Microsoft reminds us that Windows is f*cking expensive

Microsoft has finally released the pricing structure for Windows 7. The good news is that the new version of Windows will be a bit cheaper than the equivalent version of Windows Vista. The bad news is that since I am now used to receiving Ubuntu for free this made me realize that a Windows 7 license is in fact f*cking expensive!

The boxed edition of Windows cost as much as a computer.

Here in Europe a full version of Windows home premium would cost €199 (about $280). You can actually purchase a cheap Linux netbook for the same price! Yes, a boxed Edition of Windows can actually cost as much as a full netbook, that's how expensive it is. If you live in the US you will get some relief though, as your license will only cost $199.

The full business version of Windows will retail for €309 (about $400) the price of an entry level desktop. Who in their right mind will purchase Windows 7 at these prices in a recession, even if you can declare it as a business expense? Not many people!

Rebates!

MS seems to have realized that and will be offering a lot of rebates to get Windows 7 started. First there will be a limited time pre-order offer where you can purchase a Windows 7 upgrade for €49 or $49 in the US. This is much less expensive than the full retail price, but unfortunately this offer is only available in the US for now. A few select European countries like France and the UK should benefit from the same offer later this summer, but this will certainly not be available to everyone. Another good point is that European consumers should be able to pick up a full copy of Windows 7 without IE for the price of an upgrade, or about €119 ($150).

Still, this raises a lot of questions for the technology enthusiasts that wants to build his own machine and run Windows 7: should we accept to pay such high prices just for an operating system? Should we accept to pay for an OS before it is even released to be able to purchase it at a reasonable price? Does Windows 7 really delivers 119€ worth of extra value compared to it's predecessor and Linux? I do not think so.

A shifting market for operating systems

The problems is that although Windows 7 is about 10% cheaper than Windows Vista, the average selling price of a PC has fallen much more than that between the release date of Vista and now. This is partially due to the rise of netbooks, nettops and other cheap mini PCs but also because not many users buy expensive high-end PCs anymore. In most families it is more convenient to purchase a netbook for each member of the family and one cheap desktop to handle heavier tasks than to purchase one shared uber-powerful notebook. If a household of four where everyone has a PC or netbook want to upgrade all of the household's computers to Windows 7 that's a bill of $476 in the US, or €476 (around $600) in Europe! In short, the average family needs to purchase more Windows licenses than 5 years ago but expects to pay less per license. The operating system is becoming a commodity where price does matter much more than advanced functionality.

Bad for small PC builders

Microsoft obviously does not want to acknowledge this trend. This puts small independent PC builders in a bad spot too: many of these can not obtain large volume discounts on OEM Windows licenses like the big manufactures do. From the information I could gather large manufactures can usually get Windows XP for $25 on netbooks and Windows Home premium for around $80. Small PC builders and enthusiasts have to pay the full price of a Vista OEM license ($119). As the price of Windows becomes a much greater part of a PC's cost their products will become less and less competitive. Before builders could solve the problem by selling computers without an OS, but if the retail version of Windows is perceived as an expensive part of a new PC this may not look attractive to computer buyers anymore. This could result in a PC market dominated by a handful of big OEMs, a rather bad situation for consumers.

Linux to the rescue

There is a simple solution for PC builders however: Linux. With the shift to online applications most users only need a web browser and a few productivity application on the average PC. Families only need to buy one Windows machine to install games and the legacy applications that require Windows. Netbooks, nettops and cheap PCs that are used for surfing and playing music or video should work perfectly with the free Linux operating system.

Home users can purchase the boxed edition of Ubuntu for less than $20, and this includes phone support to help users get started with Linux. This is 1/10 th of the $199 that the boxed version of Windows home premium will cost stateside. At this price it becomes an interesting alternative to the purchase of a Windows 7 upgrade. Even the OSX upgrade has been announced at $29, or 1/4 th of the price of a Windows upgrade, and Apple is not known for being cheap. The current price structure for Windows 7 upgrades and retail versions clearly put Windows in the "expensive extras" category for me. I do hope that Microsoft will sell OEM licenses of Windows 7 at a more reasonable price, or soon Windows will be perceived as a luxury rather than a necessity.

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Image cc by impressa.maccabe

What are your top 5 geek TV shows?

