Cheap Solid State Computers Could Kill Microsoft 427
Eh-Wire writes "This is an interesting point made by a Clayton Hallmark on IndyMedia out of Argentina. He predicts that cheap Asian computing appliances with an Open Source Operating System on a chip will be the ultimate MS killer. References to the US$220 Mobilis out of India suggest the begining of newer, more powerful, and cheaper things to come. Mr. Hallmark also points to the success of the Wal-Mart cheap PC as proof the end is near for proprietory software. Overall an in interesting and thought provoking read."
Not that likely... (Score:5, Insightful)
The likes of Atari ST / Amiga /
M$ is not going to be "killed" any time soon - the most realistic chance there is, is that they will eventually be (financially) ground down far enough for them to no longer be able to react quickly enough to save their own hide. But that is most likely still quite a few years away - and it depends on there being enough serious outside threats.
Also, it would be more important to engage them on more fronts - if they are only in a skirmish with google over the search engine, their income will more than pay for that. If there were more (and different) fresh new competitors to emerge in different markets where M$ is a player (or sees that the market is too important for them to neglect), that could hurt them - but a single issue (the early browser wars; search engines now; cheaper computing platforms in the future) most likely won't be enough.
(And - no - the "new browser wars" I won't even count as a secondary issue - M$ already has the expertise to deal with that - it will cost them money, but it isn't something new they have to worry about - they need to be challenged on new frontiers - just look how long it took for them to catch up with netscape in the first place; and I would be prepared to bet that google is going to last for a few years yet, before M$ can kill them off - it will still be a while since M$ still need to build up a good deal more expertise in this market.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:4, Insightful)
But back in reality, their shareholders wouldn't let them run a month without making a single dime without a clear explanation of how they're going to change that RIGHT NOW.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly no money in and the Microsoft share price value would plummet. All those nice shareholders would turn nasty and demand that Microsoft hand over that big 'ol pile of cash now! Unless the remaining members of the company with large shareholdings, such as Gates etc, keep shareprice up by buying back outstanding shares at inflated prices. Either way that nice big "war chest" will be nothing in no time.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:4, Insightful)
They've already agreed to piss away $37 billion for exactly those reasons - the stockholders were getting scared.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:5, Informative)
OK, I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to hear this
First, the one-time bulk dividend you are refering to was approx 32 billion not 37 (not really important). Anyway, it will most likely actually be higher than that as that dividend was actually part of a three piece four year plan. Besides the one-time bulk divedend, MS also planned a stock buy-back and an additional raise in normal dividends over a four year period based on performance. This three part plan could equal as much as 75 billion over four years. Now I won't go over the calculations AGAIN, but basically with crazy assumptions to the low side, at the end of the four years MS will still have at least 30 billion in cash (more realistic numbers would have that number much closer to 40 billion).
OK, besides the numbers its important to understand WHY this is being done. No, its not because anyone is scared
Now many will say "how can having that much cash not be good?". And that is a very fair question, and the fact that it isn't certainly can seem counter-intuitive on its face. However, when we all talk about the job of a corporation is to make money, we are talking mainly about making money for its shareholders (not to make the corporation itself rich). Yes, you do need to have some cash on hand (war-chest) and what that amount is, is not easy to calculate. It will depend on industry, company outlook, short and long term plans, etc, etc, etc. Coming up with a number for this is very complicated, but every company should have a target cash-on-hand number (thats what CFOs are for). Again, this number is not easy to calculate, but anyone looking at financials and understanding MS knew they had TOO MUCH cash. They are making money faster then they can spend it and unless they were planning the purcahse of IBM or something, it was just getting rediculous. The job of the corporation is to make money for shareholders and keep itself happy, but historically MS has just horded all of its cash. As a shareholder, I'm going to get a bit miffed if they already have more cash then they can resonably spend and just keep adding 10 billion a year to thier cash position instead of paying that out to shareholders.
