It never fails.
Really, it doesn’t.
Whenever Microsoft comes out with a new version of Windows which, according to blue sky metrics, fails to set the world ablaze, some lazy, unengaged members of the punditry class emerge from their hovels in Middle Earth, and start making pronouncements about the need for some enterprising entrepreneur – never they themselves, mind you – to develop a series of PCs powered by the open source OS flava o’ the day, in this instance, Android.
I mean, WTF, right?
Earlier today, I had the misfortune to read a post on ZDNet about Android PCs being the panacea for all things ailing the personal computer industry.
Where do link-baiting writers like this come up with this drivel?
Seriously, where do they pull this SWAGs from?
According to the article, PCs are waaay too expensive.
Really, that’s what he wrote!
As a result, he proposes that Android come galloping to the rescue.
Immediately, a sense of foreboding, and an extreme feeling of déjà vu hit me!
I had HEARD this nonsense before!
The last time, it was HP and the Android Slate.
Which, thankfully is languishing in that netherworld between being stillborn, and complete market indifference.
Before that, it was Dell, with a series of Linux laptops they wasted resources on developing for which it would literally take them until Kingdom Come, or way past this planet being consumed in a giant fireball by a dying Sun, to recoup.
Dell found out the hard way that the vocal minority inhabiting its forums were in no way indicative of the consumer world in real life.
Prior to ‘The Dell Fail’, there were netbooks. Specifically, Linux netbooks.
These devices were created to counter the expensive – financially and resource-wise – hardware costs of Windows Vista.
If I remember correctly, ASUS initially defined the netbook space with cheap – their description, not mine – small form factor laptops running Linux. I have to admit that for a minute, ASUS was successful, until their users realized that apart from carrying the latest fad proselytized by the noisemakers, all they could do on those device was surf the internet.
Window-based netbooks came out, and that put paid to the idea of Linux netbooks.
What, you don’t remember Lindows?
Lindows was the brainchild of some yum-yum who was able to schneider otherwise smart mega-mart retailers such as Walmart and co into carrying obsolete hardware running a Linux distro called Lindows – the hardware and the OS both! – and sporting a plethora of open source software as ‘The Answer”! (Apologies to Allen Iverson, re in order, methinks.)
Suffice it to say that Lindows failed. Miserably too.
In a very visible case of GIGO, it soon dawned on users that there was nothing you could really do with a computer version of a Trabant! The systems were underpowered, even for Linux, possessing obsolete CPUs, used a very obscure OS, and the desktop productivity apps were less than useless, even for consumers. The OEM was laughed out of the marketplace, and is probably in an ashram somewhere trying to locate his lost goodwill.
Even before Lindows, there were those mouthpieces who pushed IBM’s OS/2 as the OS for all of us.
We all remember how that worked for them. And for IBM!
Coming back, the point this fellow was attempting to make was that the high cost of Windows is what is killing the market.
Yeah, like y’all, I’m sure he has research into just how much Windows OEMs pay Redmond for that privilege.
Anecdotes, conjecture, rumors, head fakes, and whatnots do not take the place of facts.
Ever!
Yet, this poor misguided soul takes all of them as fact, and proceeds to derive an actual article from it.
Folks, it AIN’T happenin’!
Windows may fail, but the replacement for Windows will NEVER be Android.
If you want, I can have it inscribed on stone tablets for you!
- To recap:
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Windows 95 Era: use IBM OS/2 instead.
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Windows XP Era: use Lindows PCs instead.
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Windows Vista Era: use Linux Netbooks instead.
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Windows 7 Era: use Dell Linux laptops instead.
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Windows 8 Era: use Android PCs instead.
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Also, do not forget that in the short interregnum between the release of Surface RT/Windows RT and Surface Pro, HP announced an Android tablet, the HP Slate 7. While none has been spotted in the wild, I have been told that the beast exists.
However, I am sure all humanity is waiting with bated breath for when the Slate 7 hits the fire sale bins at mega-mart. Just like the late and completely unlamented HP TouchPad.
For those keeping score, these cheaper (apart from IBM's OS/2) alternatives were soundly rejected by the great unwashed, giving a perfect 1.000 score. In reverse!
G’nite now!
© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
