Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
The product widely credited for Apple's resurgence as a force in the
world of consumer technology is the iPod. There are an estimated 120
million of them sold into the market to date and they are selling at a
rate approaching 40 million a year. The software that goes hand-in-hand
with and is virtual indispensable to the iPod is iTunes and its
associated online store.
To date, Apple has not released a version of
iTunes for Linux, something the Linux community has widely chastised
the company for. Yes, there are many substitute iTunes applications -
Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox and a heap of others, some of which are
listed here.
All of the better iTunes substitutes on Linux are capable to some
degree of recognizing and interfacing with an iPod. However, none of
them can be expected to provide the seamless integration of iTunes
itself.
Most importantly, however, there is no application on Linux that will
enable a user to access and buy products from the iTunes online store.
Attempts to run iTunes on Linux using the Wine application layer have
reportedly met with mediocre results at best. So unless Apple changes
its policy, iTunes is not an option for the current Linux version of
the Eee PC.
Of course, there are many Eee PC users and prospective who don't give a
toss about iTunes and many who will just use their desktop for iTunes
purposes. However, given that a large segment of the target audience
for this product will be young people and iPod owners, when faced with
a choice between a Windows version that can run iTunes and a Linux
version that can't....well.
Asus is not a philanthropic organization - it is a hardware company
operating in a cut-throat market with paper thin margins. Asus claims
that it will sell 350,000 Linux Eee PCs by the end of the year. It also
claims that it will bring out a Windows version of the computer by the
end of the year. It also claims that it will sell 3-5 million Eee PC
units by the end of 2008.
What Asus doesn't make clear, however, is what proportion of the Eee PC
units in its 3-5 million sales projection for 2008 will be Linux boxes.
Clearly, Asus knows which side its bread is buttered on or else it
wouldn't even bother to bring a Windows version of its product to
market.
The Eee PC goes on sale in Australia in a week or two. These are the
first Linux boxes targeting consumers in a big way and from the buzz in
the market they should sell well over the Christmas shopping period.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the Windows version of
the Asus Eee PC hits the market. Will it increase sales of Eee PC
further or will it merely cannabilize Linux sales?
David Bass
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