To finish the week on light note I propose you the following: give me your top 5 geek TV shows. There are quite a few geek shows that have entered into mainstream culture and have become big successes, but here is what I would consider to be the top 5 geek TV shows of all time:

5th position: Weird Science

Although the series never was as good as the movie, the two computer nerds that created the perfect girl by wearing bras over their heads still deserver a place in the pantheon of TV Geekdom. The film had the courage to have geeks as main characters long before geeks were fashionable.

4th position: Star Trek

Are the Trekkies geeks? I certainly think so! Anybody who walks at conventions with pointy Vulcan ears speaking Klingon does deserve to be called a geek. Star Trek stand for a lot of the geek values: the cult of technology, the drive to explore new possibilities and the acceptance of cultural diversity are good example.

3rd position: Chobits

Geek and anime are two things that go very well together. I couldn't do this list without including at least one anime. I choose Chobits as this is by far one of the geekiest anime available outside of Japan. The story of the geek that found the ultimate robotic woman is too good to pass up. Humor, romance, adventure, computers and sexy robots: Chobits has all the things that a geek could desire.

2nd position: Systm

I know, Systm is not really on TV, it's on the internet and it is currently on hiatus, but it's a TV show anyway. With such classics as the beer keg robot, the home made flametrower, the DIY lightsaber, the liquid nitrogen ice cream, the giant hamster wheel and the gravity boots, Systm deserve a prize for the sheer number of geek projects on the show. This was also the first show of the revision 3 network to meet with some success, so it actually played a part in the development of the professional video podcasts industry. Since it is free head to the revision3 site and download a few episodes.

1st position: The big bang theory

This is by far my favorite geek show. the story of the four geeks and the beautiful girl is a topic that could easily turn into a "let's laugh at the geek" fest, but instead the geeky heroes seems to always come out on top. Actually I think that this is a show that would make people want to be geeks!

That was my top five geek TV shows. Now hit the comments and let me know what are your own favorites!

Linux Netbooks: back to the facts

There has been a lot of talk about the success or failure of the Linux netbooks recently, to the point that it is now a very controversial topic. I think that it is time to go back to the facts and perform an objective analysis of the Linux netbook market. You will see that Linux netbooks have been neither a complete success nor a complete failure.

Fact 1: Linux netbooks sell well online but badly in "brick and mortar" shops

The first lesson that I take home from the Linux netbook story is that if the online market is more than ready for Linux machines, the "brick and mortar" shops are not. Dell is reporting nice sales of it's Ubuntu based Inspiron Mini online with about a third of the machines sold featuring Linux, but Linux based machines have not had much success offline. In France Linux based netbooks have left the store shelves but are still widely sold online. The explanation provided was that users shopping online are better educated and actually knew what their were buying. Many shoppers in "Brick and Mortar" shops were actually expecting the Linux machines to work like Windows and to run Windows software, leading to disappointments and returns.

Fact 2: 60% of consumers don't see the difference between a netbook and notebook

A recent study has shown an amazing fact: most consumers can not see the difference between a notebook and a netbook. In my opinion this is because modern Windows netbooks look and behave too much like mini laptops, a fact that I have been pointing out already. This has not been good for the Linux netbook market or even for Microsoft who is losing a lot of money on cheap Windows licenses. Many consumer expected that netbooks could replace full PCs and perform all the tasks of a Windows desktop. This resulted many of those consumers to be disappointed, as the machines are designed as companion devices to a desktop PC, not replacement for it. This has in turn led many PC manufacturers to increase the specifications (and price) of most netbooks in an attempt to satisfy these customers.

Fact 3: Linux fare well on flash based netbooks, badly on HDD based ones

Most of the Linux netbooks models that have met with success feature an SSD instead of an HDD. One of the reasons is that Windows XP does not perform very well on a cheap SSD (Windows 7 will not either) while Linux does. The problem is that SSD based netbooks do not have the preference of the buying public. The main reason is fact 2 here above: most consumers actually buy netbook machines as small laptops and expect them to feature an HDD and a lot of local storage. Again SSD based netbooks have encountered success with educated users that are aware of their advantages in term of power consumption, shock resistance and portability, but not with the general public.

