Comments on: ASUS http://mrpogson.com/2009/05/29/asus/ One man. Closing, all the windows. Wed, 22 May 2013 04:02:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2009/05/29/asus/#comment-1530 Robert Pogson Sat, 30 May 2009 01:50:11 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=547#comment-1530 I do not entirely agree. ASUS was selling eeePCs with GNU/Linux as fast as they could produce them in 2007/early 2008. They had it tuned up pretty well. They did not push the GNU/Linux bit but the functionality of the whole system. It was very slick marketing for children and women. When men picked it up for the high-portability, ASUS was laughing. I think this is just about M$ making them a deal they cannot refuse like paying per netbook for loading their OS. A free OS cannot compete with an OS that cost ASUS less than nothing. Dumping comes to mind. I suspect that M$ will have invented a marketing campaign fund rather than a specific per unit fee but I do not doubt it pushes the limits of legality for a monopoly because it prevents competitors from competing. How can ASUS compete with M$ in distributing GNU/Linux if it costs more to distribute GNU/Linux than that other OS? It definitely hurts the consumer who has lost choice. I think it hurts ASUS in the long run. I will not soon forgive or forget.

Fortunately M$ is too small a player and has too little cash to pay off the whole world. China, for instance, has a government policy to provide small operations with a netbook case design. All they have to do is populate it and GNU/Linux makes that easier. The market for netbooks is around 30 million units per year these days. M$ can pay people $10 apiece to install their OS for a long time at that rate. When netbooks become more than 100 million per year which is very likely, that would be too big a hit to the bottom line. It does, however, delay the death of the monopoly which is all M$ cares about. As long as they have a monopoly, the cash will continue to flow. They have perhaps another year…

]]> By: Richard Chapman http://mrpogson.com/2009/05/29/asus/#comment-1529 Richard Chapman Sat, 30 May 2009 01:10:07 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=547#comment-1529 When the British finally found and wounded the German battle ship Bismarck in WWII they sent in their torpedo bombers from the Ark Royal aircraft carrier. The torpedo “bombers” were the Swordfish biplanes. They made a number of hits on the Bismarck despite a hail of antiaircraft fire directed at the wood and fabric bombers. It was discovered later during debriefings and interrogations that the biplane’s slow speed was throwing off the gunners on the Bismarck. That’s the key phrase, “slow speed”.

The OEMs are just learning how to “sell” Linux. Some of them are learning the hard way. This is not your grandfather’s operating system. Things don’t happen with a big marketing splash. It’s more like evolution. I don’t envy the people with the task of selling Linux. It’s not a product for the impatient marketer. If they don’t understand the environment of Linux they will be rejected. If they try to sell it in another environment then they need to understand both.

If Asus is thinking they will just jump back on the Linux band wagon when things “pick up” then they may be in for a rude surprise. We are dealing with a population that likes to think one operating system is enough. If they tag Dell or HP with that crown then Asus may be left out.

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