While you think this was done out of fear, it really points in the opposite direction. When a company sees tough times ahead, they will try to raise thier cash reserves to be able to weather whatever is ahead. The tech industry has traditionally horded cash, because they are young want to be VERY safe (and may not have a "traditional" CFO). This payout if anything shows they are maturing as a company and feel VERY safe. As a rule (of course depending on other factors) you want to hold just enough cash to pay expenses and a nice "war-chest" just in case. In the case of MS, that war-chest was getting rediculous to the point of many seeing it as plain irresponsible. Cash like most other things isn't always more == better.
A very basic explaination [investopedia.com] about corporations cash. If you want to do more reading on this just google for "too much cash in reserves" and you can find plenty of discussion on this.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you look at the history of statements of Ballmer, Gates you will realize that they never have thought MS is untouchable. They see it as a constant war.
This is how I've even seen Microsoft for the last 20 years and this is the first time I see someone else pointing it out. I never saw Microsoft (Gates, really) as a greedy corporation wanting to take over the world. I've always seen him as a pathological paranoid schizophrenic thinking the entire planet was after him. Every one of his move is a "reactio
Re:Not that likely... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, MS is immortal. Like the British Empire, when you're that rich and powerful nothing can change it.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:3, Interesting)
Although Queen of England and the Queen of Canada is the same person, the role of monach for both realms are independent and however unlikely, can be filled by different people.
For example, if Charles decides he wants to be a Roman Catholic, he would lose his ability to be King (Since the Monarch is the head of the Church of England [Anglican/Episcopalian])*, he/she cannot be of a different religion. Since Canada does not have a state religion, and a Charte
Re:Not that likely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:2, Interesting)
Knocking out that sort of company can't be done with a single thrust (like a cheap computer).
For example, with that sort of money on hand, I recommend they buy Intel (or AMD) and Seagate, then almost give the CPUs/disks away - make the whole box a commodity. TCO drops and everyone can afford MS software. The software
Re:Not that likely... (Score:3, Insightful)
Their management, however, wouldn't last anywhere near as long.
For example, with that sort of money on hand, I recommend they buy Intel (or AMD) and Seagate, then almost give the CPUs/disks away - make the whole box a commodity.
And what sort of return on investment am I, the shareholder, going to make on this? You're going to make back as much on the software as you would have been m
Re:Not that likely... (Score:2)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:3, Informative)
This would most likely be agains anto-competitive laws in alot of countries.
I'm pretty sure it would be a problem in Denmark anyway.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand I don't believe MS is in any danger from this. If anything they will capitalize on the new development.
Re:Not that likely... (Score:2)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:2)
Re:Not that likely... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you "throw money" at a cheap computer that doesn't run Windows?
Make a cheap computer that DOES run Windows?
How? Go back to DOS?
Get serious. MS can't compete against "free". That's what Bill said when he took down Netscape and it's just as true for him as it was for Netscape.
Besides, nobody is saying MS is going to go down next year. It could be ten years before they're ground down enough to be in financial trouble.
But it will happen. Without a major turnaround in thinking in Redmond, it WILL happen - and a major turnaround in thinking is not possible as long as Gates is breathing and Ballmer is his lapdog.
Microsoft is here to stay (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft made it's billions there already. It will enter your wallet from another direction soon enough, you can bet on it. With the type of cash they have, they can comman
Re:Not that likely... (Score:2)
They won't remain a business software vendor because OSS will kill that market, too. Only a matter of time before the people who program enterprise crap realize they can program it in OSS as well and make their money from supporting it without having to take orders from the likes of Ballmer or Ellison.
Right now, OSS hackers tend to work on non-enterprise stuff, but corporations are getting sick of crappy software that doesn't do what they want. They're complaining that software companies don't take the tim
Re:History is against Microsoft this time (Score:5, Insightful)
??? Microsoft never produced a free OS, the IBM PC was not an open source hardware platform. The only area where open standards played a role was that the manufacturers of PC 'clones' refused to support the proprietary closed microchannel architecture and OS/2 that IBM was trying to introduce to monopolize the market.
Open standards are not open source.
Like most slashdot stories on this topic the article is not thought provoking in the slightest, it is simply a repetition of the same prejudices that have been repeated ad-nauseam without any thought at all.
