Is Microsoft ‘Buying-Off’ Linux Netbook Vendors? [Updated]
There seems to be something of a military campaign afoot. One that surely shows signs of desperation and anxiety on behalf of the instigator.
First we had Asus telling it’s potential customers that “It’s Better With Windows” using phraseology such as:
“Windows helps you easily get online and connect to your devices and services – without dealing with an unfamiliar environment or major compatibility issues.”
And now we hear that PC World (IMHO probably the worst place to buy a PC or get technical advice anywhere in the UK) are dropping Linux netbooks too. And why?
… because Windows makes it easier to share content, and provides customers with a simpler, more familiar computing experience on the move,
Share content huh? Does Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro of choice) work with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Apps, or anywhere else where we “share” content? Does email work? Does OpenOffice.org allow me to share stuff with those unfortunate enough to have spent hundreds of pounds on another Office suite? (Hint: The answer is Yes.)
Simpler… Hmmm, I wonder how much truth there is in this? How hard is it to install software on [say] Ubuntu vs Windows. Wander over here and take a look. (It’s pretty funny really).
familiar – Well, OK I’ll give them that. But I could make Ubuntu blue and have big child-like buttons if I really wanted to. Other than that though – what’s the big deal? I have a mouse, keyboard, screen. Yep, check. I move the mouse and click (or double click) on things and I type stuff. Yep. Check. Ahh no I’ve got it. The familiarity is with the dear old BSOD. Now I don’t get that. In fact my PC doesn’t really crash at all. It doesn’t need defragging (whatever that is), it doesn’t need disinfecting, it doesn’t require frequent re-builds because it gets so slooooooooow after a few months of use. Now I see. That’s what users want and are familiar with.
And how about all those Drivers we have to install and update and search the ‘net for? Hey? Drivers? What are they?
And how often do you update your Anti-virus software? You do have AV software don’t you? Oh of course, sorry I forgot. Nope. Viruses are not really much of an issue with a proper operating system. Take a look at the Wildlist.org (the list of “Active” computer viruses) All 451 from March this year target the Win32 API.
And how about all those strange licenses that many people don’t read, but that “protect” you from doing something illegal – like helping your neighbour perhaps?
This whole thing reminds me of the stupid and cringe-worthy adverts you see in the press where Vendor X says that they “Recommend Proprietary OS Home Premium”. Do they hell. Do you think they really believe that? Or do you think they have been given incentives to say so? I often wonder if there could be a case here with the Trades Description Act (if that still exists). IANAL so don’t really know but it seems as though many vendors’ adverts are not being totally honest when they make these recommendations. It’s bloody obvious they are being paid in some form or another to say that.
So, it seems to me that Microsoft are getting a bit fed up with all these really cool little netbooks running Ubuntu or Android or something else that isn’t Windows. They have very deep pockets and can afford to buy off some of the people some of the time. But I do not think they can afford to buy everyone all of the time and some vendors probably have a bit more integrity in the first place.
I suggest that you shop around and – even if you buy a PC with Windows for some weird reason – you go to a vendor or supplier who has not been bought off. At least you can have some level of trust in them.
Of course, you could always visit Naked Computers.org and find a vendor that will sell you a computer without an operating system at all. You can then install Ubuntu or something else on it. You almost certainly have a legal CD of XP lying around somewhere. I have several and don’t even use it anymore, so why should I be forced to buy more of their crap, unsafe, bug-ridden software?
Phew. Well. I’m glad I got that off my chest.
[UPDATE] How coincidental is this? Asus, suddenly pull their Android netbook and can’t really say anything about it…
A day after an Asus Eee PC running Google’s Android operating system was shown at Computex Taipei, top executives from the company said the project will be put on the backburner. …
… “Frankly speaking, the first question, I would like to apologise that, if you look at Asus booth we’ve decided not to display this product,” he said. “I think you may have seen the devices on Qualcomm’s booth but actually, I think this is a company decision so far we would not like to show this device. That’s what I can tell you so far. I would like to apologise for that.”
He declined further comment on the subject.
Yeah right. Of course he did.
Power Saving Software for Linux
My friend Alan sent me an invitation to sign up for a beta trial of MiserWare‘s MicroMiser power saving software.
MiserWare MicroMiser is an intelligent software power management solution for x86 servers, laptops, and PCs running Linux. MicroMiser automatically optimizes a system to use energy more efficiently without compromising performance or availability. The MicroMiser Power Management Daemon (see below) when installed on a server, laptop, or PC, matches the energy consumed by the system to the load on the system automatically. MicroMiser typically lowers total system energy use by 10-35% even when a system is 100% utilized. MicroMiser also tracks the energy saved for use in estimating cost savings and carbon emission reductions.
I have installed it on 4 PCs so far and all seems to be fine. Installation is very simple as the download is in a deb or rpm package.
I am especially interested to monitor any battery-life performance improvements on my laptop computers and any savings to my always-on–home-server will be most appreciated. The site has downloads for most of the recent Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, and SLES distributions.
It appears to work on VIA C7 chips, and Intel Core2 8X00 and mobile T5000 series. Well, it does for me.
As you can see above, the company claim between 10 and 35% power savings with this software which is definately not to be sneezed at in these frugal times.
