ASUS appears to have sold out and it actively promoting that other OS.
It is sad to see money killing innovation. ASUS innovated and threw away momentum in a down economy. They are now cranking out netbooks with an obsolete OS, a recipe for disaster. Competitors using GNU/Linux will eat their lunch in performance. The lies propagated by ASUS make me sick. I bought an eeeBox for my employer and a hot motherboard to upgrade my personal terminal server and I regret it. I had choices but chose ASUS because I believed they were exercising their right to be free of M$.
Oh well, the market will decide. I have decided. No more ASUS stuff for me. I do not even want to know whether or not they will continue the Splashtop stuff. Other suppliers can do that.
I wonder how much ASUS got for selling out. I wonder whether this whole thing was just hard bargaining by ASUS to get advantages over competitors in the Wintel market. How utterly short-sighted to accept a payout instead of freedom.
UPDATE: Here is an opinion that this was just bargaining by ASUS. Who knows but ASUS? They still produce eeePCs with GNU/Linux…
UPDATE: SJVN has news from ASUS that the boss actually apologized that an eeePC using GNU/Linux on ARM was on display… That pretty well clinches it that ASUS has sold out.
“Shih said, “Frankly speaking … I would like to apologize that, if you look at Asus booth, we’ve decided not to display this product. I think you may have seen the devices on Qualcomm’s booth but actually, I think this is a company decision so far we would not like to show this device. That’s what I can tell you so far. I would like to apologize for that.”"
I am sickened to read that ASUS who sparked the netbook revolution should have such a guilty mind.
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When the British finally found and wounded the German battle ship Bismarck in WWII they sent in their torpedo bombers from the Ark Royal aircraft carrier. The torpedo “bombers” were the Swordfish biplanes. They made a number of hits on the Bismarck despite a hail of antiaircraft fire directed at the wood and fabric bombers. It was discovered later during debriefings and interrogations that the biplane’s slow speed was throwing off the gunners on the Bismarck. That’s the key phrase, “slow speed”.
The OEMs are just learning how to “sell” Linux. Some of them are learning the hard way. This is not your grandfather’s operating system. Things don’t happen with a big marketing splash. It’s more like evolution. I don’t envy the people with the task of selling Linux. It’s not a product for the impatient marketer. If they don’t understand the environment of Linux they will be rejected. If they try to sell it in another environment then they need to understand both.
If Asus is thinking they will just jump back on the Linux band wagon when things “pick up” then they may be in for a rude surprise. We are dealing with a population that likes to think one operating system is enough. If they tag Dell or HP with that crown then Asus may be left out.
I do not entirely agree. ASUS was selling eeePCs with GNU/Linux as fast as they could produce them in 2007/early 2008. They had it tuned up pretty well. They did not push the GNU/Linux bit but the functionality of the whole system. It was very slick marketing for children and women. When men picked it up for the high-portability, ASUS was laughing. I think this is just about M$ making them a deal they cannot refuse like paying per netbook for loading their OS. A free OS cannot compete with an OS that cost ASUS less than nothing. Dumping comes to mind. I suspect that M$ will have invented a marketing campaign fund rather than a specific per unit fee but I do not doubt it pushes the limits of legality for a monopoly because it prevents competitors from competing. How can ASUS compete with M$ in distributing GNU/Linux if it costs more to distribute GNU/Linux than that other OS? It definitely hurts the consumer who has lost choice. I think it hurts ASUS in the long run. I will not soon forgive or forget.
Fortunately M$ is too small a player and has too little cash to pay off the whole world. China, for instance, has a government policy to provide small operations with a netbook case design. All they have to do is populate it and GNU/Linux makes that easier. The market for netbooks is around 30 million units per year these days. M$ can pay people $10 apiece to install their OS for a long time at that rate. When netbooks become more than 100 million per year which is very likely, that would be too big a hit to the bottom line. It does, however, delay the death of the monopoly which is all M$ cares about. As long as they have a monopoly, the cash will continue to flow. They have perhaps another year…