This isn't "evil", it's basic market segmentation. Microsoft doesn't want to limit the capabilities of any device, but if it sets the price of XP to a level that works for ultra-cheap vendors, it surrenders a vast amount of money to companies like Dell.
Like any business, Microsoft wants Dell to pay what XP is worth to Dell, and Asus to pay what XP is worth for the Eee. It can't simply charge one amount to Dell and another to Asus. So instead it uses arbitrary specifications to create a category of XP license that is unattractive to Dell and cost-effective for Asus.
You can argue about the ethics of this up and down, but when you start looking for it, you see that we're awash in market segmentation. Often, the most egregious examples of it actually have consumer benefits: take airfare, where the total ripoff fares I pay for last-minute business travel effective subsidize tickets for tourists who would not otherwise be able to fly.
Information Rules is an excellent book going into details of how markets work in information economies where the marginal cost of a product is near-zero. It covers segmentation, lock-in, network effects, etc. ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/087584863X/ )
To recap: Microsoft says that if a producer wants cheap window's licenses, they have to limit the specs on their umpcs (screen < 10.2 inches && hd < 80GB && ! touchscreen).
This is a good thing.
If a consumer wants, e.g., a umpc with a touchscreen, they will be forced to get a linux one. Getting more people to try linux (and giving the linux hardware an intrinsic edge), is probably one of the worst things microsoft can do to itself and one of the best it can do for linux.
Sadly, the onky consequence that springs to mind is that there will be no devices above the spec. As much as the hardware makers may want to sell devices, they will want to maximize the number of units sold and the simplest way to do it is bundling windows.
1. This is part of the push for Vista over XP -- computers than can run Vista must run Vista, otherwise, XP is offered to avoid forfeiting the market to Linux.
2. This is a precursor to a campaign to cast Linux as a cheap operating system for low-quality computers. Hardware manufacturers can't resist offering these Ubiquitous Linux PCs, but if there's this extra incentive to keep the specs tight enough that these things can't quite be used as general-purpose computers, that can theoretically trap Linux for consumers in a sort of technological ghetto.
Or, since the left hand and right hand appear to be barely on speaking terms inside Microsoft these days, one hand might really be earnestly pushing for #1, while the other hand cackled and bought in based on #2, and thus they agree.
I think that's an optimistic way of looking at it. Another way is that the people who create these devices will just limit their specs to be below Microsoft's requirements.
I think this is amongst the first time MS has directly had to respond to Linux as a threat on the desktop though.
Personally, I'd just remote desktop into a stray Windows machine unless I absolutely had to have it onboard. I don't know that I'd want the added load from Wine on a lightweight Linux laptop.
Those forthcoming 9" Linux Eees for $500 with 20GB SSDs look really enticing. Emacs + Firefox + a terminal is really all you need.
Wow, just like the old Evil Microsoft. They forgot something, though: Apple is no longer a negligible force. I wonder if this move will ultimately backfire.
All I meant here was that they're a competitor. So if Microsoft gratuitously breaks some range of devices, users will have an alternative.
But Apple is a more benevolent force than Microsoft in that they owe their market share to the quality of their products rather than to taking over the PC standard from IBM.
Their idea of a lightweight computer starts at $1800.
Well, no. Apple's idea of a cheap, lightweight computer costs $300 to $500, fits in your pocket, and (optionally) doubles as a cellphone.
(If you don't agree with this interpretation of Apple's product line, wait a couple months after the official third-party iPhone apps arrive and consider it again...)
You can't type on the iPhone very quickly, of course. It won't run emacs or vi very well. It probably won't run a web development stack, or a decent Java compiler. So if what you really want is something like an EEE you should buy an EEE. There's no reason why Apple's idea of a cheap, lightweight computer should match yours...
Whether or not the iPhone is in the EEE's market segment depends on what you think that segment is. I'd say that it's squarely in the "super-light super-cheap portable box for checking mail and web" segment. If you're talking about the "light, cheap portable box for fixing your website via SSH from a coffeehouse in the Florida Keys" segment, it's a lot less clear.
I'm sure there is some substitution between the categories, but I guess I still think of them as pretty separate.
Pesonally, I have a phone that runs both ssh and vi (a Samsung i760 Windows Mobile 6 phone with a touchscreen and slideout keyboard), and I'm still interested in getting an Eee.
These appliances are connected devices, which means that all they need to be are small wireless dumb terminals. Increases in bandwidth and improvements in distributed computing (cloud computing to be buzzword compliant) will make this even more so.