Falling hardware prices have been an issue for years, Dell were selling a full spec PC with LCD monitor for $400 six months ago. Microsoft themselves sell their X-Box for around $200. It isn't very long since the cheapest usefull PC cost over $2000.
The masses go off and pay $50 for one computer game. There is no way that Tomb Raider or EverQuest have even one percent of the intellectual effort of Windows put into them. Open Source games are practically non existent, people are still working on a rip off of Civ 3.
Linux is nowhere near providing a mass market user experience and most people working on Linux have absolutely no interest in making it mass market. What some of them want to do is to make the mass market realise how superior the C shell is to a GUI interface but most of the serious developers understand that they are producing something for techies.
Must be a parallel universe you live in (Score:5, Insightful)
Gary Kildall must be spinning in his grave right now. CP/M was a PROPRIETARY operating system by Digital Research. Maybe there is an open or public domain incarnation today, but it was very much proprietary when DR still extisted. The STANDARDS were open in that the BDOS calls were pubically available, and CP/M variants ran on multiple platforms (8080, 8085, Z80, 8086, 68000) and CP/M machines were usually open architecture S100 machines. You could definitely not obtain a copy of CP/M legally for free nor could you see the source code without a special agreement and extra cost.
The BIOS for the IBM PC was also open
ummm...no it wasn't. Even the BIOS calls weren't 100% fully published. Phoenix and Compaq developed a compatible BIOS against the wished of IBM (it was the one and only part of the original PC that wasn't an off-the-shelf component in a design a small group of hoppyists could easily replicate). The way it went was like this: a group of people disassembled the IBM bios and wrote a detailed specification of all the entry and exit points of all the calls and what effect they had on the system. Then a separate group of developers at different company (Phoenix) who had sworn a legal oath that they had never examined an IBM PC used that specification to create the first IBM compatible BIOS.
It wasn't really Microsoft or IBM that created the advantage of which you speak at all--they merely took good advantage of "open architecture" and the co-operative efforts of others. When it comes to the creation of the industry, others did all the work and IBM and MS used their marketing savvy to take maximum advantage and profit (the ones who did the work were not marketers obviously).
When IBM finally realised that a little firmware was not enough to keep a lock on the market it was too late--they no longer steered the direction of that market. The MCA bus was technically superior to EISA, but it was closed and incompatible and IBMs share of the market they created was less than 50% or at least fast heading that way.
Don't confuse open architecture hardware platforms with Free/open software--they both have an advantage in that information is more free to move about, however control oof the design and direction of the former is still firmly in the grip of a select few hardware vendors: Intel controls the bus and motherboard dimensions, Intel and AMD the CPU and chipset, ATI and NVidia video and so on.
Free CP/M? (Score:3, Informative)
CP/M was not free or open source.
Since the cost of version 1.3 (1.4?*) was only 70 $, this operating system soon became installed on every 8080 computer. CP/M, what's that? [www.gaby.de]
I'll leave adjustment for inflation as an exercise for the reader.
Not quite... (was: Re:Not that likely...) (Score:5, Insightful)
Kill MS? (Score:2, Funny)
Ahem... (Score:4, Funny)
(switches screens on Linux system)
Re:Ahem... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ahem... (Score:5, Funny)
So any office document will be in one of OOo's format, any tool will be based on the expected contents of
When they finally notice that something is wrong, some get enlightened (others additionnally require some vigourous whacking).
Re:Ahem... (Score:2)
he said: "open office? is that made by microsoft?"
Re:Ahem... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure that both the Apple Macintosh and the Commodore 64 qualify as a personal computer. They're computers and they're personal. Bang.
I have started using "IBM compatible" to describe IA32 compatible computers again. Maybe it will show some people that a personal computer is not
Re:Ahem... (Score:2)
Yeah, right! (Score:3, Insightful)
No?
Next story,then.
Re:Yeah, right! (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, right! (Score:2)
I was just saying that the things that have lately been called "Killers" of whatever have not done so well, especially not killed their subject. As an example I provided the iPod, which has more Killers than anything, but is far from dead.
