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Japanese PC Manufacturers Preinstalling Linux 48

Posted by Roblimo from the it's-about-time dept.
cshirky writes "There's an article in AsiaBizTech about Japanese PC manufacturers bundling Linux. The article concludes that 'Because Japan's main vendors are starting to offer Linux products and services, the Linux OS is likely to become a viable alternative for corporate customers.'" They're talking about big companies, too, like Compaq, IBM Japan, Hitachi, and Fujitsu. Sweet!
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Japanese PC Manufacturers Preinstalling Linux More

Japanese PC Manufacturers Preinstalling Linux

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  • Linux Today has this [linuxtoday.com] story - part 2- about Linux and Korea.

    Thankyou - that's the most useful Korea link I've ever seen. Following a lead to the korean internet faq I found the following interesting statement:

    Microsoft Korea came up with its own Hangul encoding, UHC(Unified Hangul Code: MS Code Page 949, Windows-949) stripping Hangul of its unique merit as 'phonetically-combined-writing' system and treating it just like Chinese letters, use it in Hangul Windows 95 and Windows NT (in case of Korean Windows NT 4.0, all internal processings are done in Unicode, but on the surface, it used UHC) despite repeated advices by Korean government to adopt ISO-10646.

    Hmm. Talk about de-comoditizing standards. Well I guess if you can take control of an entire country's language encoding standard you've got a real kick-ass lock-in happening. BTW, thanks to your link I've now got hangul up and running in hanterm and Netscape - maybe that missing hangul howto just just say one thing: "get hanterm".

    :-)
  • Korea seems to have decided that Microsoft is strategicly bad to deal with and that Linux is a better choice.

    When did they decide that? I was there for some time last year and the impression I got is that Microsoft is rather dominant to say the least. In Korea the economic imperative is stronger than in many of the leading industrial countries with higher per capita GNP, making it harder to justify spending a lot of one's time doing something that doesn't produce an immediate paycheck. Translation: working as an MSCE pays the bills - being a Linux guru doesn't.

    At least, that seems to have been the case till now. What may change that is the obvious utility of Linux on a departmental mail server, or proxy server, or VPN gateway, or odbc database server, etc. etc. The software cost of each of these applications being $0.0 (even less when converted to won :-) This will help breed a new class of Linux gurus in Korea that pull their own weight, income-wise.

    Linux is far from entering the mainstream as a desktop system in Korea. There are a number or reasons for this but one of the big ones is the spotty internationalization support. It's certainly not a "sit in it and drive away" situation. Turbo Linux is jumping in to help fill this void, but tell me - why is there no hangul-howto (IOW how to install hangul) in the standard howto collections? So that you can easily work in hangul even in Redhat, Debian, or whatever?

    In my opinion, we haven't done enough to support Linux take-up in one of the world's most populous and industrially advanced countries. Whoever is in Korea and is reading this, please correct me if I've said anything inaccurate.
  • The 2.2 series is pretty solid.
    Whats the point in giving someone 2.0.37
    when they could do perfectly well with 2.2.10 or so, that is stable, and has all the extra stuff they might need.
    I'm not advocating giving them 2.3 or anything, but at least they should use the latest stable.
  • As someone who has studied Japanese language and culture for 8 years and has visited Japan, I can say that the perception that Japan adopts new technology more quickly than North America is incorrect. In fact, because of intransigence and resistance to change on the part of large organizations in Japan (such as NTT, the phone monopoly there), the spread of Internet use in Japan has been crippled for at least seven years. And that's just 1 example. Japan has a reputation for allowing winning technologies to prove themselves elsewhere before the corporate culture there will adopt it; then they play catchup and, usually, do a very good job of improving the state of the art once they do. But they are very rarely the ones to promote a new paradigm, and instead take the route of conservativism.
  • Japanese adopt technology earlier????? No way. They may produce lots of neat consumer electronics toys but a visit to any major Japanese company would have you think you were back in the 60's.

    I would discount the language as an impediment as proper training with technologies such as IMEs result in faster input and document creation than by hand.

    The sad truth is that short-sighted techno-phobic management have kept computers out of Japanese firms. These are guys who grew up in the poverty of post-war Japan and who think that only hard work and endless hours of manual labour can produce a result. The concept that a simple CrossTalk + Excel macro can do in 30 seconds what took two girls an entire Friday every week to accomplish is beyond their comprehension.

    This situation is changing as the post-war generation retires and the young shinjin-rui step into management positions, but there is still a long way to go.

    Other posts mentioned the bastardized double-byte encodings that have hindered Asian MS products up to now. MS's Japanese Shift-JIS (a.k.a. Shit-JIS) is no exception. Imagine some foreign company coming into the States saying "We have a great new encoding for your language which is really efficient except you can't use Q or X because there aren't enough data points". The Japanese are looking for a proper alternative which they can adapt to be their own (as they always will). An Open Source OS such as Linux is perfect for the job but I would say the risk of forking is WAY higher in Japan since each company will still want to "do it their way". Those around in Japan in the 80's will recall that every manufacturer's hardware was incompatible so a software maker had to produce an NEC version, a Fujitsu version, a Hitachi version, etc. etc.

