Microsoft would need a lot of corrupt public officials to go along with Windows 11 SE, for schools, since all it adds is $100 per student laptop.
This has all happened before, but it won’t happen again.
Last time, Microsoft stormed the beaches to kill a low cost laptop for education was when they dumped shit-ass Windows XP onto the OLPC XO laptop. It didn’t work.
Well, it did work, but Word took 43 seconds to load and ran the device out of memory.
So there’s that.
"...Word took 43 seconds to load and ran the device out of memory."I mean, the laptops were meant to be powered by a hand crank, if necessary, and to do that you need an efficient operating system like GNU/Linux. They even pared GNU/Linux down with a special desktop called Sugar.
But the point wasn’t for it to work well.
The point was to get sleazy corrupt public officials onboard, and to corrupt the One Laptop Per Child project, and it worked, and nobody ever heard about them again.
Microsoft set back computing in education a decade and especially hurt economically disadvantaged countries without good infrastructure.
This time they’re dealing with Chromebooks, from Google, which have virtually the entire market and a well established reputation, supply chain, and support infrastructure.
So, Microsoft, I mean, good luck with that, when you’re only adding $100 per student and the world’s crummiest operating system to the mix. I’m sure that will go well for you!
"Nobody under 40 wants to use Windows, and so Microsoft has a big problem on their hands."Especially now that schools, students, and administrators love their Chromebooks and, you know, realize that times are tough and budgets are not unlimited.
But you’ll figure that out….Have fun with an entire warehouse full of these stupid things, like Windows Phone (years of dumping/selling below cost, followed by an $8 billion write-down) and Zune (which never made sense and entered the market halfway into the life-cycle of the iPod).
But going back to the sudden panic about the education market, I think it has less to do with the actual Chromebooks themselves (although that’s certainly a market), and more to do with panicking that school children may activate “Linux” and learn how to use Debian, and then put that on their other computers.
The next generation will be the one where Microsoft finally goes to die. Nobody under 40 wants to use Windows, and so Microsoft has a big problem on their hands.
Like the Republican Party in the United States, their voters are getting long in the tooth with “nothing in the pipeline” to replace them.
Even before Windows XP went out, Microsoft was developing a theme that pretty much cloned Mac Aqua, from the then-new OS X. They can’t come up with anything original, so they just steal.
They think that a new theme in “Windows 11” that makes it look like a Chromebook is the answer.
Microsoft just doesn’t get what the real problem here is.
It’s that people despise them for having spent so many years dealing with crashes and viruses and lost data and manipulative behavior, and want them gone.
"Debian in a container lets their users run real applications, and it removes one argument against buying a Chromebook."Then on top of that, they get to deal with incompetent bureaucracies at work who make them deal with it all day long and don’t want to come home to it as well. Now there are ways to realistically escape, even if you don’t know much about computers.
Many of those ways aren’t going to gain you everything, but most of them at least gain you a computer that isn’t breaking down all the time.
And, I think what Debian in a lightweight container on Chromebooks shows is that there are at least some geeks at Google.
It has a legitimate use case. Many users will absolutely reject a system that can’t run local applications. Debian in a container lets their users run real applications, and it removes one argument against buying a Chromebook.
"Google Docs works in Offline Mode, or you could just use Apt or Flatpak on Debian to install LibreOffice."Microsoft still thinks this is 2013 and you can’t edit a document offline with a Chromebook.
Google Docs works in Offline Mode, or you could just use Apt or Flatpak on Debian to install LibreOffice.
Chromebooks have actually grown beyond a joke. Windows 11 hasn’t. The joke just keeps getting bigger.
Oddly, at the same time they tout offline document editing (which we had in the 1980s in DOS, even), Microsoft wants you to pay them for not being able to edit a document unless you’re online, or if the server goes down again and again.
On the Microsoft-side, WSL2 is a joke that has no plausible use.
Also, Windows having five terminals that don’t work very well does not a Linux make, but I veer further off-topic. Windows Terminal…..Windows is terminal.
I just can’t see Windows 11 SE going anywhere, unless it’s Chicago.
I mean, RedFlex figured out who to bribe to get all of those traffic cameras that actually increase car accidents. Like Windows, these suck as public policy, but money talks.
So, maybe Microsoft will sell these to someone. But it won’t be enough.
Nevertheless, Microsoft already has their army of paid trolls banging away on their keyboards to write glowing reviews of Windows 11 SE, but don’t believe it. It’s more gaslighting.
PCWorld has the winner for the headline, however. “Windows 11 SE is Microsoft’s latest Chromebook-killer.”. Oh really? What happened to their others? ⬆