Re:Yeah, right! (Score:2)
But they're all basically the same mechanically and functionally as the iPod, but a bit cheaper and a worse UI. A "killer" has to be much cheaper and preferably much better. For instance, MS's killers: Word was much cheaper and easier for newbies than WordPerfect. IE was free and killed Netscape.
Hmmm. kill microsoft? or help them? (Score:2, Insightful)
If that becomes common practice then it can turn around and bite us
What if microsoft do the same. Windows in ROM with some patches coming through software. It would force your machine to always only ever use windows.
Once it's legislated that you can't mess with your hardware, it means you then have to use windows.
I think Microsoft's xbox DRM to make su
Re:Hmmm. kill microsoft? or help them? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a nifty technology which allows a chip to be written to as well as read from, but remain persistant in the manner of a ROM. Very few so-called ROMs these days are actualy read-only -- you just write to them occasionaly, and read from them often.
Re:Hmmm. kill microsoft? or help them? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK it is already legislated that you can't mess with your hardware, and trying to mod a PS2 can land you in jail. You make a good point about the xbox, even though they failed [xbox-linux.org], but if a 3rd party is making the machine then they don't have much incentive to lock it to Windows unless bribed by M$.
Phillip.
Re:Hmmm. kill microsoft? or help them? (Score:2)
Isn't that pretty much what's happening now anyway ?
How many people buy a new PC when they want to upgrade their version of Windows ?
How many even know that they could run something other than windows ?
On less generic devices, it's even more obvious...
Who actually knows that you can install other systems on iPaqs (and a number of other handhelds) ?
If y
Death of a giant? (Score:2, Insightful)
No actually (Score:3, Insightful)
oh, please (Score:2, Insightful)
Every few months there is someone predicting the demise of Microsoft. What do all these people have in common? They've all been 100% wrong, 100% of the time. I mean, we're talking about a company that could run at a loss for years and not bat an eye.
Re:oh, please (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:oh, please (Score:2)
To reiterate: MS is not going to die. Not now, not tomorrow, probably not in our lifetimes. They are here, and they are here to stay.
Look at IBM. Many would cite them as an example of the "toppled giant" Microsoft will become, except they didn't actually die. In fact, they're still making money.
Re:oh, please (Score:2)
Most people don't want MS to neccessarily to die. They do want to get rid of the "bad MS", perhaps by replacing it with a "good MS".
Re:oh, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the fall of the Roman Empire (or anything else in history), everyone who predicted it was wrong, until the time it happened.
Re:oh, please (Score:2)
Re:oh, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Mobiles, Mobiles! (Score:5, Insightful)
If we analyze the submission, the main reasons why people would switch to solid state devices would be
1. Price
2. You don't need a PC to send mails and make documents
3. Compactness and looks better
4. Easier to use
But if these are the factors, wouldn't mobile devices be way way easier than these computing appliances? And guess what, MS has an even better chance at capturing the market than anything else with XBox 360, which is now a multimedia + entertainment + communication
The reasons why people would use PCs would be
1. Powerful machine (For games, multimedia, programming etc etc)
2. Developers, Power users
3. Upgradeability
4. and most importantly, they prefer a PC for some reason.
By the way, about the $220 Mobilis, I don't see it as any different from the Simputer (which was yet another Slashdot favorite, and also from India) but failed to make any waves. IAAI, and I have not seen a Simputer, except at a trade show.
Nobody could get a simputer (Score:2)
It's a powerful proposition at the prices they are suggesting. If it's retailing at $220 (£120) it's about 1/3 to 1/2 the price of anything similar here in the UK.
Re:Mobiles, Mobiles! (Score:2)
The reason mobile phones will never overtake or even come close replacing computers is pretty simple... my eyesight is damaged enough from 21" CRT displays, I don't need to be peering myopically at a little 3" screen. And carpal tunnel syndrome will be the least of your worries if you have to type out most of your everyday work on a thumb pad...
Yipe! (Score:3, Insightful)
The Crimes:
A) ALL CAPS (almost) ALL THE TIME
B) Flameworthy headline reminiscent of a Babelfish treatment: (BIG NEWS ON USA MICROSOFT: Slavery to It Is Ending
C) No real news in what follows the "Big News" headline.
