Published by Robert Pogson September 30th, 2010
in technology.
After years of chaos and turnover of leadership, HP has chosen another leader, Leo Apotheker who has a quite different background from the USA-anchored HP. HP moved from a company specializing in high-tech engineering products to mass-produced printers and computers. What can we expect of a leader who matured in SAP and ran it? Expertise in software. Intimate knowledge of SAP which is ripe for acquisition by HP and a competitor of HP’s competitor in hardware, Oracle.
HP has staked a claim in servers, PCs, and printers. Could they make a move in software? Could they buy SAP, Suse, or others to give them something to run on their PCs and servers? That makes sense. Oracle is doing that. IBM is doing that. Why not HP? Apotheker will no doubt have a global view of IT and may be friendly to GNU/Linux on desktop and server. They could increase margins by pushing GNU/Linux instead of that other OS. At SAP, Apotheker had no problem with customers running SAP on GNU/Linux.
Apotheker has a background in software and may leave the running of the hardware divisions to the current managers but he may also open up the company to new areas of software, cloud services or GNU/Linux on the desktop. The market is moving that way although slowly and he may feel the need to be more independent of M$.
UPDATE The Register has a different take…
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson September 30th, 2010
in Linux in Education and technology.
I have seen MacOS (pre and post-X), several versions of that other OS and GNU/Linux used in schools. The stability and managability of GNU/Linux is a huge plus in the calculations to choose an OS. So are its low cost. From an educational standpoint the openness of GNU/Linux is ideal. Students can be given machines to install, configure, and create or modify software that is a part of the system without any further licensing. The others have never been stable where I have worked. I was at one place where a specialist in MacOS flew in and had the system working perfectly in an hour but several hours after he left no one could print again except from my GNU/Linux systems. That other OS is a haven for malware which is the signature of unreliability. If you cannot rely on software to keep working, why use it?
No. GNU/Linux is the clear choice for me. Here is an article written by one who shares my views. He describes use of GNU/Linux in schools in British Columbia, Canada. Wherever cost-effective performance is wanted GNU/Linux should be the first choice. I cannot imagine a more appropriate situation than schools. Students and staff need reliable IT and students need IT that is transparent and affordable to them so they can tinker as needed. Students learn by doing. They do not learn by doing what M$ wants them to do.
A teachable moment with GNU/Linux happened in my classroom yesterday. My students have seen the inner workings of a PC, installed GNU/Linux and used GNU/Linux since school began. Yesterday I showed a video from Youtube of a guy assembling a PC from parts. Students critiqued the performance because they had some exposure to the technology being displayed. Several noticed sloppy use of terminology and poor technique for handling and inserting parts. One thing they had not seen was the installation of “7″. While my students had done most of the work except some downloads in 20 minutes installing GNU/Linux, the presenter paused the camera for “several hours”. The class had quite a laugh at that. Several have used “7″ and see nothing there that they cannot obtain for a lot less time and money with GNU/Linux. They are empowered to make their own choices now.
GNU/Linux belongs in schools. It works for students and teachers.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson September 30th, 2010
in technology.
I have read in several places that the netbook is dead, but the blog of NPD contains:
“No one expected netbook sales to stay at the atmospheric levels of 2009 and in fact netbooks, as a percentage of U.S. consumer sales, have been very steady all year in the mid-teens. Netbooks sales are actually up for July and August 2010 versus the prior year period by 6 percent.”
Further, “Windows PC sales, especially notebooks, have been much weaker than in the past few months, likely as much to do with the ebbing of the Windows 7 tidal wave and consumer reaction to the lack of price deals in the market this year as it has to do with iPads or back-to-school. Total Q1 notebook sales were up 28 percent but fell to 8 percent in Q2 as Windows notebook growth fell from 30 percent to 4 percent.”
So, there is the “thin notebook upselling” ending with a whimper. The netbooks are growing faster. You can drag the OEMs around by the nose for a while but the consumer notices eventually and stops buying what they offer. OEMs should be producing more netbooks and netbooks without that other OS. The consumer has spoken.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson September 30th, 2010
in technology.
According to whom you ask:
“Sources from China’s white-box players pointed out that tablet PC hardware design and production is not difficult and the major difference between the production of netbooks and tablet PCs is that they have to pay higher prices for Wintel’s platform. Since consumers do not see Wintel platform as a necessary requirement for tablet PCs, while the ARM/Android platform is cheaper, the white-box players believe they will have more chance to succeed.”
“Acer’s dual-OS netbook recently dropped to around NT$9,000, while Asustek’s 10-inch OS-less Eee PC is only priced at NT$8,800, Lenovo’s Atom N470-based netbook is about NT$9,900. BenQ and Elitegroup Computer Systems’ (ECS’) 10-inch netbook bundled with telecom carrier Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) has also recently dropped below NT$10,000.”
The OEMs are seeing that that other OS is holding them back. They can make more money by cutting prices and selling machines without that other OS but with no OS or GNU/Linux. The idea that consumers insist on that other OS in netbooks is a figment of M$’s salesmen’s imaginations. The OEMs may have been persuaded for a time but that time is over.
- Robert Pogson
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