news.cnet.com— In the process of pillorying the intelligence of buying Macs in the recession, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may have admitted defeat in fighting Linux-based Netbooks.
Mar 24, 2009View in Crawl 4
I'm sorry, but this just reads like it was written by a marketing drone. Windows 7 HAS been advertised as being marketed more to netbooks than Vista was (designed and released prior to netbooks really being around) but the rest is marketing talk.Define flexible and please don't state your subjective "easy to use" as fact. For one, I find GNOME to be easier to use than any other desktop I've ever worked with (with the possible exception of XFCE), this includes quite a few versions of Windows, Mac, KDE, fvwm, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, Openbox, and more.
Linux has already hit it big, look anywhere in science or industry and you're liable to find Linux running a whole lot of things important to it. How about your home? Chances are that your (pick whichever apply):a. TVb. Cellphonec. DVD/Blu-Ray playerd. GPSRun some sort of Linux and that is just an extremely small sampling of things that do. Even if none of them do (unlikely) then every time you surf the web you're using Linux. Even Microsoft has used it for their servers.Linux is huge, it's indispensable on the web, in high performance computing, in cinema, and elsewhere and it is only growing. Its present lack of visibility with much of the population does nothing to diminish that, because if you look at it about the only place where it isn't already a major player is the desktop.
"It's a real Catch-22 -- Linux won't get seriously adopted until it has parity in apps, but it won't get parity in apps until it has the adoption."Linux won't get parity in apps until it provides equal support for *all* developers --- not just open source.There is not enough time or space to go into all the details but much of what is commonly known as "Linux" is inherently biased against distribution of closed source software. And apparently, the people building "Linux" prefer it that way. In comparison, Windows really doesn't care whether the software is open or closed, equal support is provided in either case.In other words:Windows: Developers, developers, developers ....Linux: Open Source developers, Open Source developers, Open Source developers ...In terms of real world adoption and use, this attitude leaves Linux with a distinct disadvantage.
The only way to allow companies to keep their code safe is to stop development on a system. When Windows releases a patch, even a service pack, their number one priority is not changing anything that applications use. In rare cases does it happen.Linux releases a new minor revision to the kernel and everything needs to be compiled, and pretty much everyone running linux is running a different version of the kernel.Thus leaves the only available mass distribution mechanism for Linux being the source, and companies don't want to release their source.Hence no real proprietary apps on Linux.
aelingMar 25, 2009
epic
Closed AccountMar 25, 2009
the quality of the products speaks for its self.
Closed AccountMar 25, 2009
Microsoft has stated that the Starter Edition will only allow three programs to run at once. They hope that people will upgrade to a more expensive version of Windows 7.<a class="user" href="http://jkontherun.com/2009/02/10/windows-7-starter-edition-no-how-no-way/" rel="nofollow">http://jkontherun.com/2009/02/10/windows-7-starter ...</a>Linux operating systems have no restrictions on the number of programs open.Windows 7 uses 1.24 GB of RAM, Ubuntu uses only 349 MB. On netbooks which have less resources than laptops, this is huge difference.<a class="user" href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/stratdev/archives/2009/03/ubuntu_vs_windo.html" rel="nofollow">http://weblog.infoworld.com/stratdev/archives/2009 ...</a>
runningflame570Mar 25, 2009
I'm sorry, but this just reads like it was written by a marketing drone. Windows 7 HAS been advertised as being marketed more to netbooks than Vista was (designed and released prior to netbooks really being around) but the rest is marketing talk.Define flexible and please don't state your subjective "easy to use" as fact. For one, I find GNOME to be easier to use than any other desktop I've ever worked with (with the possible exception of XFCE), this includes quite a few versions of Windows, Mac, KDE, fvwm, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, Openbox, and more.
runningflame570Mar 25, 2009
Linux has already hit it big, look anywhere in science or industry and you're liable to find Linux running a whole lot of things important to it. How about your home? Chances are that your (pick whichever apply):a. TVb. Cellphonec. DVD/Blu-Ray playerd. GPSRun some sort of Linux and that is just an extremely small sampling of things that do. Even if none of them do (unlikely) then every time you surf the web you're using Linux. Even Microsoft has used it for their servers.Linux is huge, it's indispensable on the web, in high performance computing, in cinema, and elsewhere and it is only growing. Its present lack of visibility with much of the population does nothing to diminish that, because if you look at it about the only place where it isn't already a major player is the desktop.
Closed AccountMar 25, 2009
I'm just saying it makes sense for Microsoft to give up on netbooks.
jqp123Mar 26, 2009
"It's a real Catch-22 -- Linux won't get seriously adopted until it has parity in apps, but it won't get parity in apps until it has the adoption."Linux won't get parity in apps until it provides equal support for *all* developers --- not just open source.There is not enough time or space to go into all the details but much of what is commonly known as "Linux" is inherently biased against distribution of closed source software. And apparently, the people building "Linux" prefer it that way. In comparison, Windows really doesn't care whether the software is open or closed, equal support is provided in either case.In other words:Windows: Developers, developers, developers ....Linux: Open Source developers, Open Source developers, Open Source developers ...In terms of real world adoption and use, this attitude leaves Linux with a distinct disadvantage.
t0x2cMar 26, 2009
The only way to allow companies to keep their code safe is to stop development on a system. When Windows releases a patch, even a service pack, their number one priority is not changing anything that applications use. In rare cases does it happen.Linux releases a new minor revision to the kernel and everything needs to be compiled, and pretty much everyone running linux is running a different version of the kernel.Thus leaves the only available mass distribution mechanism for Linux being the source, and companies don't want to release their source.Hence no real proprietary apps on Linux.
sparky2012Mar 27, 2009
So is red hat...