Microsoft tries to put a ceiling on ultra-low-cost PC power
Microsoft is trying to distort the market for cheap, tiny laptops by setting up artificial incentives to manufacturers to limit the power and capability of their lowest-cost units -- even if a vendor can figure out how to put more storage, a bigger screen, or a touchscreen into its machines, Microsoft doesn't want it there, and they'll punish any vendor that tries by refusing to license XP Home Edition on the same preferential terms that lower-spec machines get.
The key term here ls "Ultra Low Cost" -- note that this is not the same as "Ultra Low Spec. The primary market for these super-cheap machines are kids and poor people, and they'll be the collateral damage in Microsoft's crusade. If Microsoft wants to set up a licensing program for low cost machines, then cost should be the limiting factor, not power.
But this isn't entirely bad news: at least this latest move provides incentive to vendors to continue to bundle GNU/Linux, not Windows, on their machines. After all, Linux isn't just cheap, it's free, and no one's going to slap you around for figuring out how to deliver more power and a better machine. Link
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And not only is it free, it can be adapted to each hardware. And even better - if it is used for school computers, it will bring the well-needed message that good software is free and that contributing to it is possible into the next generation which our Windows-fed current generation so lacks.
Though Microsoft has been accused of this before, previous accusations were based more on hyperventilation than true legal theory. But charging different customers a different price for the same good is a clear violation of antitrust principles. This is a far more serious violation that simply bundling your browser and media player with your OS: that just makes it slightly more inconvenient to switch. Imposing an actual cost raises all sorts of red flags.
Shorter Microsoft: No poor kid needs more than 80GB of storage!
phew, and with bender's resignation (http://www.olpcnews.com/people/leadership/walter_bender_resignation.html) the low cost scene is becoming the best show in town.
Open source is about freedom of choice and ownership. If people are free to choose, they are also free to make bad choices - such as running windows on their nice little low cost laptop.
The other side of the equation is, of course, they should be free to run the copy of OS they bought on any hardware they choose. To be honest, I'm not worried: a) I doubt it will hold in court. b) even if it will, it won't hold in real life. Vendors will simply make it easy to upgrade machines after purchase. The only snag is the touch screen.
This is a perfect example of how the dead devour the living, and for the most part are unstopable. The dead, i.e. Korportions gravitate to what increases their power, and this always equates to destroying the weak. The singularity arrived in the 1800's when the U.S. Congress gave Korporations more rights than citizens. Ever since the dead have been taking over step by step.
I originally posted this at Gizmodo over the weekend but I think the points are still valid.
Smart manufacturers won't take the bait, or will offer it as a parallel secondary option. Why you ask? Because of the hardware limitations.
Really, look back at what was considered low-end, low-power hardware only two or three years ago. Give another two years and the low power UMPCs will be running hardware closer to what $800-$1000 standard laptops are running now.
The catch is that those UMPCs will won't run Vista very well. And while it's possible that MS will still be willing to sell and support XP for any reason a couple years down the road, it would mean a massive public admission of failure. And that's assuming that it is willing to get rid of the hardware limitations on the manufacturers.
So the various companies are going to have to make a choice. In a year or two when the logical progression of their model lines starts hitting or surpassing the XP cap it could be a bit of a problem. If they have been purely or even primarily offering XP on their systems switching to anything else will piss off a large amount of their loyal base. The ones most likely to buy the newest version of the favorite toy.
However, if they don't switch they will be stuck watching their competitors offer hardware that can't be matched. It would take all of one product cycle for their 1 GH, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD to be matched against Linux boxes running at 1.5 with 2 GB RAM and 250 GB HD. That's not a happy place to be for any company.
The key point in RYANH's post is that Windows is so bloated, it runs poorly on these computers. Vista is hopeless, and XP runs slowly.
Maybe they just concentrate on removing all the crap from Windows and make it so it runs faster.
I am curious as to how stripped down this thing really would be. My guess is that it's easier for MS to simply disabled features than no include then, and that through some sort of non-arduous hacking you could enabled a lot of the features they are killing.
