HP Is Putting SUSE Linux on Business Notebooks: A Good Sign?
by Sam Dean - Apr. 28, 2009Comments (0)- Related Blog Posts
- Over 10 Open Source Cloud Computing Tools and Resources
- Thoughts on the Koala
- OStatic Buffer Overflow...
- Two Unexpected, Potential Scenarios for Android
- OStatic Buffer Overflow...
Today, Hewlett-Packard--the world's number one PC vendor--has announced a new line of notebook computers called ProBooks, with one shown here. The systems fall into the prosumer space (professional/consumer) and are bigger and more fully stocked than most netbooks. Notably, HP is offering SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 as an operating system choice on the ProBooks, in addition to Windows Vista and XP. HP's arch-rival Dell is also continuing to ship portable computers with Linux installed, and is seeing many users satisfied with Linux. Can Linux remain a fixture on portable systems?
Reuters asked Carol Hess-Nickels, HP's director of marketing for worldwide business notebooks, about the decision to offer SUSE Linux to an audience likely to consist mostly of business users. She answered:
"We want to provide a different option. It's probably a little time yet before we'll know exactly what the demand is, but we did think it was something worth trying."
Meanwhile, Canonical's recently released Ubuntu Linux 9.04 Netbook Remix is specifically aimed at the fast-growing netbook market, and is getting solid reviews for its slick interface. Linux is also continuing to ship on high-profile netbook systems, such as the Dell Mini 9 and systems from Asus and Acer.
Some reports have appeared claiming that return rates for portable systems running Linux are much higher than rates for systems running Windows, but there are strong signs that faulty market research is behind these reports. Canonical has blasted these reports, and Dell reports that rates of return for Linux netbooks are no higher than for their Windows counterparts.
I can easily see Linux rising to 10 percent of the market for operating systems on portable computers over time, and that's nothing to shake a stick at. For many years, Apple commanded only 5 percent of the market, and look at how it's flourishing and how much innovation Mac OS X has ushered in. Over time, security problems on the Windows platform became one of many reasons that more people started favoring Macs, and I could see more people waking up to the advantages Linux has over Windows in that area.
It's worth rooting for Linux on portable computers--and not just on netbooks. Meanwhile, let's hope that we see much, much better marketing for portable Linux systems than we're seeing now. After all, the primary competition is Microsoft, and that company doesn't exactly have a paltry marketing budget.
Comments
