Khaotic Musings
Random musings on Linux and Free and Open Source Software.
Thursday 30 April 2009, 3:10 AM
Netbook market? What netbook market?
I started posting this as a comment on another blog, but thought I'd expand on it here a little.
I'm seeing a hell of a lot of babble about how Linux is 'losing the netbook market'. Well, frankly, there is no netbook market, not any longer.
First, to ensure we're all on the same page, let's define the netbook. The Eee PC 70x was the template, so let's use it as our basis. When it came out, it was priced from US$199 for the Surf version, with most units sold being the US$299 701-4G/Camera variant. This unit used solid-state storage to improve battery life; it was small and lightweight. The keyboard was perhaps too small, the screen was perhaps too small, but it functioned for its intended purpose of simple client-side content manipulation and as an Internet terminal. And it was cheap!
Today's 'default' netbook, from a name-brand vendor, delivers quasi-desktop functionality, costs as much as that vendor's (now non-existent) lower-cost notebooks/laptops, ie in the US$500 range, and we have the tier-1 name brand vendors perpetually pushing the price further uphill, introducing pointless feature-creep to justify this price-hike. With most new models coming out with 10"-12" screens, near-full-sized keyboards, these units, although very nice, cannot really be called a netbooks. Let's call them what they are - notebooks and laptops, not netbooks.
While I don't mind the slightly larger screens and keyboards, I do take issue with the price hikes vendors have surreptitiously snuck into the market. Consumers have glommed onto the concept that netbooks are cheap, and by introducing new products as 'netbooks', vendors are using that label to hoodwink consumers with needlessly expensive kit.
So, how does Linux lose in this market? In short, it doesn't - the 'netbook market' has instead morphed into something else: it's become the 'smaller form-factor notebook' market. And in this market, Microsoft has traditionally held a 95% slice (in the OEM, non-Apple realm).
Therefore, what we have here is not so much a case of Linux losing ground in the netbook market, but of Microsoft and OEM hardware partners reshaping the market into "the same ol', same ol'". It has become a market where Microsoft has substantial monopoly market advantages, dating back to 1981, and where it has honed substantial, oft-times illegal anti-competitive market capture machinery.
And yet, even in this market, now reshaped to favour Microsoft's monopoly machinery, Linux still snared 24% of 'netbook' shipments.
Think about that for a second.
The market has become just another facet of client-side PC sales, and in this market, when given a not-quite-fair-but-better-than-status-quo shot at the title, Linux grabs a quarter of it. This is much better than the 1% of the client-side/desktop market that Linux-detractors would have you believe it has in the wider market, the one completely constrained by Microsoft's monopoly.
It gives you an idea of how much market share desktop Linux might grab in a truly open, competitive landscape, given the chance.
Where to from here? Let's get back to basics. A netbook should really retail for US$200-$300, be fast booting (ie, have solid state storage) and retain a functionality focus on the simple client-side content manipulation and as an Internet access terminal, as outlined earlier.
The fact that Microsoft's traditional OEM hardware buddies aren't delivering this, leaves a strategic opening for the 'next generation' of netbook manufacturers to 'do an ASUS' and undercut the current crop, with viable 9" and 10" netbooks, selling Atom-based units with decent specs, running a full-featured Linux distribution aimed at this smaller form factor: Ubuntu Netbook Remix.
It also leaves the door wide-open for sub-$200 ARM based Linux units.
Either or both of these actions will see Linux's star rise once more, on true netbooks. As consumers, let's use our wallets to 'encourage' OEM hardware vendors as appropriate.
I'm seeing a hell of a lot of babble about how Linux is 'losing the netbook market'. Well, frankly, there is no netbook market, not any longer.