If you would like to take part in the beta, leave a comment below (I need your email address, which is not shown if you just fill in the comment form boxes) and I will endeavour to get you an invite.
Re-spinning famous quotes: Linux and Cancer.
I had this thought whilst wandering down to the pub last night. It’s a very pleasant walk on a warm evening; through leafy unmade lanes in the south of Farnham and has, on a number of occasions, been inspirational.
On my jolly jaunt I was pondering the usefulness (or not) of Mono. As regular readers will know, I don’t particularly like it. There are too many ifs and butts and “unknown unknowns” with Mono for my taste. And, quite honestly, it doesn’t give me anything I need that I can’t get elsewhere.
And I was also recalling Ballmer’s famous quote about Linux and cancer.
The strange thing is, replace just one word in the quote and it makes perfect sense to me:
Has anyone else got any good re-spun quotes that would be more applicable than the original?
When you book an airline ticket, you use FOSS
This article on ReadWriteWeb really caught my eye today.
From my previous life in data and telecoms I know a little of the scale of the Sabre network. It’s BIG. By the sounds of things most of it runs on Open Source software too. They have announced a partnership with a commercial Open Source vendor Progress to use a number of their FUSE Open Source products.
By default, Sabre only chooses off-the-shelf software
as its last option ifwhen no open-source solution is available. If there is neither an open-source nor an off-the-shelf solution, Sabre’s own technology team will provide an in-house solution.
Sabre, as Progress’s Debbie Moynihan proudly pointed out to us, can’t afford any downtime – and FUSE’s Supplier-Side Gateway, which currently handles about 1.5 million transaction a day, has now run on Sabre’s system for 14 months without any error.
Besides FUSE’s offerings, which are based on Apache products, Sabre also extensively uses Apache’s web server, MySQL, Hibernate, Terracotta and a number of other open source products. Also, two-thirds of Sabre’s 5000 servers currently run Linux and the company expects to expand this number over time.
Nice figures. Good story.
It’s when I hear about these really massive and important networks that can’t really go down using FOSS because it works and works well that I really wonder why uptake across the whole enterprise space is so shockingly small in comparison. And then I remember why I think it is so.
The Huge Marketing Budgets of one or two proprietary vendors. But, you know what. I think the times they are a changing….
Free Linux Virus Writing Course.
Over on the ubuntuweblogs, Gerry Ilagan pointed the readership to this excellent article by Foobar on how to write a Linux virus.
I will show how it is possible in a few easy steps to write a perfectly valid email borne virus for modern desktop Linux. I will do so not because I want to put down Linux. Quite the opposite: I like and support Linux, which is all I’m running at home and at work. I’m a big supporter of free and open software as readers of this blog will know. But if there are any security risks, even in my favourite OS or distribution then they will need to be discussed. Even more important: A false sense of security is worse than a lack of security. And unsubstantiated claims of superiority don’t help in a reasonable discussion either.
OK it isn’t quite a Linux virus, more like a Gnome/KDE virus but the point is clearly made. There is a pretty big hole in the current Desktop implementations, i.e. KDE and Gnome, whereby a file with the .desktop suffix is essentially executable even though it does not have to have the execute bit set.
It is well worth reading and understanding so you can protect yourself from being stupid.
And hopefully someone upstream will take notice too…
The Economics of Free: For Free
Remember the short piece I posted about the Radio 4 programme “In Business” a couple of weeks ago? Well, very kindly, the programme’s editor has provided me with a transcript of programme to
please use as you wish, but it has not been checked for accuracy. Good luck.
I have just read and listened again and didn’t find anything glaring although I did fix one rather amusing typo: “Linux Colonel” to “Linux Kernel”. It was sent to me as a Microsoft .doc file. I opened it in OpenOffice.org and exported it as a PDF so it should be readable by virtually everyone.
This programme does provide some excellent answers to the types of questions we repeatedly get asked in our day-to-day business:
- “How do they/you make money from Open Source”
- “Why should you/they give it away?”
So for those of you who get asked these sorts of questions and would like some non-technobable answers from a rather reputable source to use, the transcript can be downloaded in it’s entirety, for free, from our website here. On that page, there is also a link to the BBC’s permanent archive so the podcast can be retrieved too. As an interesting titbit, in his email with me, the editor said that about 600k people download the programme every month!
And just to whet your appetite, here is quite a nice quote from Chris Anderson – the editor of Wired…
… Microsoft’s financial success is about taking a product whose underlying economics are zero, the marginal costs of reproducing software is zero, and charging $300 for it. You know incredible net profit margins. Unfortunately, economics always wins. People recognised that the underlying economics of distributing software were zero and so they were like okay, so Microsoft is getting monopoly profits because they are in fact a monopoly. What we need to do is break the monopoly. Not, as it turns out, by regulation and regulator, but instead the marketplace broke the monopoly.
If you are involved in any way with the promotion of FOSS and/or CC then this really is well worth listening too and or reading,
And although the editor didn’t provide any specific license conditions with the document, I plan to repsect the BBC’s copyright, and provide suitable attribution when and where we use snippets etc; something like this http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/ perhaps.
