Robert Pogson

‘The combination of ARM-based chipsets and Android has taken computing devices to new, lower price points. If Microsoft and Intel are serious about capitalizing on this exploding market, both will need to ensure that their OEMs can remain competitive on price.’
see Smart mobile device shipments exceed 300 million in Q1 2013

More than a decade ago, M$ was worried when the price of an ATX PC box was ~$1K. Well, that capability is now available for ~$100. It’s time to rethink everything. Trying to raise the price of PCs as “Ultra”-somethings won’t cut it. Even an ARMed smartphone is absolutely wonderful… Trying to spread FUD won’t cut it as even the consumers on the street and the news media can see that the emperor has no clothes. Remember, every middle-aged user on the Earth has seen enough BSODs and malware to last a lifetime. Now that they can see a price-difference between Android/Linux on ARM and Wintel, large numbers are choosing the less costly and better-performing option.

If you want an alternative to Android/Linux or M$’s OS on your PC, consider Debian GNU/Linux, “the universal operating system”.

“Given Android’s success in the mobile market, one has to wonder how long it will be until we see the operating system loaded onto PCs and go head-to-head against Windows and iOS. Given the way that buyers (consumers and enterprise alike) have embraced Android on smartphones and tablets — activations of new devices sit at 1.5 million daily, or 45 million every month — it seems logical to give consumers what they want, and put this operating system onto notebooks, convertibles, and hybrid systems.”
see Android is crushing Apple and Microsoft in the mobile device market

I’d say one or two more quarters should severely damage M$’s relationship with OEMs. Android/Linux and GNU/Linux are looking better every day.

Comment seen on The Register about M$’s planned “update” to “8″ fixing the damned GUI. At time of writing, upvotes totalled 44 and downvotes totalled 52. The Register has trolls too …
“MS wants to destroy the old classic windows in favour of a metro interface. That would give MS three things:

1. unified UI across mobile and dekstops
2. the ability to make people demand metro on mobile devices, using the MS-desktop monopoly to take over a brobdingnagian chunk of the mobile market.
3. a lock-in mechanism to force people to use its "App Store".

It turns out that this strategy has backfired badly. No one is buying Metro on phones, tablets, Surfaces, or, indeed, on Desktops, despite that people have no alternatives at retail, e.g. PC world etc.”
see Microsoft: All RIGHT, you can have your Start button back

So, the trolls who come here and tell us that so many millions of licences of “8″ sold mean M$’s OS is beloved are simply wrong. Even M$ says that publicly. Why don’t the trolls get that? If all you find on retail shelves is “8″ consumers may easily be forced to buy “8″. OEMs may have been forced to ship 100 million PCs with a hated GUI but a lot of consumers refused to buy that stock from retailers. The result has been a huge downturn in sales in the real world to real people and the virtual people at M$ are changing things once again to give people more of what they want.

Too little, too late. The world has moved on to the point that with Vista and “8″, M$ has introduced more people to GNU/Linux and Android/Linux than all the FLOSSies, GNU/Linux geeks, rogue computer teachers and huge rollouts in government and business have accomplished over a decade. Thanks, M$.

Don’t like some of the new GUIs in GNU/Linux? No problem. Install this, remove that and voila!, you can have what you want with GNU/Linux. No need to wait for some huge remote corporation to survey the world to help them decide what you want…

Are you an OEM with paper-thin margins seeing unit shipments down ~15%? No need to wait for M$ to get its act together, just ship GNU/Linux.

Are you a retailer with stagnant retail shelves? Order GNU/Linux from your suppliers and watch SKUs fly off the shelves.

Are you a consumer tired of being lead around by the nose by M$? Be FREE! Demand GNU/Linux. It comes with a licence that permits you to use the hardware you buy the way you want.

Use GNU/Linux and FLOSS. It’s the right way to do IT.

It’s going to be loud. Android/Linux is the most widely accepted OS in the last year and it’s about to go even faster:

"The other thing I think I’d point to is the $50 Android smartphone is about to hit the market worldwide. Smartphones are about to be put in the hands of another 3 billion people who don’t have them. And that’s probably the single biggest thing that’s happening right now."
see Andreessen: Android poised to explode in emerging markets

I think there will be repercussions for years to come. What retailer will hold that the one true OS for retail shelves is M$’s OS when it’s not selling and FLOSS is selling like hot cakes? This explosion marks the collapse of the Wintel monopoly. It might survive as some mutation but never again will consumers lack choice on retail shelves.