    - Guregu -

  • What with the umpteen million motherboards going out with Linux, and now this, there's going to quite a few new users, and more users means more developers, and more developers means more stuff.....and world dominition here we come :)
  • Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner, seeing as how the Japanese always seem to adopt technology earlier than the US. Maybe it just always seems that way because a large number of hardware manufacturers are still based in Asia. Either way, if they're pushing it for the mainstream markets there, they'll have to press for more driver support, which would be a great thing for linux. Just think, being able to go out and buy the newest graphics card/sound card and having the drivers available right then! This is truly what linux needs to succeed in the consumer market.

    -Ted

  • This is definately a Good Thing(tm) the big company's are finally seing the light.
    This should also take away the need for customers to perform a relatively difficult install because it is allready installed. this will make more people able to try linux even if they're complete dummy's (operating KDE/GNOME is just as easy or maybe more easy than windows) and they will see the stability and wonder why they have ever accepted M$ crap.

    ---
  • The vast majority of users live with whatever OS comes on their PC - I think one of the major reasons for the domination of Windows is simply the fact it comes pre-installed on a lot of PCs

    Now Linux is coming preinstalled and readily available as an option more people will be tempted to try it, and having accepted, it will stick with it. Even if Linux systems are sold on to companies more workers will be exposed to it and the dreams of Linux world domination will become more realistic.

    Another factor is that Linux is starting to look quite perty now we have desktops like KDE & Gnome.

    Two years ago I always said to anyone who asked that Linux is not really for Joe Public and they should stick to Windows. Now I believe I can see the day when I'll change my recommendation. Especially now we're starting to see the two major holes of Games and Office-type apps being filled. I believe Linux can be said to have won when a games manufacturer feels obliged to release a Linux version at the same time or before the Windows version.
  • On a related note, I've noticed that there has been a LOT of progress in internationalization in Linux, particularly for Oriental languages (Japanese in particular). Over the last few days, Debian has suddenly gained several dozen packages specifically for Japanese language support, and many other programs have been retrofit for various internationalized functionalization. Definitely a Good Thing(tm) [uspto.gov]. No reason to exclude most of the civilized world just because they don't use 8-bit Roman characters.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • Not just a Japanese thing. (Score:3)

    by mrsam ( 12205 ) on Tuesday November 02, 1999 @02:30AM (#1570273) Homepage

    There's definitely a growing dissatisfaction in the enterprise with MS software and services. Just yesterday I was sitting in the meeting, and people were talking about how to move some files from PeeCees to our big dumb UNIX boxes, where all the company jewels are.

    Someone said something to the effect "let's use our Samba boxes". I asked him to repeat what he just said, to make sure that I heard him right.

    I do consulting, and my current contract is with the traditional suit-n-tie multinational financial corp. This is the last place you'd expect to find a bunch of Samba boxes running somewhere. I was in a state of shock for the rest of the day. It turned out that they have Samba running on Solaris, but that's a start, I suppose.

    So it doesn't surprise me what the Japanese are doing. It's probably going to happen here too, within the next couple of years. Unless W2K is a smashing success, you'll start to see many places begin to decomission their NT servers when they reach the end of their lifecycle, and recycling the boxes to run something else. Maybe Linux, maybe Solaris, maybe Monterey.
    --

  • Just as long as they don't end up putting some
    bastardized version on the systems it is great.
  • Surely they could have got a newer version than RH 5.2. I know it's a Japanese language version, but is 5.2 the only Japanese version there is?

    Come on, 5.2 doesn't even have a 2.2 series kernel, and we're nearing 2.4 now, if the rumours are true.
  • Well, actually I think one of the many advantages of linux that the target of it is not World Dominance (like the target of Windoze). Many of the cartoons out there make jokes of this. (I enjoy those very much.) K-Zed of D.O.P. P.S. Sorry of my English - I am Hungarian.
  • At least according to this link [turbolinux.com] on the turbolinux Web site.

    Can anyone comment on the reputation Dell presently has in Japan?

    timothy





  • Given China's low cost labor (slave) and a
    free operating system, they could just flood
    the world with cheap computers.

  • ... it needs a "fool-proof" interface. (Not that Window~1 is fool-proof, but ...)
    If a new customer who knows Micros~1 products sees this "Linux thing" he'll need an office ap (StarOffice?), ... to get started right away. A new customer won't care wether the source code of that applications are GPL'd or not, he wants to work as fast as he can... or something like that.

    Cpyder
    _
    / /pyder.....
    \_\ You type "WIN" but actually you LOOSE

  • japan (Score:1)

    by Haven ( 34895 )
    somewhere I heard the Japan pirates like 42% (rough guess) of all the worlds pirated software. Now they can just go to Freshmeat [freshmeat.net]and download anything GPLed.


    In all acutality I have never seen a Linux warez site... I guess people have too much respect for the software developers. Lets hope Japan doesn't start a movement.


