An interesting article from Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney at zdnet commenting on why they believe Ubuntu will fare well against Windows 7.
A few quotes:
"Microsoft beat IBM because it had Bill Gates up against a bunch of suits. Now Microsoft is a bunch of suits and Ubuntu has Mark Shuttleworth."
"HP and Dell have gotten a taste of freedom from Microsoft tyranny. They won’t give that up easily."
"Windows is losing the mobility wars. Linux is playing well, Apple is winning big, RIM is hanging in. Where’s Windows?"
It is easy to agree with these points. As devices become lower and lower priced, the amount paid for the operating system stands out more. From a closed sourced company's point of view, you need to do very large volume just to keep the lights on. The troubles Microsoft is having with Zune shows that it is not easy to succeed in the mobile device space. It just makes business sense to put open source on netbooks and mobile devices - shared costs, shared risks, open standards, multiple vendors to source from, constant innovation, the ability to walk away with the source if all else fails, and more.
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