Linux to eclipse Microsoft's 'all-in' tablet enthusiasm
Poll finds for Android, Chrome OS, MeeGo
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Microsoft might be "all in" on tablets (here and here), but it's Linux that will dominate this new category of device, according to latest research.
ABI Research reckons Linux-powered non-smartphone mobile devices will comprise 62 per cent of operating systems by 2015.
Google's Android and Chrome OS will lead the way, followed by the joint Intel and Nokia MeeGo effort and the now-Hewlett-Packard-owned Palm webOS.
Driving Linux on mobile will be the fact each Linux distro uses the Linux kernel with a unified based of upstream components that developers, ISVs, and hardware providers can tap.
ABI senior analyst Victoria Fodale said in a statement. "The number of Linux-oriented initiatives recently seen in the mobile industry indicates that Linux will be a key technology in the next generation of netbooks, media tablets, and other mobile devices."
If ABI's right, it will translate into an interesting inversion of the current state of play in computing, which favors Windows on the PC and server.
Microsoft executives bullishly predicted a repeat of a success for Windows on tablets for partners during its annual partners conference this week.
Executives crowed how Windows went from laggard on netbooks to displace Linux as the dominant operating system. The takeaway message was that Microsoft can prevail again on tablets even when it steadfastly refuses to see new opportunities.
Certainly, Microsoft has a natural "in" with PC makers given their decades' of cooperation that could swing things Windows' way.
The poll comes as HP dithers on what OS it should use for its planned Hurricane tablet. First Windows, then Android, and now it looks as if HP's going Palm.
Given HP spent a head-scratching, all-in $1.2bn deal simply to own the Linux OS in the first place, this would seem a logical choice. But then, it's predictability of sales in mass markets that drive manufacturing decisions of Silicon Valley's PC manufactures, not logic.
HP – the world's largest PC maker – could still flip back to Windows, especially given that close relationship it's got with Microsoft. ®
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COMMENTS
Oh?
So the only linux distros considered are the 4 newcomers? We havn't seen a single working meego or chrome device, but we aleady know they will beat slack ,debian, suse, hed rat, 'buntu, & 'driva?
I'm all for the idea of shunning gates, but there is a lot of the made-up-in-a-wine-bar-by-some-fashoin-victim-using-buzzword-scrabble about all this.
The only reason...
...that Microsoft ousted Linux on the netbook front was because Microsoft pumped money in to subsidising them. You couldn't BUY a netbook with Linux on it in the end. There simply wasn't that option, so the sales figures were completely skewed. Microsoft bought the market. They seem to have bought Toshiba; when the NB100 came out, there were Linux versions.
The replacement NB200 was Windows only and Toshiba claimed to me that Linux was dropped because they lacked feedback from the Linux community. Well, with plenty of Toshiba users on the Ubuntu forums I was all up for working to getting Toshiba the feedback that they wanted ... but when it came to the crunch, Toshiba wouldn't give me an e-mail address for Linux users to feed back on.
The fact that the moment I got mine, it was loaded with Ubuntu Netbook Remix and works wonderfully, thank you very much, tells the whole story.
I doff my cap to Microsoft for lowering the purchase price of my netbook and thank Redmond very much.
Tablets didn't take off, in my humble opinion, because they ran Windows. Tablets need speed, ease of use and response, which was an experience that Windows didn't deliver on that platform. They failed then and if they're going to attempt to bodge Windows to run on it like they did before, then they're going to fail again. It needs a completely redesigned GUI to make any sense on a tablet.
We have a small number of, "tablets," ergo laptops with touch screens that twist in to a tablet format; so these machines weren't without a reasonable amount of processor power and resource ... it was the user experience that put the nail in the coffin from my perspective.
Performance only became an issue on Microsoft Windows mobile phones. Office is such a large, bloated system that the cut down version that they put on the phones were useless as they couldn't handle all the, "features." That rendered the phone useless as a productivity device.
As tablets and mobile phones start to creep up to a level that may have run Office 2000, we have Office 2010 and .docx formats which are driving me insane on desktops; I'm going nowhere NEAR that level of Microsoft pain on mobile machines, thank you very much.
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