First, to ensure we're all on the same page, let's define the netbook. The Eee PC 70x was the template, so let's use it as our basis. When it came out, it was priced from US$199 for the Surf version, with most units sold being the US$299 701-4G/Camera variant. This unit used solid-state storage to improve battery life; it was small and lightweight. The keyboard was perhaps too small, the screen was perhaps too small, but it functioned for its intended purpose of simple client-side content manipulation and as an Internet terminal. And it was cheap!
Today's 'default' netbook, from a name-brand vendor, delivers quasi-desktop functionality, costs as much as that vendor's (now non-existent) lower-cost notebooks/laptops, ie in the US$500 range, and we have the tier-1 name brand vendors perpetually pushing the price further uphill, introducing pointless feature-creep to justify this price-hike. With most new models coming out with 10"-12" screens, near-full-sized keyboards, these units, although very nice, cannot really be called a netbooks. Let's call them what they are - notebooks and laptops, not netbooks.
While I don't mind the slightly larger screens and keyboards, I do take issue with the price hikes vendors have surreptitiously snuck into the market. Consumers have glommed onto the concept that netbooks are cheap, and by introducing new products as 'netbooks', vendors are using that label to hoodwink consumers with needlessly expensive kit.
So, how does Linux lose in this market? In short, it doesn't - the 'netbook market' has instead morphed into something else: it's become the 'smaller form-factor notebook' market. And in this market, Microsoft has traditionally held a 95% slice (in the OEM, non-Apple realm).
Therefore, what we have here is not so much a case of Linux losing ground in the netbook market, but of Microsoft and OEM hardware partners reshaping the market into "the same ol', same ol'". It has become a market where Microsoft has substantial monopoly market advantages, dating back to 1981, and where it has honed substantial, oft-times illegal anti-competitive market capture machinery.
And yet, even in this market, now reshaped to favour Microsoft's monopoly machinery, Linux still snared 24% of 'netbook' shipments.
Think about that for a second.
The market has become just another facet of client-side PC sales, and in this market, when given a not-quite-fair-but-better-than-status-quo shot at the title, Linux grabs a quarter of it. This is much better than the 1% of the client-side/desktop market that Linux-detractors would have you believe it has in the wider market, the one completely constrained by Microsoft's monopoly.
It gives you an idea of how much market share desktop Linux might grab in a truly open, competitive landscape, given the chance.
Where to from here? Let's get back to basics. A netbook should really retail for US$200-$300, be fast booting (ie, have solid state storage) and retain a functionality focus on the simple client-side content manipulation and as an Internet access terminal, as outlined earlier.
The fact that Microsoft's traditional OEM hardware buddies aren't delivering this, leaves a strategic opening for the 'next generation' of netbook manufacturers to 'do an ASUS' and undercut the current crop, with viable 9" and 10" netbooks, selling Atom-based units with decent specs, running a full-featured Linux distribution aimed at this smaller form factor: Ubuntu Netbook Remix.
It also leaves the door wide-open for sub-$200 ARM based Linux units.
Either or both of these actions will see Linux's star rise once more, on true netbooks. As consumers, let's use our wallets to 'encourage' OEM hardware vendors as appropriate.
Wednesday 8 April 2009, 12:44 PM
Firm shifts From Windows to Linux, reduces support issues by 45%
I noticed in one of the local trade-press outlets today, how a publicly-listed engineering and manufacturing firm shifted many of its workstations from Windows to Linux, effecting a 45% reduction in its support issues, evident even in the first month after the migration.
From the article:
Camillos [to manager of corporate technology services] said that support desk calls showed significant changes when reliance on Windows was reduced. "Literally the month we pushed Linux out to the branches the number of calls to our helpdesk dropped by 45 per cent."
This fits in with my experience in rolling out Linux desktops to customer sites and high-security facilities. A locked-down Linux desktop can deliver designated functionality at a greatly reduced cost of support compared to a standard Windows desktop.
I'll write about this in more detail at some point, but we have one reference site (a high-security government facility) where over 100 Linux desktops needed a total of 5 minutes tech support in their first year of operation. That's not an average of 5 minutes per desktop, but a total across all 100+ desktops.
