There are certainly some interesting stories appearing at the moment. In yesterday morning's news and the British press in particular (e.g. this one, with further commentary here) it was revealed that the desktop product from ASUS -- part of the Eee family -- will run Windows and not GNU/Linux as initially promised. How come? ASUS says that its Xandros derivative will come later, but why not first? Why the sudden change, what about pricing, and why a distribution that is rendered 'tainted' by a software patents deal with Microsoft?
“...Microsoft clearly has a history of getting its top competitors to stop competing.”Going back to Corel days, Microsoft clearly has a history of getting its top competitors to stop competing. Money is typically involved -- a transaction for securing a monopoly if you like.
In yesterday's news, coincidentally enough, practices related to this were described as harmful. And with Corel, Xandros comes to mind again. We are still not sure whether Microsoft gets paid for Linux-based Eee PCs or.
The choice of Xandros and Windows by ASUS gets criticised in this new article (remember the fight against Linux sub-notebooks using crippled hardware and cheap Windows). It's a good read.
From the same source (Free Software Magazine), here is Seagate getting slammed and even compared to Novell.
It is sad to see a great hardware manufacturer, like Seagate, pandering to the demands of a Convicted Monopolist, like Microsoft, to the extent that they are making life difficult for all their other customers. It seems like Microsoft corrupts everything it touches. The free software community should maintain a complete apartheid from this corporation and with all those who attempt to collaborate with it, like Novell.
A style-conscious Samsung digital camera and personal media player (PMP) is built on a MontaVista Linux platform, it was revealed by a reader. Shipping since last year, the Samsung i70 features 7.2-megapixel resolution, 3x optical zoom, and Samsung's ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) technology.