D) Anti-Microsoft tied to anti-Americanism without even a thin veil of sophistication:
Why not say: "BIG NEWS: THE WORLD WILL CHANGE FROM BASE. WE ARE NOTHING -- Let Us Be Everything?"
E) OS HISTORY -- GROWING LIKE TOPSY
F) Okay, now let me get this right: all US corporations, including Sun (praised and damned in the same rant) are evil, or can be evil, but Walmart is good?
G) Mentioning that Car Lots have a 108-day supply of SUVs. I don't even know where to begin with that.
I mean, I hate M$ as much as the next guy, but that is the nuttiest troll of an article I've seen in a while.
Re:Yipe! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't hate Microsoft. Why would I? It makes little sense to hate a company that makes a product that I prefer not to use. I see lots of new cars that I think are very ugly on the road every day but do I hate the people who make them? Do I go around wishing that some other car company will put them out of business, so that they never take another breath again? (and to hell with all the people they employ that make a decent living?)
Does anyone on the "I hate Microsoft" rant even do anything about it? I see a major lack of innovation. Gnome and KDE have clearly copied Windows in many areas, but somehow made it more difficult for the average user to use. The best alternative is OS X- who we should hate as well, right? Big company, proprietary ideas... pretty much all the components of pure evil, right?
I've never visited Apple's headquarters, but I doubt their engineers sit around day after day with their lips stuck out, complaining about how they hate Microsoft. I doubt the are dreaming all day long about the next thing that might come along to put Microsoft out of business, throw their asses out on the street- hoping maybe Firefox or Open Office or WalMart PC's will "take care of the job." Remember- these are the guys that put out quality, annual OS releases. If you believe that there can be something better- create it or find something else to use.
Re:Yipe! (Score:4, Insightful)
You might if 90% of the gas stations were designed not to work for your car, but only for these ugly ones.
guy throws around silly assertions (Score:3, Informative)
Why would this stop a virus? Answer: It wouldn't.
BTW, he doesn't tout the success of the Walmart PC, he just notes it's existance. Who said it's successful?
Re:guy throws around silly assertions (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
solid state? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:solid state? (Score:2)
Solid State PC + google (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solid State PC + google (Score:2)
Re:Solid State PC + google (Score:2)
you could use the fuse patchset (apparently in upstream by 2.6.12) with ftpfs, setup an ftp account and keep
freepgs.com have cheap web server accounts, that come with ftp access and plenty of disk space (no subscription either)
Most Would Like To See End of All Software (Score:2)
As for the "end" of proprietary software, not likely. What most people would really like to see is the end of software, proprietary or not. Most people don't want to install new software. From their rather logical perspective, software is as much a part of the machine they bought as the hard drive.
I really think most people would be quite happy to buy a computer that never needed new software at
Re:Most Would Like To See End of All Software (Score:2)
Re:Most Would Like To See End of All Software (Score:2)
For most of the folks reading
I'm convinced that most people have no more desire to upgrade or install new software than they do to upgrade their refrigerator. When they bought the box,
Why "MS Killer" ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does it really matter anyway? Do we want microsoft gone? Let's say there is no microsoft anymore from this very day on. Does the industry improve? Try not to respond emotionally, but think about it.
Re:Why "MS Killer" ? (Score:2)
Apple and a lot of open source hackers do more than the bare minimum, unlike MS.
Linux development would happen at an even faster pace as all MS users would be forced to jump ship to mac/linux/*bsd/other and it would be better for everybody (so long as those bastard shareware authors dont join in)
Intel and microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
pricing ms out of the market (Score:3, Interesting)
It's in the nature of things that electronics approaches zero cost over time (I've got a $5 calculator that has more features than the $100 one I bought five years ago.) MS can't follow hardware down in price without affecting profits.
MS won't die. (Score:2)
The only way they would die is if they refused to move with the times, and the shareholders won't allow that.
Re:MS won't die. (Score:2)
hey, it could happen.
then we could cite backuptrauma.com to the relatives of the recently deceased.
typo (Score:2)
heh, snigger..