To infantry, the sniper is hated, unless he’s working for you. A single shot is enough to kill at extended ranges and it’s almost impossible to locate a sniper from that one shot unless…
“You are walking down the street with a friend. A shot is fired. The two of you duck behind the nearest cover and you pull out your smartphone. A map of the neighborhood pops up on its screen with a large red arrow pointing in the direction the shot came from.

A team of computer engineers from Vanderbilt University’s Institute of Software Integrated Systems has made such a scenario possible by developing an inexpensive hardware module and related software that can transform an Android smartphone into a simple shooter location system.”
see Tracking gunfire with a smartphone .

Yes, there’s an app for that. Combining the GPS, timing and audio-processing available in Android/Linux, the problem comes down to maths and geometry. So, Android/Linux does save lives.

M$’s fans rightly point out that M$ has a lock on business computers but…“The GOH market category, typified by Nintendo’s 3DS and Sony’s PlayStation Vita, has recently been overshadowed by gaming-capable smartphones and tablets and this trend is likely to continue. IDC research shows, for example, that the number of paying smartphone and tablet gamers will surpass the number of paying GOH gamers worldwide in 2013 and rise at a rapid rate through 2017. The number of GOH bundles shipped, meanwhile, should fall at an average of nearly 7% per year over the next five years. The installed base of GOH’s is being overwhelmed by smartphones and tablets that are used for (primarily casual) gaming.”
see IDC Mobile/Portable Gaming Forecast Finds That Paying Smartphone and Tablet Gamers Will Surpass the Number of Paying Gaming-Optimized Handheld Gamers This Year

and, further,
“The worldwide mobile phone market grew 4% year over year in the seasonally slow first quarter of 2013 (1Q13) as smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 418.6 million mobile phones in 1Q13 compared to 402.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012 and 483.2 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012.

In the worldwide smartphone market, vendors shipped 216.2 million units in 1Q13, which marked the first time more than half (51.6%) the total phone shipments in a quarter were smartphones. The market grew 41.6% compared to the 152.7 million units shipped in 1Q12, but 5.1% lower than the 227.8 million units shipped in 4Q12.”
see More Smartphones Were Shipped in Q1 2013 Than Feature Phones, An Industry First According to IDC

and

“The Middle East and Africa PC market experienced a significant decline of 14.1% year on year during the first quarter of 2013, according to preliminary results released by International Data Corporation (IDC), the premier global market intelligence and advisory firm for the information technology and telecommunications markets. Total PC shipments in the region slowed down to 5.3 million units, with desktops declining 18.4% year on year to 2 million units, while notebook shipments declined 11.2% year on year to total 3.3 million units.”
see IDC Reports Steepest PC Market Decline Yet For the Middle East and Africa Region as Microsoft Windows 8 Is Unable to Spur Incremental PC Demand

So, the monopoly is momentarily OK, teetering on the brink of a chasm of great depth, but where’s the up-side? Their gaming niche is shrinking. Their mobile effort is relatively feeble. Their lock on business is being eroded by BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), Google’s cloud apps, and LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org. Their lock on retail shelves is busted wide open with the small cheap computers running */Linux being everywhere. Is there any doubt that retailers will give space to GNU/Linux now, in the face of all the other weakness?

Erosion starts at the edges. It can be very gradual but it can also open gaps in the dike, sponsoring a flood. 2013 seems to be the year that a flood swept away the Wintel monopoly. M$ and Intel still have huge revenue but M$ is relying more than ever upon it’s last pillar, business, and Intel is selling more Atoms and fewer hair-driers. Intel is adapting by moving to 14-22nm technology which lowers the cost of its products both to buy and to operate. M$ is adapting by advertising and litigating more…

In the end it seems to me that Intel will be able to thrive in any environment as Moore’s Law reduces the energy-cost of operating Intel’s chips but M$ is doomed to destruction or much lower prices. Both will have to compete on price/performance and M$ cannot beat the performance of FLOSS. The advent of thin client and web applications/cloud services means the lock-in that holds business close to M$ is loosening at the same time that FLOSS keeps improving on client and server.