Microsoft Decides To Take On Linux On Low-Cost PCs

e5rebel writes "Microsoft is launching a program to promote the use of its Windows OS in ultra low-cost PCs. It is an effort to stop Linux dominating this market but Microsoft is insisting on limiting the hardware specs of these devices."

The pitch

"For just a little extra money, you can have degraded performance and not have to worry about all that controlling-your-own-hardware nonsense"

Alas, like most of their similar pitches, I'm putting my money on it working spectacularly.

Re:The pitch

Heck, if you cluster 7 or 8 of those bad boys together you could probably run a stripped down version of Vista.

Re:The pitch

like most of their similar pitches

I went for an interview recently, and the owner of the company remarked on my Linux experience and told me how much better the MS environment is for developing in, and how good a "properly set up and maintained" MS server is.

His pitch was a word for word copy of the MS FUD you get on their website.

Re:The pitch

Yeah but was the guy a chump or was he just baiting you to assess your reaction?

And just because the guy's a chump doesn't mean that he's wrong. If their cheap hires are *nix illiterate or they suck so badly as an employer that they can't retain staff; then the point-click-drool solution doubtlessly is "better" for them.

Re:The pitch

***His pitch was a word for word copy of the MS FUD you get on their website.***

Perhaps you might wish to consider politely turning down any job offer that results from the interview. There are good reasons for having a Microsoft environment. The beauty and elegance of Microsoft's software is not one of them.

Re:The pitch

Let me say this: I did not get the Job, but I am not upset at that, I was going for the interview in the spirit of "if I don't get it I don't mind."

I have a ton of respect for the guy, he has build a successful business, and is obviously good at what he does.

We had a frank discussion on the platform they use, and he has worked with Linux before. What I did notice was the aforementioned FUD reference. I'd expect more from a guy like this.

If the MS platforms were really that much superior to the Linux platforms why not have more specific and substantiated arguments? I smelled either a test, like an above poster mentioned, or he really believed the FUD, since he had no recent experience in a linux environment - by his own admission ten years ago at the newest.

Re:The pitch

I think it's worthy to note that Vista costs as much as the low-cost PCs.

(I base this on the near 300 dollars for Vista Ultimate and near 200 dollars for Home Basic.)

If they want to limit specs...

How will Microsoft compete? It is very common knowledge that Windows runs slower on any given system than Linux does. The low-end PCs are not beefy by any means. Linux will just feel snappier and also shouldn't need as much RAM for similar tasks.

In the low end, it seems like all MS will be doing is highlighting their shortcomings.

Re:If they want to limit specs...

How will Microsoft compete?

They don't compete any more. They mandate. Their problem seems to be that OEMs are now following along by releasing systems under their mandate, but also building neat stuff outside the mandate. They can't do anything about the fact that their mandate subtracts value, making the new Linux gear immensely popular.

Of Course!

Limiting the hardware specs ensures a healthy profit margin on the OS. Sounds like good business.

We wouldn't want folks loading "WinXP lite" on good hardware. It might run really fast and have fewer conflicts, then they'll come to expect that from us in other products.

Two things leap out

The first is that they limit screen size and also prevent you from having touch screens. Maybe it's just me, but the probability of any device I own having a touch screen goes up the smaller the screen size is, so this seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot.

The other thing that really leaps out is this:

The goal apparently is to limit the hardware capabilities of ULPCs so that they don't eat into the market for mainstream PCs

I can think of a lot of other companies that have tried to limit the capabilities of products in one market segment so that they don't compete with those in another (IBM with the PC, SGI with low-end graphics hardware) but I can't think of a single company where the approach has resulted in anything other than them losing the market to a competitor. Maybe the MS monopoly is so strong that they can do this, but I doubt it somehow.

XP Home only

So if you're looking for thin & light notebooks to join your AD domain, you still need the Linux ones.

They've just defined the features for the next big Linux boom: 12" touch screen, 100GB HDD, dual core. That was clever. Differentiate your product as the less capable one. Genius!

These machines will never run Vista well. Let's keep that important knowledge in front of people. Intel expects to move 10 million Atom platforms in the first wave, and none will have Vista.

Bah!

I don't know about ultra low cost pc's but I've held on to an old laptop that's falling apart, had a failing drive and the replacement never quite fit so I just pulled it out and have been using a Damn Small Linux CD to boot so I can browse the web and even VNC into my main desktop.

I also found this today. MilaX [milax.org] which claims to be like DSL but is based on OpenSolaris. But it doesn't look like that POS laptop will be able to run this.

MS is planning on charging betweek $26-$32 bucks for Windows XP Home Edition for these machines. That's still a significant cost compared to the price of these machines. Especially the One Laptop Per Child based on reports of what they're planning on charging. But then again it seems their prototypes wound up being 2x as much as planned.

Way Cool; now is time to start company

With MS trying hard to limit a company's hardware, that means that they will prevent sony and others from competing directly. So NOW is the time to start a hardware company. Do several platforms. The first being something that is XO style. Then go to next levels, which would be just above what MS is blocking. At that level, make it have touch screen. And of course, make it with some form of OSS (most likely Linux). This will allow you to hold down costs, and compete against the big boys

Wow!

It is an effort to stop Linux dominating this market

Whoa, we're dominating a desktop market? That's awesome!