MS angle not nearly as interesting as the onward (Score:2, Insightful)
Computer as appliance will eventually lead to, as it has with all appliances, a huge reduction in both specialized workers and people who become motivated to understand how a thing works.
How many people these days understand how NTSC color encoding works while retaining compatibility with black and white sets? I suspect there are fewer than three
How many know how to rebraid the end of aworn buggy whip?
Endless Opportunities (Score:4, Funny)
Finally a home computer after 20 years! (Score:4, Interesting)
So why should the mass market, the home users, use systems designed solely for accountants and managers that were retrofitted for home use? What we need is a computer that have been desiged from ground up for home use with hardware closely designed with software. In short a mass market Apple. Linux could be and has been shown to be the operating system for this dream as it is inexpensive, well supported and customzable as it has been shown in cunsumer products as some DVD players and TiVO style boxes.
Hope we have real home computers comming back soon, has been a while.
Article for the masses? (Score:2, Insightful)
The writer describes a home computer appliance that simply does what a home user might want, without the need for proprietry and non-free intellectual property, home use devices that work l
Convergence of mobile technologies (Score:2)
Microsoft s going to kill Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right, the death of microsoft. (Score:2)
It is going to kill off their business software devision, hardware devision, PC games, console, web, portables, etc etc.
Microsoft isn't just PC software, they are everywhere, yes if microsoft suddenly lost all the revenue they had coming in from their PC software devision it would hurt them, but not kill them.
Re:Yeah right, the death of microsoft. (Score:2)
We don't need to kill Microsoft, just get it off the world's back.
woohoo .. thats 30.000 laptops for *me* (Score:5, Funny)
That's 200.000 billion. With about 1 billion people currently living in China, that's 200.000 laptops each. Allowing for you know, like, supply and demand to kick in, that will level out to about 30.000 laptops to each of 6 billion people on earth.
Now, I can't decide: should the joke be about the inherent need of IPv6 or (ooh) a beowolf cluster of these? Sweeeet
And who will shell out the $20 million billion these things will cost?
Ah, the joy of an extra factor 10^6 here and there
Beware of the US spies at the USAID!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft will not Die. (Score:2)
TRSDOS? (Score:3, Informative)
Um, NO. The first model of computer was indeed sold with 4K, but TRSDOS absolutely required 16K minimum, and even then it was barely usable (you had 5K left for BASIC). Try "16K minimum, 32K recommended". And CP/M needed more to be useful because it didn't have 12K ROM BASIC like the TRS-80.
Also, he forgot to add "128M minimum, 512M recommended" for OS X. OS X is a dog (though usable) with 256M. 384M might be enough, but at that point you might as well go for 512M. It'll boot with 64M, though. What he fails to point out is that the later OSen provide many more features (which take up more memory), and application memory requirements go up with time, too. And I'd still rather have a six-year-old Mac than this toy on my desktop, though as a PDA it might be interesting.
Indymedia is the fanfiction.net of journalism, but at least this is clearly a blog rant, not an attempt at journalism. I think he's basically right in that these things could put a dent into the generic PC marketplace, not just Microsoft, but anyone who wants games or multimedia isn't going to be satsified. And it's not like Microsoft is completely ignoring this space... what do you think the Xbox 360 is all about? It's this low-end consumer space, only they're starting from the multimedia/games end of the low-end space, which is the harder problem anyhow.
I don't hear much about Indians being gamers, you know. The Koreans wouldn't be satisfied with a toy like this, that's for sure.
People tend to forget it isn't about the OS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft does not dominate the OS market because the OS is more secure than Linux, faster than Linux, or *better* in any other way that Linux. Microsoft dominates because of Microsoft Office. Of course, their tendrils would never rest in just that one place, but that IS the core of the company.
I've been saying this for the past few years (Score:3, Informative)
Correction -- the end is near for *all* software (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, a bit of hyperbole here, but not by far. If you cherry-pick the killer apps, and market the devices properly, only geeks will care about the fact that the underlying machine is a general-purpose computer.