Fact 4: most netbook users want the option of a desktop interface

Another issue caused by fact 2 is that most netbooks users want to be able to switch easily to a full desktop interface. Don't get me wrong, simplified interfaces like Ubuntu netbook remix are great for on-the-go usage, but if the user connects his netbook to a keyboard, mouse and external screen to use it as a fixed machine the easy interface can really get in the way. The most frequently asked question about the Eee PC 's Xandros distribution is probably "How do I switch to advanced mode?" Initial Linux efforts on the netbook failed to recognize that the machines would often be used as normal computer and didn't offer an easy enough way to switch to the traditional desktop interface.

Conclusions

The main lesson to be learned from the current state of the netbook market is that although errors have been made Linux is doing quite well in a netbook-as-companion-device usage scenario, but unfortunately most netbooks are used as notebooks or desktop replacement machines. This was not anticipated by the netbook manufacturers or the developers of Linux netbook distributions and is causing numerous issues. The main problem is linked to customer education: nobody told salesmen and consumers what a netbook actually was and how it was designed to be used, leading to unrealistic expectations. There is still a market for traditional SSD based netbooks in which Linux can shine, but it is much smaller than what is currently considered as "the netbook market", and not many "netbook" manufacturers are releasing new machines for this market segment.

Most PC manufacturers are currently focusing on improving the usability of netbooks as desktop replacement machines by adding larger screens, roomier HDDs and inflated price tags instead of developing true innovative netbooks. Often this involves replacing Linux with Windows XP, as the public expects Windows to be installed for this type of usage scenario. This shift is helped by the fact that Microsoft is practically giving XP away for free. There are however a lot of opportunities in the near future for next generation Linux distributions on the netbooks, smartbooks and mini PCs. I'll cover these in an article next week: 3 paths to a bright future

Read more in the netbooks category

Picture cc by magicfab

MS vs EU: Microsoft does not control Windows anymore

I was quite surprised when I learned that some peoples at JCXP wanted to boycott the opera browser because of the EU actions against Microsoft regarding the bundling of IE 8. The problem is that their main argument would be valid in the US, but absolutely not in the EU. Here is the point that I have a problem with:

"Microsoft is entirely within their right to include Internet Explorer as the default browser within their own OS, just like Apple includes their own Safari as the default browser in Mac OS X, and just like Opera Software would be free to include Opera as the default browser in their own OS, should they ever make one."

Well, sorry but no, they don't have the right.

From an European point of view at least they don't. You see the way the EU and the US deal with monopolies is completely different. In the US the state reaction when faced with a monopolistic company is to break it apart, something that almost happened to Microsoft during their first US antitrust investigation.

The EU doesn't break up companies, in fact they are usually quite OK with monopolies. For a long time water, power, cable and telecoms have been monopolies in most European countries and most people were OK with that. Of course there is a catch: in almost all cases the government owned a controlling share of those monopolistic companies and actually imposed some policies on them.

Now that most industries have been liberalized the state operate in a similar but subtly different way: You are entitled to operate a monopoly or quasi-monopoly as a private company, but you are expected to let the state have some control over your company in exchange. In other words from an European point of view if Windows is a quasi-monopoly then the state has the right to impose features and restrictions on Windows, as simple as that.

Of course Microsoft still own Windows and the financial benefits it produces, but they are not the only ones in control anymore. The logic is that if Windows is a monopoly that is practically imposed on citizens (through the "Windows tax") then the citizens 's democratically elected representative should have the right to control what is imposed to them. In Europe the "Windows tax" concept is more perceived as this, if it's mandatory, it's a tax, if it's a tax it's controlled by democratically elected people (i.e. the state).

I understand that my US readers would find this disturbing as it is is contrary to the way that the US corporations do business. As I pointed out in a previous post there is quite a big culture clash between US and the EU on antitrust issues. You should keep in mind that this is about Europe, and that businesswise Europe is not the US.

Read more in the Windows category

Image cc by TechFlash_Todd

Linux Acer Aspire One A150 on Sale

Just a quick heads-up for those of you who want to acquire an HDD based Linux netbook: the Acer Aspire ONE A150 is currently in clearance in the Expansys UK and US shops. the machines feature a 120 GB HDD and 1 GB of memory. The price is £149 in the UK and $229 in the US.

For those of you who would prefer an Ubuntu based solution , You can also obtain refurbished Sylvania Meso for $249 on Amanazon.