From the article:
Camillos [to manager of corporate technology services] said that support desk calls showed significant changes when reliance on Windows was reduced. "Literally the month we pushed Linux out to the branches the number of calls to our helpdesk dropped by 45 per cent."
This fits in with my experience in rolling out Linux desktops to customer sites and high-security facilities. A locked-down Linux desktop can deliver designated functionality at a greatly reduced cost of support compared to a standard Windows desktop.
I'll write about this in more detail at some point, but we have one reference site (a high-security government facility) where over 100 Linux desktops needed a total of 5 minutes tech support in their first year of operation. That's not an average of 5 minutes per desktop, but a total across all 100+ desktops.
Friday 3 April 2009, 2:32 AM
Australian State Blows Opportunity to Bring Linux to Education
If you haven't read the news, the Australian state of New South Wales has signed a deal to deploy 267,000 Windows netbooks into secondary schools, as part of the Australian federal government's multi-billion dollar netbook-in-schools programme. This was a golden opportunity to explore the deployment of Linux and open source software in education. An opportunity now lost.
In reality, this wasn't a great surprise; none of our Education authorities have ever really shown a willingness to think beyond "Planet Microsoft". That doesn't stop this situation being lamentable. It's a decision that will result in lower education software opportunities for Australian students, wasted expense for Australian taxpayers and a diversion of funds from Australia's indigenous IT industry.
Instead of taking the steps necessary to plan a migration to Linux and open source software, we've ended up with the same-ol, same-ol, with public servants who can't be bothered to do the work needed to break free from the Microsoft and proprietary software orbit.
The Australian open source community knows that reaching kids early is the best way to ensure that they understand that there is more to computing that just Microsoft and proprietary apps. We have therefore invested a great deal of time and effort in raising the awareness of open source software among the various state Departments' of Education. To see no real movement by those bodies away from the status-quo, is a great frustration.
The open source community believes that Linux and open source software can deliver a better educational experience to students, allowing them access to more software, including specialist software in mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer graphics and software development, than is currently permissible under the procurement practices adopted by the Departments.
Naysayers may say that the Windows platform has more educational software, but that doesn't help much, as most of that software costs money and most schools are too cash-strapped to buy it. Therefore, the kids are stuck with Windows and Word, rather than having their horizons broadened by Blender, PHP, Celestia and Maxima.
At the very least, we expect that the NSW Department of Education and Training should release to the public, the complete report of their comparison analysis between Linux and Microsoft. The fact that they've awarded the deal to Microsoft without this explanation is a serious concern. If the Department claims that it's research shows the Microsoft option more viable, we want to see how.
Perhaps the primary argument raised by naysayers about how a move to Linux isn't feasible, relates to the difficulty in making the leap from Windows to Linux. There is a way to migrate to Linux and open source software, a way that was clearly demonstrated recently by the French National Gendarmerie, which saved 50 million Euros by migrating to open source software rather than Microsoft and proprietary software.
In short, the NSW Department of Education and Training must know that it's not possible to just simply 'switch' to Linux, from one month to the next. A migration to Linux is something that needs to be planned to occur in stages, and is a 18-36 month process. Unless Education Departments make the conscious decision to migrate to Linux, and prepare the path to that migration, it will never happen.
Opening up to a panorama of great, zero-cost educational software is fine, but what are the other reasons that Education Departments should look to Linux? Let's look at the financials, as that generally keeps the public-servants interested.
In this deal, the NSW and Federal governments are pouring a total of AU$536 million dollars to deploy 267,000 netbooks into NSW secondary schools. This translates to over AU$2000 per netbook in order to run Windows software. As a comparison, the open source industry publicly presented a number of models for netbook deployment, which offered a netbook deployment cost of only $500 per unit, a 75% saving.