If these consumer devices have an office suite, web browser and media player, most users aren't going to stray from those applications. The afformentioned apps are all commoditized by OS/FS to some degree. Once they are fully commoditized, nobody will care about the operating system or the applications, as long as the *data* can be exchanged with all other systems.
This is neither bad nor good for OS/FS. It's bad for people who develop the software because it means their job is done and they need to find a new one. Only maintenance programmers will be needed, and fewer and fewer of them.
In the end, it will be like arguments over FM vs. AM and what kind of amplifier circuit your radio uses. All those questions are answered, and you don't see too many ads for "analog radio engineer" do you? In other words, all the battles over software that seem so important now will be nothing more than academic when theh software is fully commoditized. Whether or not its proprietary won't matter, because software will all be the same anyway.
Re:Correction -- the end is near for *all* softwar (Score:3, Insightful)
Your vision of the future makes no sense to me. People are constantly coming up with new uses for general purpose computers and these new uses are demonstrably popular with end-users. If you had "cherry picked" the apps in 1993, you would have missed the Internet. If you had done it in 1999, you would have missed Napster. If you did it in 2003, you would have missed iTunes. Today you might miss BitTorrent or Podcasting.
Maybe we will eventually reach a point where we can push the general purpose computing
Plug for the 3Com Audrey (Score:3, Informative)
Whenever subject of solid state computers comes up I have to throw in a few words about the Audrey, a failed Internet appliance made by 3Com a few years ago. When they didn't sell for $499 3Com dumped them and they are readily available on EBay for about $85.
The Audrey has a 7-inch 640x480 color touch screen built into a 2-inch-thick package that looks like like a Jetson's version of an Etch-a-Sketch. Several dedicated buttons on the front were intended to start dedicated apps like email, address book and web browser. It was made to sit on the kitchen table so you could read the news, send email and look up recipes. Inside is about a P200, 32Mb ROM and a 32 Mb flashcard for RAM. The original built-in software included a telephony app. There is a built-in 56K modem, microphone and two tiny speakers, also 2 USB ports and an audio out jack, and a no-frills wireless IR keyboard. Most of the ones sold on EBay include a USB LAN interface and have replacement software, an embedded Unix called QNX.
When these things came out on the market for such a low price a hacking community quickly sprang up (for example Audreyhacking.com [audreyhacking.com]). You can find lots of free goodies such as an mp3 player and home automation software. Because of the touch screen I bought 5 of them to use as UIs for streaming music to stereos all over the house. Anyway, they are fun toys.
Re:Which cheap PC? (Score:2)
I know the 200 dollar computers at my local Frys are selling quite well.
Re:Which cheap PC? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Daily dose of slashdot lame stories (Score:2, Interesting)
It's the nature of things that the status quo always changes, given long enough. But I do agree that the modern so-called MS-Killers aren't anything of the kind.
(I'm a long-term Linux user thinking of switching to a mac soon -
Re:Article Misses Point, Death by Thousand Cuts (Score:2)
The first version of DOS ran on the 8088, which was a 16-bit CPU (with an 8-bit external bus). The first versions of Windows NT (the oldest ancestor of current Windows versions) ran a variety of CPUs, including i386, Alpha and MIPS.
WinCE has been available on a number of hardware platforms, including some R
Re:Article Misses Point, Death by Thousand Cuts (Score:2)
The saying was that Microsoft was doing a good BASIC back then.
Network effect in embedded systems (Score:2)
I think you're right about Google, they are going to change the face of the IT industry. Think Arkwright, think Ford. The software and hardware costs have dropped to the point that Google scale IT systems become the economi
Nah. Microsoft is losing the embedded market. (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be; MS is losing the embedded market. Check out this picture of the current market:
http://linuxdevices.com/files/article056/vdc_28.j p g [linuxdevices.com]
Linux is at 25% and growing. All of the Windows versions together give 24%, and not one of them on their own tops 10%. This is down from a total of a 33% marketshare from 5 years ago.
So Linux already is the Market Leader in the embedded space. And if it keeps growing like it has, MS will just have
Re:Yeah, OK. (Score:2, Insightful)