Asus Eee PC is changing the computing landscape
We have talked about the Asus Eee PC before, but I thought I would go back to the subject because the enormous and, as I think most people will admit, the unexpected success of the little laptop is actually beginning to have some potentially significant and long reaching effects.
Effect 1 - Pushing Linux on to the desktop
It is beginning to accelerate the push of Linux onto the desktop. For a long time now Linux has actually been good enough for the desktop, having increased in usability and capability significantly over the last few years. But there was never any really compelling reason to switch, and try and cope with the inevitable differences from what users where used to. But Asus have managed to tweak the desktop so that the standard features that users are expecting are easy to find and what is more, just work. I have read some commentators suggest that because of the different form factor, people are more willing to adjust to the slight differences from Windows, and I can see the sense in that. So that barrier has being broken.
Effect 2 - What a price
At this price it is almost worth buying just to have a play! A fully functional ultra portable laptop at that price is an enormous attraction, and is probably the big selling point. The ability for Asus to get down to these prices again is helped by the Linux operating system, probably cutting overall costs by around 30%. If the software had been a pig to use then this approach would of back fired, but it did and it hasn’t! Other vendors are now having a look and are having to at least think about their own prices and that will be good for all consumers.
Effect 3 - A whole new market
The success of the Eee has got all the other vendors taking note, and their are loads of rumours of similar models in the works from the likes of Elonex and Acer. There is a whole new market niche being created in front of our eyes. And will all these new models be running Linux? Probably pushing the open source operating system further out on to the desktop.
It turns out the that the little laptop that could is presently PriceGrabber’s featured computer. I am really tempted. Have any of you succumbed already?
Posted on March 10th, 2008 by stephen
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This is great news. I have been editting websites for a while now and this combination will make working on linus a whole lot easier. I wonder if there are any unexpected bugs that may need working since this is a new development. I will be learning linus soon so I may look into this notebook.
March 11th, 2008 at 3:40 pmUlrich
From what I hear the Eee just works, with very few people complaining about bugs. Some of the software bundle doesn’t always work perfectly, but you could say the same for any new laptop. If you want to learn Linux then this would be a good way to learn. The Eee does allow you to get under the skin to the raw Linux underneath!
March 16th, 2008 at 5:07 am