Dell Releases its First Linux Consumer Product with Mandriva

September 17, 2005 Leave a comment

“Dell releases its first Linux consumer product with Mandriva”… or at least that's what the press release says. As I've mentioned on this blog many times in the past, a real OEM deal is critical to the success of Linux on the mainstream desktop. While this press release is a start, I don't think the title is 100% accurate. Look at the page for the 110L on the Dell site. It's not in the Home section, but the Business & Education section. A closer look at the press release seems to confirm this: Mandriva worked with Dell to certify this first consumer laptop, which is now being sold direct to students by Dell. Notice also that the Dell page does not list Linux as an option (even worse is the huge “Dell recommends Microsoft Windows XP Professional.” on every page). So, if this deal is only available to students, and a normal “consumer” can't just go to the Dell site and order Linux what makes it a consumer product? I'm not sure. In the end, while a deal like this is a great start and kudos should go to Mandriva for attempting to break ground on this, the press release title seems a little optimistic and more needs to be done. I'm still looking forward to the day where someone can go to a major PC manufactures website and simply see Linux as an option on any arbitrary model. I may be waiting a while…
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

While on the Topic of Microsoft

September 16, 2005 2 Comments

While on the topic of Microsoft, I'm not sure how I've never run across this blog before, but it seems I am not the only one to think that Ballmer may be holding Microsoft back. At any rate, Mini-Microsoft is a very interesting read that is written by an anonymous Microsoftie who, despite being disgruntled, clearly still cares about the company. I already regularly read Scoble and will be adding this blog to my list.
In other Microsoft news, CNET recently interviewed Bill Gates. One funny quote: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point?
Gates: Well, we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that.
This comes off as meaning something like “We disagree with not being evil”. While he surely meant something like “Google says they are not evil, but we disagree with that”, it still made me chuckle the first time I read it ;)
–jeremy

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Microsoft Admits to Learning from Open Source

September 16, 2005 Leave a comment

It was great to see that Microsoft actually publicly admitted that it learned something from an Open Source app. From the article: “We've learned from Apache,” acknowledged Bill Staples, product unit manager for IIS. Version 7.0 takes the IIS feature set and breaks it down into individual components, or modules, that can be loaded on an as-needed basis. The result is a Web server with much less overhead.
IIS will also gain .htaccess-like functionality. It has always amazed me some of the things that you just can't do in IIS. That being said, I hope Apache isn't resting on it's laurels, since it could learn a couple things too. The management interface is almost non-existent and a nice API to enable easier scripting of certain tasks (such as adding and deleting vhosts) would be a welcome addition. To me the story here is not what will or will not be in IIS7 though. It's in the fact the Microsoft has reached a point where they will openly admit in a public forum that Open Source produced software that they'd like to learn from. That's a big step and to me speaks volumes This absolutely would not have happened even a year ago.
–jeremy
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Filed under Main Page, Open Source

Berkun Switches to Firefox

September 15, 2005 Leave a comment

Scott Berkun, one of the UI guys for IE 1-5, has switched to Firefox for 100% of his browsing. I think it's significant, given his ties to IE. What's even more significant is what he has to say about the two apps. Things like “IE is a ghetto” and “Firefox has quality & polish”. He gives a pretty candid look into just how much IE has stagnated. He also posts some of his gripes with Firefox. I have to completely disagree with one of his points (I absolutely hate the fact the new IE windows open with content in them), but he brings up some very valid points. Luckily Asa and crew are listening. As he says, quality feedback is imperative to an apps success.
–jeremy
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The New Sun Ad Campaign

September 14, 2005 Leave a comment

Just in case you haven't seen the new Sun ad campaign, here are the ones that got rejected (there's a tab on that page to see the ones that will actually get run). This comes shortly after they flew a banner over the Dell HQ. This isn't the first time Sun did something like this. You may remember that they tried to hire a fleet of exterminators to attend the Windows 2000 launch to remind people how many bugs it had (the plan was canceled by the owner, who feared that Bill Gates would buy the company just to close it…which should give you an idea how the average person viewed Microsoft at the time). Now, marketing 101 says that if you are a market leader you never mention a competitor, and if you are not a market leader you mention them, so that people put you in the same category. That's clearly what Sun is doing here. I'm not sure I'd want to be in the same category as Dell on this one though. They make cheap servers that are known for being just that – cheap. Sun has traditionally been an innovator, which is something Dell does little of in the server market. I guess times have changed though and you can see why Sun would want to try and change their focus. At any rate, they are getting some major press out of the deal, so mission accomplished. IBM did a non-traditional marketing blitz when they started to support Linux, and look how well it worked for them. Sun is clearly in a different spot than IBM was, and the campaign has a much different slant…but generating that buzz was the same end goal.
–jeremy
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Google Blog Search Goes Beta