On the other hand, Vista is a monster, so the clearly would have to trim something off of it to even GET it on a PC with 80MB and still have any breathing room left over for anything else.
I still would like to see what some industrious hacked could get working that MS just disabled. Not that I would use the damn thing, mind you.
My guess is that their motivation here actually has little to do with full-fledged low-cost PCs, but rather single-board touchscreen industrial and automotive controllers. Those almost certainly could use any stripped-down version of Windows that would go in a low-cost PC, but Microsoft wants them to buy either full versions of Windows or the 'embedded' version, not the low-cost PC option.
Words approximate, as I'm not completely up on what Microsoft is calling all their specialized products these days.
Amazing! It's reverse-innovation!
Maybe MS thought they could get away with this crap because the were SO "nice" a few weeks ago when they donated those X-box kiosks to the children's hospitals.
@atteSmythe
If that's the case, couldn't they just limit the license based on price? I'm pretty sure most industrial/automotive controllers are a great deal more expensive than low-cost PC's, even for similar hardware.
@radioguy
Simpler, IMO, to just attack the features. You can play funny games with the numbers, but the device either has a touch interface, or not, etc. I could be completely off base, but the other arenas in which MS is playing were the first things I thought of when I read this.
I don't see anything wrong with this.
And Linux may be free, but its hell to use.
The real issue is the significant discount that MS is offering for very low-spec systems (screens, RAM, and HD below certain caps) - the best price MS will charge for a spec-limited machine is about $16-22 dollars/unit - $10 more for "developed" markets.
The best article I read about this was in Computerworld:
Link to article
Microsoft were just starting to claw back some respect too with their online services.
Shame on you Microsoft, massive suckage.
Thanks to #15 for actually RTFA.
MS is offering a really cheap option for a $10 discount on an already heavily discounted product. They are restricting the hardware support on this lowest-cost option so that higher-end product sales are not cannibalized.
At least their OS is not hardware-locked, like the miserable Linux-based XO I bought. Okay, that last remark is mostly FUD, but I'm making a point here - there's no really story here against MS either. All MS is doing is offering manufacturers the totally voluntary option of limited hardware support for a severely discounted price.
We do not lambaste Apple for only producing a truly hardware-locked OS on very expensive hardware, totally out of reach for most developing markets. We shouldn't vilify MS for making an effort to provide for the lowest-cost market segment without cannibalizing higher-end sales. It's a good point that Linux is still the lowest-cost OS alternative, but it's hard to price-compete with free.
Arguing "total cost of ownership" is well-worn, but apt for this example. I do not believe MS has the brand recognition advantage in the developed world as it does here in America, so it really must compete with Linux (or BSD) via quality in developing markets. MS does have an advantage in that manufacturers are more familiar with implementing Windows than Linux, but I suspect that technical expertise differential is shrinking. There's no distro that offers as long term support on a release as long as MS does on Windows. MS is pretty good on hardware support, as is Linux. Linux is open-source, but if a company has to hack its own code, that costs money and then Linux is no longer free to implement. Linux has lots of good free software, but it can all be ported to Windows anyway, if it hasn't been already. Windows has much greater support for non-free software, but that really isn't an issue with ULC PCs.
MS is losing the ULC PC market share fight and this price break is an attempt to correct that. Their real concern is not screwing up their premium pricing in their more lucrative markets.
A modern OS, with its GUI and expected auxiliary programs, is a complex beast and one that well may be worth the $26 that MS wants to charge for a full version of theirs. Then again, in the developed world, $26 is a cheap dinner for one. In the developing world, it can be a family's monthly income.
I guess I've gone on a bit on a thread that's already past its prime. I just don't see any sinister conspiracy here, only a simple, ultra-low margin business pricing plan.
There's a very simple reason for this... as we all know, it is very difficult (if not impossible) for most people to buy a laptop with no OS or Linux pre-installed... Microsoft are doing this specification ceiling to prevent Linux users from getting their hands on high spec hardware without having had to purchase one with Vista on... They've lost out on shutting off the high end PC market as it is perfectly possible to get hold of the parts to build one yourself. It is not possible to purchase generic laptop parts to build one yourself as every laptop is different