Day: July 25, 2007

There is an excellent article on the new “$100.00 Laptop” by Jim Raposa. Check it out!

Meet the XO!

“When you first see the XO the thought that immediately jumps to mind is ‘kid’s toy.’ With its bright green color, built-in carrying handle, funny rabbit ears and rubber membrane keyboard, it looks like something that Fisher-Price might produce. But when you pick it up, you realize how sturdy and well built the XO is. And when you turn it on, you discover that you are connecting wirelessly to the Internet and to other XO users that are creating a local network. You find lots of software designed for kids but also find some groundbreaking collaboration tools that let you work with others in ways that outshine some of the best corporate groupware. Oh yeah, even though bright sunshine is beating down upon the laptop screen, you’re having no trouble reading the display. But the sunlight is OK since it’s powering your system through a small, low-cost solar cell. And the XO doesn’t need much power since it runs at a fraction of what laptops that are considered ‘green’ run at. This is the XO, a system that was born when MIT legend Nicholas Negroponte set out to build a $100 laptop, in order to make it possible to deliver computers to kids and schools in developing countries. And while the XO didn’t make the $100 target price (instead it’s currently coming in at around $175), it does now sit nearly ready to be deployed around the world.”

That’s Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, of course! Our ol’ buddy from DesktopLinux.com. He sees a future in which Dell isn’t the only major PC manufacturer that is selling desktop Linux on PCs in their lineup.

Next major PC company to go Linux will be HP

“Opinion — People used to think the very idea that a major PC vendor would offer desktop Linux was beyond a joke. It was, as Vizzini from The Princess Bride would have said, ‘Inconceivable!’ But, as events turned out, to quote Inigo Montoya from the same movie, ‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.’ HP will soon be joining Dell in offering at least one Linux desktop line in its SKU sales listing. Here’s why I believe this. First, Dell successfully broke the Windows-only wall when it added Ubuntu Linux 7.04 to three systems in its consumer line in May. While Dell hasn’t released any sales numbers, its Linux sales must be doing well. You don’t start offering Ubuntu on another brand-new laptop line and announce that you’ll soon be selling Ubuntu to SMBs (small to midsize businesses) and internationally unless you’re making money from it. Offering Linux once could have just been a good PR move. Expanding the Linux offering means Dell must actually be selling units. The other PC companies aren’t idiots. Many of them, like Lenovo, have been toying with desktop Linux for years. Hewlett-Packard has been offering desktop Linux for enterprise customers willing to make special orders via its HP Factory Express service service for anywhere from several hundred to several thousand systems for years. These customized Linux desktops have been progressively selling better as the years go by. ‘We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard,’ said Doug Small, HP’s worldwide director of open-source and Linux marketing. How big is massive? Try thousands of Linux desktops in a single deal.”

The podcast, that is… this week is just like last week… Ben and I got the Gamemaster segment done on Saturday as usual, but I have not yet found a slot to master together the rest of the show. I suspect that since I will be out of town all this coming weekend, I may just do a “bridge version” of the podcast that will include all of last week and this week’s “stuff!” As Arthur Dent said, “I seem to be having a problem with my lifestyle.” (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Sigh.