06.04.09
Microsoft Embracing, Extending, and Extinguishing Sub-notebooks
Summary: ASUS has made some questionable moves and people explain why
IN TWO posts that were issued earlier in the week [1, 2], it was hopefully demonstrated (and laid out sufficiently clearly) why Microsoft is behind the attack on sub-notebooks which run GNU/Linux. The following long post makes extensive use of evidence that we offered and shows that Microsoft is up to no good because it is most afraid of GNU/Linux, as ever.
Lately I have noticed a pattern. Maybe it’s in my head, but it is mystery that keeps getting deeper and darker as I go along. It started with getting very tired of seeing “Windows only”, or “Windows and Mac Only,” or “Windows and Mac for now but Linux Support Coming Soon.” These annoying statements seem to be showing up in more blog posts, and more download pages lately. For a while there I thought the tide was turning, but something seems to have happened. I know these are probably not all related to some grand paranoid scheme from Microsoft to sabotage Linux, but sometimes I wonder. For instance, what made Asus, the makers of the Gnu/Linux eee-pc morph into Asus the “better with Windows eee-pc maker? Something big happened. Some type of deal, that is very shady and almost certainly anti-competitive. And before that there were the linux pc’s on sale at Walmart- that suddenly stopped being for sale, even though they were making money for Walmart. So I know Microsoft is scared.
To present a clearer picture, Glyn Moody has composed this sort of mashup of evidence. Therein, Moody shows that ASUS is simply faking it.
And just to insult our intelligences a little further:
When asked about rumors that Asustek faced pressure from Microsoft and Intel over the use of Android and Snapdragon in the Eee PC, Tsang said “no, pressure, none.”
Riiiiiiiiight: no, pressure, none – perhaps he should have read his Hamlet (Act III, Scene II) a little more closely. If there was no pressure, why on earth did he apologise, making himself and his company look awkward? – it just doesn’t make sense.
Moody also drew attention to the fact that Microsoft is trying to move goalposts.
Microsoft to use a new term for netbook
[...]
Microsoft declined to comment on the speculation, saying Guggenheimer would provide more details of the strategy while delivering a keynote speech at the company’s Computex forum on June 3.
Microsoft’s strategy is very simple: pay whatever price is necessary (even negative pricing) to expel GNU/Linux from sub-notebook, persuade OEMs to ‘beef up’ their machines so as to accommodate a heavy operating system like Windows, elevate the cost whilst GNU/Linux is absent, commission a persistent Slog against GNU/Linux (attribute imaginary, inherent flaws in GNU/Linux leading to a planned “failure”), and finally hope that the problem simply goes away. It was almost precisely the same with OLPC.
Microsoft embraced sub-nobeooks in order to ‘extend’ them (make them more crippled and more expensive). Now it wants them extinguished. How is this beneficial to consumers? █
“Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.”
–Bill Gates
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NotZed said,
June 5, 2009 at 10:26 am
Bring on the ARM-books. I’ll buy one!
Marcus Koze said,
June 5, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I don’t know how accurate this may be, after hearing and reading about Asus leaving Linux variants of Eee (remaining WindBlows only) I’ve recently checked out their Eee site and … hmm, there seems to be a linux option available there (http://eeepc.asus.com/global/getstarted.html?n=1) …
BUT !!!
Do check out the presentation of the 2 versions… The windblows page is relatively neatly designed and “words of worship” allover the place as if it would be the 8th wonder of the world, definitely a distinct look there… while the linux page shows a presentation of some of it’s features, wearing an XP theme (the “Silver” theme) … if the reason for that theme is “familiarity” I’d cast my vote for asus to keep going with the micromoft worship only (abandon Linux for good), as i don’t think people would be mislead by some distinguished linux theme there … What do they want to do, make people think that they have windblows, even if they run linux ? Help spread the belief that there’s nothing else than micromoft’s so-called OS ?
Well, at least that’s my personal opinion on it … and I appologize for the bad english (not my native language), hope you understand everything.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 5th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Recommendation of Windows is something Microsoft pays for. That’s what ASUS is doing.
Bogdan Bivolaru said,
June 7, 2009 at 4:51 am
Please note that we are getting better at fighting MS:
So far they were passivelly fighting us, seemingly at no effort to them, but now as more and more people actively seek Freedom Software and standards implementable in free software, they have to actively fight us and spread their efforts thin. This is were we wanted them! Now all we have to do is to wait for them to run out of resources…
Guys just hang on to something, like a freedom project, while the F5 tornado passes…