Sometimes, when you turn around and look at the path that FLOSS has made over the past two decades, you just have to be proud. Way to go everyone!

Fear and trembling in the PC industry

The PC industry is terrified of low-cost laptops. They see $199 laptops in bubble packs at every WalMart, with a profit of about $1 per unit. Dell is in trouble; their custom-build business model is dying. So Microsoft's approach to driving up prices looks attractive.

It won't last, but it might be good for a few years.

Am I the only one to feel...

It's time for manufacturers to tell Microsoft "Look, we do this on our terms. If you want to cooperate on our terms, fine. If not, then take your fucking ball and go home!"

Seriously, there's a great alternative out there. Microsoft is, for the first time in a very long time, in a position not as the big bully, but as the kid trying to get popular. Let's see how they manage to cope with this...

Re:They have to fight the camel's nose

Once Joe Random use linux on a low priced pc, why would Joe Random want to pay the Microsoft Tax ever again?

Because Joe wants to run Calendar Creator or some such nonsense. He doesn't want to type "sudo apt-get install $whatever". He doesn't even want to use Synaptics Package manager. He wants the damn CD he bought in the bargain bin at WalMart to load and install.

He wants IE and all the stupid toolbars.

He doesn't want to think about this appliance he bought.

And he especially doesn't want to go online and post a question to a forum. Even the warm and inviting Ubuntu forums. He just wants it to work. (Irony noted).

Re:They have to fight the camel's nose

He's gonna have a hell of a time finding where to put the CD in on one of these low-cost laptops. I have yet to see one with an optical drive.

Joe User WANTS to spend more money?

So ... your mythical Windows user bought the cheapest box he could find ... and then wants to spend MORE money ... at WalMart ... on applications?

When he could just download the app at home.

Good ole joe

I know Joe. He wants a lot of things. He wants our web design firm to make it so that whatever funky formatting he tries to paste in from MS Word will come out in the site exactly how it looks in Word.

Joe has a problem: the cost of creating an online application that mirrors Word (and Excel and friends) exactly is in the several-millions, and is furthermore legally proscribed by patents anyway.

We can hook Joe up with some great RTEs and OOo templates that work for a couple thousand dollars, but Joe wants the illegal multimillion dollar project for $2,000.

I'm not interested in trying to accomodate Joe anymore.

Re:But are these devices that useful?

Can someone convince me that these devices are [very] useful to the point of replacing the notebook?

The point isn't really to replace the notebook. They'll do that too, though. A modern laptop is ridiculously overpowered for the purpose of running a well designed OS and office application. The idea is to make it cheap enough to not freak out about breaking it, to provide enough power to do your stuff but not so much that you have to be chained to a wall wart to accomplish anything that takes more than two hours.

Can I for example, load OpenOffice.org on the Eee PC?

Yes. And it runs just fine. And with Compiz the visual effects are flashier than Aero if you want them to be. And it will play HD video just fine. And it's got all the wireless features you would expect. And on and on. The screen and keyboard are a little small. The next generation may be better in this regard.

Re:crippled hardware = bad performance

Yeah, the specs seem high enough.

My real reaction to this is nausea. In effect this is what is happening:

"Please please pleeeaaasse sell XP on your products! We'll even give it at a discount, but then you need to do what we say specs wise."

C'mon, why the limits on the hardware specs? Is it to limit the choice of the customer?

"Sorry sir, if you want a touch screen with that baby we'll need to limit you to using Vista. I know you are supposed to have a choice in the matter, but Microsoft policy dictates otherwise. Yeah, in effect they get to decide what you can run on what you buy. A linux alternative, uh sure - I think dell offers a similar spec device with Ubuntu on it... wait, where are you going!?"

When will MS begin to put the interests of their customers first? If they can develop a custom version of Windows for mobile devices, surely they can develop a custom _modern_ version of Windows for low-end or micro laptops.

If a linux community can do that, why can't they? Are they admitting that the open-source community which they deride so is capable of something they are not?

Could it be that they cannot develop something like this? I say they definitely can, so the only other alternative is that they don't want to - hence they don't give a rats ass what the customer needs.

Re:E.g. EeePC

bingo, that's why everybody is squealing. Asus cut the harware specs to cover the windows costs. To the average user, it will look like two things cost the same one "broken" without Windows but a few GB of ram (who cares about 8GB when there's 500B drives for cheap?) Stores simply won't sell without windows, and I'm sure MS has advertising agreements to sell the Windows stickers with big box stores so the Linux version won't see shelf space.

On another note, a lot of good the "patent" agreement did Xandros here. They got "blessing" to sell their linux with windows "compatible" functions only to have Microsoft come and eat their lunch when they actually make sales.

Re:So...

You know what's funny, is that just today I took a mandatory online training course on anti-trust regulations, just like everyone in my company does. It was funny reading the article, because like at least 3 or 4 things were specifically mentioned:

• Predatory pricing to prevent a new entrant into a market by a company with market dominance
• Limitations on what resellers can do with the product purchased (only on low-end PCs)
• Arbitrary discounts to some distributors over others
• Agreements between different members of the supply chain to limit customer choice

If the EU is at all consistent with the policies explained in my training today, MS should be forced to either sell low-cost XP to everyone, regardless of the hardware, or not sell XP at all. Who do I write in the EU to get an injunction?