September 14, 2005 Leave a comment

Google just took the wraps off yet another BETA service. They have been on fire lately. This time, it's a Blog Search which most people had to see coming. With all the recent complaints I've seen about Technorati, this may be a opportune time for Google to jump into this market. Hopefully they can alleviate some of the splog problems that most engines have been having. While it probably won't happen, I'd like to see a concerted collaborative effort on this (ie. get Google, Yahoo!, Technorati, IceRocket and whoever else is interested to get together and pool efforts to reduce duplication of effort). I'll have to start comparing the major engines at this point and decide which one I'm going to use long term. I was surprised (but happily surprised) to see that a search for jeremy as of right now returns me as #1! Nice job Google ;)
–jeremy
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Vista is a Hardware Beast II

September 13, 2005 1 Comment

A follow up to this post. It appears that the hardware requirements are not as lofty as was originally reported. As explained here, Nigel was evidentially detailing the optimal hardware setup and somehow things got misconstrued. Amazing how fast things can tear through the blogosphere, isn't it? You have to feel bad for Nigel. I'm sure that by the time he realized what happened and had a chance to clear things up, the damage was done and the story was making its way into the annals of technorati. It seems that in the end, Vista will actually run on a tablet, which certainly aren't know for having beefy hardware.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page

eBay to buy Skype in $2.6bn Deal

September 12, 2005 Leave a comment

Looks like some of that dotcom madness is back. $2,600,000,000 – and half of that is in cash. The BBC seems to speculate that this may have to do with eBay letting its buyers and sellers talk to each other via their computers. I don't think so. Who wants to sit around and answer questions real time for something like this? Email seems like a far better solution here. It seems to me that eBay is trying to move itself from being an auction company to a business solutions company. They may even try to tie PayPal and Skype together, allowing you to charge for an incoming Skype call by the minute (think as a competitor to 900 numbers). They could also use it as an inexpensive way to offer incoming 800 numbers. That is an interesting idea and does have some potential IMHO. But, Skype has some odd peculiarities and is not based a SIP. While this historically didn't matter, as SIP takes off it will. And with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Gizmo all jumping into the fray recently this isn't a market I'd want to be getting into right now. $2.6bn just seems like a lot of money to be dishing out for this. Is it a snap reaction to all the GooglePay rumors or does eBay really have a plan that most people are just missing?
–jeremy
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Vista is a Hardware Beast

September 10, 2005 1 Comment

I had to chuckle a bit when I saw the hardware requirements for Windows Vista. The only req that seems reasonable to me is the 1GB of RAM for 32bit machines (it's 2GB for 64bit). Let's take a quick look at the others. While 256M of RAM in a video card is not outrageous these days (some already have 1G, although they aren't cheap) it seems like an awfully high bar for a minimum. This is due to the change from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This alone will make a whole lot of computers fall short. They'd also like to see a PCI-Express video card, not the much more common AGP. Next is the RAM – they'd like to see DDR3. I don't even think this is shipping yet, and the roadmap looks like 2007 is the target date for mass adoption. Nice! The next one is SATA2. While SATA2 is nice (it supports Native Command Queueing), but certainly not the standard in machines today. So, we've already eliminated almost everyones machine so far, right? Now for the kicker. No current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista. That's right – NONE. To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you'll need a HDCP compatible monitor. The bottom line? If you'd like to upgrade to Vista, you'll probably need a whole new machine – including monitor. It almost seems like Microsoft is forcing you into buying a new computer. Is this their payback to the Dell's of the world for all the abuse they've been given? Seems coincidental, that's for sure. This has to be good news for Linux, which will not have any of these lofty prereq's, I'm quite sure. Hopefully Linux vendors will take advantage of this.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page

We're Going to London

September 9, 2005 Leave a comment

Just a quick note to let everyone know that LQ will be exhibiting at LWE UK in London. So far it looks like in addition to myself, we'll have at least acid_kewpie, david_ross and XavierP. Last years trip to London was an excellent time and I'm looking forward to getting out there again. See you at Olympia.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page

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