    Where are my damn moderator points when I need them?
  • The opposite of the verb "win" is "lose" (with just one "o"). "Loose" is an adjective meaning the opposite of "tight".
    --

  • Software economy? (Score:3)

    by proberts ( 9821 ) on Tuesday November 02, 1999 @02:23AM (#1570285) Homepage
    I wonder if this is the end of the US-based domination of the World's software? Korea seems to have decided that Microsoft is strategicly bad to deal with and that Linux is a better choice. I'm pretty sure I've read that Mexico's school system is going to Linux.

    The big question is "Unless the Linux-on-the-desktop crowd are significantly successful soon, will it mean that the clue-per-person index will go up in 'developing countries' while it's declining in 'developed countries?'"

    The US Government's policies and strategies seem to be tilted towards commercial entities, not the efforts of the population at large (e.g. crypto binaries ok, crypto source bad) - countries with less disposable income in their populations are taking national strategic advantage of free (as in beer), and that could have serious long-term impact on the global computing environment.

    More clue is good. I'm just worried that a lot of US and European policy-makers are buying into the less-skilled workplace being good and long term it seems to be a less-than-ideal solution.

    Paul
  • In terms of security, I still wonder why certain aspects of OpenBSD aren't brought in to Linux (TCP/IP especially). I certainly don't want to encourage any more holy wars over licensing (we've had plenty lately), but really - sometimes, you should just adopt 'proven' solutions, and work your way through others.

    I love linux, I want to run it full time everywhere, but boy - some of the more advanced multi-proc OS/s (Solaris/UltraSparc, Hp-ux, AIX, OS400) are just so much better at large scale projects...

  • Re:japan (Score:1)

    by wct ( 45593 )
    You're thinking of Taiwan/South Korea. Japan actually has a very healthy consumer economy of software, probably due to the fact that a large proportion of the population works in the IT field.

    Daniel.
  • We are beginning to sell customers boxes for their internal networks with Linux pre-installed (Cobalt Raq II's for the interested) which, *g* oddly enough - have been a picture of reliablility. With the new userfriendly web interfaces coming out Linux is becoming a very serious contender for small business.
  • All these announcements about PC vendors pre-installing Linux and guaranteeing that their machiens will run Linux is not only great news because it means more linux users overall, but also because it will definitely mean more and better hardware support by OEMs, and more releasing of hardware specs and driver source.

    Think about it: if major manufacturers like Compaq and Dell are going to be supporting Linux, they will not want to have to build two different kinds of machines using two different kinds of components: they are going to want their vendors to supply components that are Linux-compatible so that tehy only have to stock one kind of component, and to reduce their support costs. Soon enough, component vendors won't be able to ignore Linux support as if it didn't matter, because their major high-volume customers will be demanding it, not just end users. Compaq will be saying "look, Mr. network-card-vendor, we want Linux support, and we want *good* Linux support, or else we'll go find someone whose product *does* have it."

    And that will be a happy time, as hardware manufacturers scramble not only to rtelease their specs, but actively work with the Linux community to make sure tehir drivers are solid.
  • no... it was specifically japan. It was some consumer computer mag like 2 years ago talking about the evils of computer software piracy.

  • Leave the latest and greatest release to the hobbyists. Commercial users don't/shouldn't want the bleeding edge release on their desk. Better to go with something guaranteed to be working and secure.

  • > I wonder if this is the end of the US-based domination of the World's software?

    With nations being sensitive to things like trade deficit, it is going to be very tempting to jump on the chance to quit shipping [bm]illions of dollar-equivalents of the local currency off to Redmond, Washington, USA. Even technically clueless politicians will "get it" when it's put into that perspective.

    > The US Government's policies and strategies seem to be tilted towards commercial entities, not the efforts of the population at large...

    Or replace "efforts" with "interests".

    Your posts mirrors my sentiments exactly.

    --
    It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
  • Oh... ok... you've heard of a linux version of vmware being pirated. So you are going to base your opinion about people who run linux on something you heard and had never seen. Why did you word your comment like a flame? You are just rude... oh wait I just saw that it was an AC post. Of course. HEY ROB! GET RID OF AC POSTS!



  • oh yeah... why would having a large IT department stop people from pirating software? The only "warez" guys I know are in the IT business.

  • the Constitution allows for cheap (slave) labor
    in the US.

    http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst/amend.h tml

    Article XIII.

    Section 1.

    Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
    the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
  • There was a press release from Turbolinux claiming this. On closer examination it was over a brief period of time immediately following a major new release of Turbolinux. Even then there was some doubt as to the validity of the claims.
  • Linux Today has this [linuxtoday.com] story - part 2- about Linux and Korea.
  • Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner, seeing as how the Japanese always seem to adopt technology earlier than the US.

    Personal computers are still relatively rare in Japan, largely due to the daunting problems imposed by the complexity of the Japanese script. All software must support multibyte characters in half a dozen incompatible 'standards', you need input frontends for converting phonetic input into the correct kanji, special keyboards with phonetic kana characters, etc. While the West has been typing away for several decades, Windows and Linux with full Japanese support have only been available for a few years. Previously the Mac (which has had much better internationalization for quite a while) and bizarre local workarounds (MSX, etc) had most of the market share, but the market stayed small due to high prices and limited support.

    Cheers,
    -j.

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