Nowhere to Hide at Robert Pogson

M$ will continue to bleed on netbooks and the fight against GNU/Linux. To hide its shame, M$ is going to report FY 2010 results showing combined “Live” revenue with “Client” revenue. That will make the sagging client revenue sag less. Nice try, M$…

see “Microsoft to detail planned changes in its fiscal reporting structure” by Mary Joe Foley

Netbooks are not going away soon. ARM is taking off. “7″ will burden netbooks with higher prices. Nowhere to hide.

It remains to be seen how long M$ can cut prices for XP or whatever it allows to be installed on netbooks before investors wake up to the reality that they must compete on price and performance in every segment, not just netbooks. That will happen because folks will find the netbooks work well enough that they do not have to pay the price for a regular PC. When they do that they can also open their hearts and minds to ARM and GNU/Linux. Wintel has nowhere to hide, not just M$.

The huge momentum of netbooks is coming from telcos who supply cheap client machines to customers. They will want the cheapest machines, ARM running GNU/Linux. This is commodity computing, folks.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.