The upshot of all this is that by choosing the Windows path, the NSW
Department of Education and Training has prevented 3 out of every 4 school kids from getting the computer they would have otherwise received if the Linux option had been chosen. That translates to a 75% waste of money.
Rather than think outside the box, for the Department, this decision was merely business as usual: the "we can't be bothered doing the work needed to shift away from what we've always done; it's not as if the money's coming from our pockets" decision. In the end, the losers are going to be Australia's school children, Australia's taxpayers and Australia's IT industry. And the only winners are Microsoft and purveyors of proprietary software, none of them Australian.
My message to you in the UK? You're in the same boat we are. Try harder than we did.
In reality, this wasn't a great surprise; none of our Education authorities have ever really shown a willingness to think beyond "Planet Microsoft". That doesn't stop this situation being lamentable. It's a decision that will result in lower education software opportunities for Australian students, wasted expense for Australian taxpayers and a diversion of funds from Australia's indigenous IT industry.
Instead of taking the steps necessary to plan a migration to Linux and open source software, we've ended up with the same-ol, same-ol, with public servants who can't be bothered to do the work needed to break free from the Microsoft and proprietary software orbit.
The Australian open source community knows that reaching kids early is the best way to ensure that they understand that there is more to computing that just Microsoft and proprietary apps. We have therefore invested a great deal of time and effort in raising the awareness of open source software among the various state Departments' of Education. To see no real movement by those bodies away from the status-quo, is a great frustration.
The open source community believes that Linux and open source software can deliver a better educational experience to students, allowing them access to more software, including specialist software in mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer graphics and software development, than is currently permissible under the procurement practices adopted by the Departments.
Naysayers may say that the Windows platform has more educational software, but that doesn't help much, as most of that software costs money and most schools are too cash-strapped to buy it. Therefore, the kids are stuck with Windows and Word, rather than having their horizons broadened by Blender, PHP, Celestia and Maxima.
At the very least, we expect that the NSW Department of Education and Training should release to the public, the complete report of their comparison analysis between Linux and Microsoft. The fact that they've awarded the deal to Microsoft without this explanation is a serious concern. If the Department claims that it's research shows the Microsoft option more viable, we want to see how.
Perhaps the primary argument raised by naysayers about how a move to Linux isn't feasible, relates to the difficulty in making the leap from Windows to Linux. There is a way to migrate to Linux and open source software, a way that was clearly demonstrated recently by the French National Gendarmerie, which saved 50 million Euros by migrating to open source software rather than Microsoft and proprietary software.
In short, the NSW Department of Education and Training must know that it's not possible to just simply 'switch' to Linux, from one month to the next. A migration to Linux is something that needs to be planned to occur in stages, and is a 18-36 month process. Unless Education Departments make the conscious decision to migrate to Linux, and prepare the path to that migration, it will never happen.
Opening up to a panorama of great, zero-cost educational software is fine, but what are the other reasons that Education Departments should look to Linux? Let's look at the financials, as that generally keeps the public-servants interested.
In this deal, the NSW and Federal governments are pouring a total of AU$536 million dollars to deploy 267,000 netbooks into NSW secondary schools. This translates to over AU$2000 per netbook in order to run Windows software. As a comparison, the open source industry publicly presented a number of models for netbook deployment, which offered a netbook deployment cost of only $500 per unit, a 75% saving.
The upshot of all this is that by choosing the Windows path, the NSW
Department of Education and Training has prevented 3 out of every 4 school kids from getting the computer they would have otherwise received if the Linux option had been chosen. That translates to a 75% waste of money.
Rather than think outside the box, for the Department, this decision was merely business as usual: the "we can't be bothered doing the work needed to shift away from what we've always done; it's not as if the money's coming from our pockets" decision. In the end, the losers are going to be Australia's school children, Australia's taxpayers and Australia's IT industry. And the only winners are Microsoft and purveyors of proprietary software, none of them Australian.
My message to you in the UK? You're in the same boat we are. Try harder than we did.
