Robert Pogson

According to SJVN and some OEMs, Chrome OS trumps “8″ for several reasons:

• Chrome web browser is much more familiar than “8″‘s UI.
• Chrome Books are about half the price and that does matter to most of us.
• It costs OEMs very little to install Chrome OS or any FLOSS OS for that matter.

The last point, in the long run, will be the kicker IMHO. IT has become a very competitive market quite different than it was a decade ago where if you offered something, millions would sell at almost any price. Now, to sell anything you can count on some fraction of rich/foolish buyers and huge masses of people squeezing pennies.

To be a global business you have to sell to the masses. ~$50 per unit for licensing is not on. Wintel is not on. M$ has to become just another supplier to remain global. The high-priced up-selling won’t work in most emerging markets and in large parts of established markets. In the old days only businesses could afford PCs. They just added M$’s tax to their prices and moved on. Now elementary children have smart phones and they and their parents have no interest in being slaves of M$. OEMs see this and are responding.

This year GNU/Linux will replace that other OS in a big way. Canonical says that started for them last year and they will double share this year. Meanwhile M$ increases prices while share decreases. They can do that for a while… and then the bottom will fall out. “8″ is a demonstration of that.