That's actually a valid argument. I disagree (I will concede that they are extremely nice looking products, but in many other ways they are nearly as pitiable as Microsoft products), but it is certainly a valid position to take. And, of course, no one begrudges Apple making money (well, I don't anyway), I just don't think they are a benevolent factor in driving down the cost of computing, which was the original direction of this thread about ultra low cost computing.
Apple have as much motivation for systems to stay expensive as Microsoft does. The lower prices go, the larger the premium becomes for their products vs. one running an Open Source operating system. There certainly are companies pushing the price of computing downward, but Apple is not among them. Apple does, however, occupy a vital role in keeping Microsoft busy on the "expensive but pretty" front, while Asus and others chip away at the low end of the market, eating MS from the bottom...the very same way MS and the PC market ate the mini-computer and mainframe market from the bottom and the way MySQL is eating Oracle's market from the bottom. (I'm picturing Daniel Day Lewis with a really long straw at this point, though I don't know that that is an entirely apt analogy.)
Hmm. Somehow, I can't see Apple ever producing an "ultra cheap" computer. I hope you're right though. Who knows, maybe they'll make something 2-3 times the size of the iPhone... and a third of the price?
The lack of touchscreen interoperability will be a major limitation which will encourage open source adoption.
Unfortunately, current client trends are counter to Microsoft's strategy. Firstly, people are buying laptops rather than desktops. Both are getting cheaper. Secondly, Microsoft follows the classic monopolistic tactic of racheting prices. Successive versions of Microsoft software a typical more expensive despite initial costs already being re-couped. These trends create a situation where the cost of an operating system and pre-installed applications take an increasingly large share of the retail price. This creates a third trend of laptop manufacturers who opt-out of the "Windows tax" and only supply units with tailored open source software.
In two years, we'll probably have a device which is a mix of laptop, mobile telephone and Nintendo DS. It would be a clamshell design with two 11 inch screens with the bottom one being touch sensitive. You cannot rely on Microsoft to support such a device. Nor would it be viable to include Windows. So, such a device would mostly be used with open source operating systems.
This design has already been tried. Unfortunately, it was quite a few years ago and it was a commercial failure. However, since then, the technology has improved, the cost has fallen and the volume of people who only want to run open source software has grown significantly. This would make a similar attempt much more likely to succeed.
It is understandable that such a trend would adversely affect Microsoft. Therefore an attempt to steeply discount Windows on limited hardware has two benefits. It creates an artificial divide between premium hardware and almost disposable devices where Windows is viable on both. Secondly, it reduces the inclination for low cost manufacturers to abandon Windows.
Once they secure their position, I wonder if MS will start imposing comparable constraints to the future OLPCs (which they should have never been allowed to put their grubby hands on)?
Also, I wonder who in the world their PR dude is and if he sleeps most all days... In any case, they really should be working on improving their public appearance through their policies rather than trying to impose restrictions on their potential customers. Dumb.
This might offer consumers a cheaper alternative to buying Windows Vista Business or Vista Ultimate and 'downgrading' to XP for new licenses of XP. That way, you get a cheap, Linux-ready laptop along with your OS license.
This company will never mend its ways. I hope (and I know it may just be a hope what with its billions of cash reserves) it dies a really painful death for trying to be against progress almost all the time. Control freaks.
Only a non-story if you believe ultra cheap PCs will continue to have limited capabilities. This is Microsoft's way of insuring that the low-cost machines remain limited enough to where the price of Windows doesn't make the system significantly more expensive for the consumer than Linux. Luckily, the cat is already out of the bag to some degree...the Eee PC has been quite successful in its Linux incarnation.
It's interesting that the limited specs don't mention RAM or processor speed, and don't rule out solid-state drives. A small screen and 40-80 GB storage could be a pretty sweet machine, with or without a touchscreen -- the price for these laptops could just as easily drop to $99, where the cost of Windows is a serious problem, or rocket up to $800, adding wild custom hardware and tweaking the OS significantly to accommodate it. This looks like a move that could have a ton of unintended consequences.
Besides limits on the screens and hard drives, to be eligible, the systems can have no more than 1G byte of RAM and a single-core processor running at no more than 1GHz.
Like any business, Microsoft wants Dell to pay what XP is worth to Dell, and Asus to pay what XP is worth for the Eee. It can't simply charge one amount to Dell and another to Asus. So instead it uses arbitrary specifications to create a category of XP license that is unattractive to Dell and cost-effective for Asus.
You can argue about the ethics of this up and down, but when you start looking for it, you see that we're awash in market segmentation. Often, the most egregious examples of it actually have consumer benefits: take airfare, where the total ripoff fares I pay for last-minute business travel effective subsidize tickets for tourists who would not otherwise be able to fly.