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That's only one of its hooks. It's designed, as well, to manage media such as DVD players and streaming applications to be able to unlock the data with the pre-signed, TPM enabled application. This is fine for media which the owner wishes to protect, but is nothing but pain for material which the *producer* wants to protect, and the user does not (such as videos and audios and games). This is like SecuROM, elected to be governor of California. And the keys are designed so that Microsoft will handle the core
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They are free.
Maybe you should have started with the newer one.
A few thoughts... (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, I wonder if "HP recommends Windows Vista® Business" (c/p from the product's description on HP's site) will go away when Linux offering is finally presented.
Also, I wonder if the Linux OS will be labeled "Genuine Novell(r) SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop(tm)" or just "Novell(r) SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop(tm)". Imagine the following scenario: an unsuspecting consumer comes to the website, sees a bunch of "genuine" Windows products, and then notices a (non-genuine, huh?) Linux-something desktop and goes "Wtf? Why is this not genuine?!"... That'd be M$: 1, Novell: 0...
Yeah, I'm skeptical... They all say they support open-source and free software, whatever. But I think they are just trying to get whatever piece of market they can.
Remember how the Punk movement started off as an attempt to contradict the system, and now it's highly commercialized. You can earn a good buck for pre-torn pair of jeans, and you can sell a circle-A leather jacket... people used to make these things by themselves to make a statement. Now you can get off-the-shelf statements for money. I think it's gonna be the same for open-source. In the end, it's all about money, and they don't care about the underlying philosophies. Consumers don't.
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First of all, I wonder if "HP recommends Windows Vista® Business" (c/p from the product's description on HP's site) will go away when Linux offering is finally presented.
I doubt it. Have you noticed that the wording of that phrase is the same with every PC manufacturer? "${MANUFACTURER} recommends Windows ${VERSION}". It's a marketing thing from Microsoft - include this phrase prominently and get a % discount on your OEM licenses.
Always supported Open Source?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
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They all work in GNU/Linux without any proprietary components, so what are you complaining about exactly?
Stuff that just makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Small businesses are used to running on a shoestring budget. They will often make a $150 used PC from Ebay "work" because they spent their capital on inventory, or paying taxes, or paying off a balloon payment for a short-term loan.
This is even more the case with the impending recession. Small businesses that can live on a shadow of the income of "the big boys" by staying lean and mean will survive and thrive through this economic shakedown, while wasteful "fat cats" will be pruned like the rotten fruit that they are.
In this space, saving a few hundred bucks can make or break a deal, and HP recognizes this.
Here, for $500-ish, they can offer a "complete office solution" that can only be matched for about $1,200 in the Microsoft camp. That's not a "few hundred bucks", thats OVER FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS difference, pure profit, all of it.
All without sacrificing HP's profit margins!
Of course they are going to do this, as soon as the $500 solution is functionally approximate to the $1,200 solution! (and it largely is, now!)
Printer drivers (Score:4, Interesting)
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The GP was probably thinking of Canon, where drivers are buggy to non-existent. I've got a Canon laser/fax/scan that is holding the corner of my desk down so it doesn't rock.
That's all it is good for.
Worthwhile Linux accounting app for US SMBs? (Score:2)
I don't know of any.
As I understand it, Intuit owns about 80% of the US SMB accounting market, the other 20% is split between Microsoft and Sage. Everything else combined, does not have enough of a user base to even register - which is a huge problem when it comes to support issues.
By support, I don't just mean phone support. I mean being able to find people who know, and accept, the product: accountants, consultants, employees, and third party developers. There are also issues of worthwhile documentation a
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Is 512 megabyte enough RAM? (Score:2)
I took a quick look at what HP is offering. The $500 PC discussed in the summary only has 512 megabytes of RAM. That won't work with Vista which runs like a snail through molasses, but is it enough to run "SUSE" Linux? Or will that be running slow too?
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The $500 PC discussed in the summary only has 512 megabytes of RAM. That won't work with Vista which runs like a snail through molasses, but is it enough to run "SUSE" Linux? Or will that be running slow too?
You must be new here.
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Why would you want it?
The time spent rewriting and managing the queries for it would be far better spent with an open source, universally applicable set of tools such as Nagios, MRTG, CFengine, etc. I've had difficulty explaining to managers impressed by OpenView demos that the work of configuring it for a site is similar to that of integrating open source tools for the HP machines, and the open source tools are more flexible to make a better map of the network and its services.
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Hey, AC, i think you've injected too much saline into your "brains" if you're complaining about the moderation of the grandparent post.