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Our Blogs Open Sauce Could the eeePC end up being Microsoft's trojan horse?
Our Blogs Open Sauce Could the eeePC end up being Microsoft's trojan horse? | Could the eeePC end up being Microsoft's trojan horse? |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Tuesday, 03 June 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 3 What would Xandros do if it came to a battle of this nature? The company is still largely unknown and even the spread of the eeePC has not brought it much publicity - though its coffers are likely to be bulging as a result of the sales bonanza. Featured Whitepaper
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Human memory is short and unpleasant memories are often pushed to the back of one's mind. There is enough misery in this world, to the point where we tend to focus only on the positives. The eeePC has been one of the bright lights for the Linux community since it was released. And there are a number of clones which are set to arrive, the British-made Elonex ONE leading the charge. None of these little gadgets mentions the software that it is running - have a look at the Elonex ONE site, for example. That's because it isn't important - what the customer needs to know is what tasks the gadget can handle. But when it comes to patent deals, then the software is front and centre. Microsoft is not about to walk away from millions of sales and decide that it was simply outdone by a better system. It is extremely unlikely that a clunky operating system like Windows XP will run on the eeePC with anything like the fluency with which Linux does. Even though XP will be available on the gadget, it is unlikely to perform half as well as the modified version of Xandros. One of the great strengths of Linux is the extent to which it can be tweaked. Windows is not exactly known for this. Hence it is not far-fetched to think that at some time in the future, the great minds at Redmond will have to react to this spreading phenomenon. One has to also realise that the number of plants where laptops are fabricated are limited - and every day spent making these little laptops which run Linux is a day when laptops that would run Windows cannot be made. For the moment, the eeePC is free of insidious software like Mono and Moonlight (corrected), both the creations of the GNOME project co-founder Miguel de Icaza, and both posing susceptible to posing patent threats as they are both implementations of Microsoft technology. Right now, there is no talk from the folk at Microsoft about any kind of patent threat. That kind of talk seems to have disappeared. But remember the deal with Xandros is a five-year affair - it runs till 2011. What happens after that? |
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