After reading an article in PC Pro about Microsoft’s upcoming doom I had an interesting thought. You see the article talked about Linux being installed on netbooks from Asus and how this would leave Microsoft having to retreat to the corporate world as Linux becomes the major consumer OS. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Microsoft will, most likely, produce a version of Windows 7 that is trimmed down and perfectly suited to the netbook world. There is one company however that should be concerned with the tiny tiny tiny rise of Linux.
Apple have no competitor to the Asus netbooks. They have nothing to offer to Asus in the way Microsoft can offer up Windows XP and their cheapest notebook is $999. In the current economy are people going to choose to buy the Apple laptop that still has the difficulties of switching associated with it in the public consciousness or will they go the the cheaper notebooks offering old reliable, Windows XP. You see Vista may be perceived as unpopular but I’ve yet to hear anyone talk about the fact that these people, in choosing XP, are still handing money to the folks from Redmond. Microsoft will happily maintain their dominant market position even if everyone who buys a new laptop decides to downgrade to XP.
I don’t honestly believe that Linux is going to threaten either Windows or OSX but if it does then it’s the 8% Apple have in the American market that’s going to be under the most threat and when your share is that small any loss can do a lot of damage.
Is it time for Apple to license OSX? Or produce some sort of MultiTouch netbook? What do you think?
ASUS have produced an excellent new controller that has motion sensing technology. It's an excellent idea and I think it could catch on in a huge way. In fact any console with this technology would be a massive hit.....and the Wii is. I'm not saying there will be a lawsuit from Nintendo but you've got to admit there's a pretty good chance. By the way for those interested the ASUS controller is called the Eee Stick and works with a new range PC games that will be packaged along with the Stick and Eee PC or Eee Box.
