HP Dumps Linux for Windows XP MCE in New Media Player 225
An anonymous reader writes "There hasn't been much said about this, but HP's new z545 Digital Entertainment Center appears to be a Windows-based re-spin of an earlier Linux-based model that HP unveiled three years ago at the Tech X NY trade show in New York, and which was sold for some time as the de100c Digital Entertainment Center. Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left."
M$ Is Just Bullying (Score:4, Interesting)
Competitive Advantage...? (Score:5, Interesting)
There has been a few stories recently where local governments, schools and SMBs have used Linux as leverage to get MS to drop their prices.
HP is just as much a customer of MS in the OEM market as anybody else...They would have to negotiate what they pay for their OEM licenses that they include with their consumer PCs. Any drop in what they pay MS for the OEM licenses translates into pure profit for HP without changing the sticker price.
Granted that these media centre devices have a reasonable chance of providing market penetration where PCs will not go (I'm thinking the poorer end of the socioeconomic demographic), and the aforementioned "linux as leverage" strategy, MS may have been prepared to give up some percentage on their OEM license fees for ALL of HPs product range to get MS MCE onto these devices.
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft is pushing DRM-enabled products and the mass media makers mostly agree. So since it would be easier to buy compatable products then try to recreate compatable ones in Linux while facing legal hurdles and patent problems.
Embedded Linux is very mature nowadays, their is nothing that is more expensive when it comes to developing linux platform then windows, it's all already been done by other companies.
The future or DRM media seems much more likely, considuring that this sort of thing is microsoft's and the mass media's baby and they are making a media player after all.
Don't worry. It'll be a flop. There is no advatage of this device over a Laptop towards the high-end, or a tablet pc towards the retarded end, or a pocket-pc type device on the low/small end. (after all a decent NEW laptop can be had for around 600 bucks nowadays, and it'll only get cheaper) They are aiming for a market niche that either doesn't exist or is so small they will fail even if they reach full market saturation.
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Smart Move (Score:3, Interesting)
I mourn for HP. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing.
HP symbolizes to me what happens when MBAs and Accountants run businesses. When your goal is merely meeting the numbers at the end of the quarter, you do not see the long view of the future. You simply go with the lowest common denominator, stagnate, and lose customers in the long run. The death of such a company does not take long. Witness the Race to the Bottom between Compaq and Packard Bell. Both are gone, and it only took a year or two to happen.
Thanks, Carly, for killing one of my favorite companies.
--
BMO
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:5, Interesting)
The EU comission was bloody right to start investigating MSFT DRM ambitions. Unfortunately the next commissioner is almost as rabid in Bill-arse-licking as Tony Bliar so we may see this one going down the drain. Bummer...
Re:we shall port linux to it. (Score:4, Interesting)
suchetha
HP Sauce (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:2, Interesting)
What you are talking about is the Windows CE OAL (OEM Adaptation Layer) which is written by the OEM and provides an intermediate layer between the Win32 calls up top to the device and kernel calls down below. Any normal OS has this kind of thing. Also, Windows CE comes with many device drivers built in, but for something custom designed it usually takes a little more coding and tweaking to get it working correctly. Up to this point, you have it exactly right.
However, this isn't Windows CE we're talking about. This is Windows XP embedded which does not have as many embedding options as CE does. It can only run on x86 (last time I checked), for example. It supports any peripherals that normal XP supports, and better yet can be stripped of those drivers it doesn't need. Yes, if you want to have your custom peripheral card you will need to develop a driver for it, but for the most part that is done. Also, since this is the MC edition of XP that they are using, MS has already put quite a bit of effort into getting non-standard things like NTSC ports and other TV goodies up to speed with drivers.
Now take a look at the device specs of this thing. If it weren't for the article telling you it wasn't, you'd almost think it was a normal computer. And yet you wouldn't be so far off. For all intents and purposes it is a standard computer running Windows XP Media Center.
To put Linux on there would require the debugging of those driver features again as the driver model may have changed since the last time they released. They would have to develop the software stack whereas the software stack is pretty much complete on Windows.
Linux is great and everything, but it is not the be all and end all of operating systems.
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:2, Interesting)
Under current management the only "Invent"ion going on is in finding new ways to reduce costs in everything. If that means becoming a commodity appliamce company and simply OEMing other folks stuff then so much the better since expensive R&D costs like engineers can be cut. How this will play in the end is hard to predict (except even more jobs will be dispensed with) since margins are about non-existent.
Re:Why do we care? (Score:3, Interesting)
hype's over ? (Score:4, Interesting)
let's face it, guys. all products/technologies goes though an over-hype period during its life where it's sold as fix-all do-all solution for all mankind's problems. then people realize that it's not quite like that, the product/technology is loathed because it didn't deliver, the it gets to the point we all hope linux gets to: it becomes a mature technology.
maybe it's already mature enough for the server and some embeded appliances, it's maturing quickly in the handhelds and maybe now it's time to tackle the media-center maturing proccess. maybe not from greedy brands like HP, but maybe from some unexpected source. after the media center is taken, maybe the hype of "linux on desktop" will be already fading, which will means the start of the maturing proccess in this field too, but i'm digressing here.
let's give time for linux to mature as a media-player and wait. a breakthrough in this area will certainly come from a really inovative comapny. i'm just certain it wont be HP.
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM doesn't seem to have hurt sales of DirectTV, XM Radio, cable PPV, DVDs or the iPod.
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:3, Interesting)
Believe it or not, Dell does develop stuff of their own. I had a summer job a couple years ago working with deployment of corporate PCs, and one day I was able to attend Dell's pitch of some of their new product lines.
They may seem like just some reseller, but they actually do a lot of in-house development of software to ease deployment and system recovery in a corporate setting. We did a survey of how we and various other companies handled disk images, patches, backups and other such things, and Dell was far and away the most advanced, using several tools that were only available to Dell or perhaps their larger customers.
Dell may not be terribly exciting as far as their primary product line is concerned, but their supporting technologies are interesting, and they actually do a lot of work in that area. Don't be too quick to spit on them.
Re:I mourn for HP. (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM is the first one that comes to my mind. Their x86 servers are top notch. Still, thanks to M&A, the amount of choices seems to be less and less... Used to be HP, DEC, and Compaq competed with each other on price... If it wasn't for Dell, I could only imagine how bad it would be...
Do you know what DRM is? (Score:1, Interesting)
There is no DRM on any of these things.
All of these things (with the exception of the iPod) have access control on them, but no DRM. I can make recordings all I want of DirectTV, XM (and Sirius), PPC, and DVD's.
And the only reason people are buying iPods with 60GB hard drives isnt' to fill them up with 10,000 songs at $.99 cents a copy, they buy iPods because its an MP3 player that has no effective DRM.
Really, the examples of real DRM (DIVX, for example) have been glorious failures.
Re:HP are Microsoft's lackeys anyway... (Score:5, Interesting)
Internal IT support is not the best place in HP to hear about Linux. The people who use Linux tend to need much less help from IT support, which is just as well, because IT support is probably one of the few places in HP that still denies the existence or value of Linux. The idea of HP as a hardware arm of Microsoft is how IT support would like it to be, it is not an accurate picture of either internal use or external offerings.
As for changes that came with Carly, before she came, mentioning Linux was a very risky thing to do. Saying that a project used Linux was a good way to get it cancelled. It turned around to being a good thing to be connected with fairly soon after Carly arrived. There is a very active Linux community inside HP, as anyone who really worked there, and had any interest in the question would know.
Nice tasty DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
MS-based Multimedia OS==DRM. DRV==restriction.
Restriction==it doesn't work for us, or at least not the way we want to
It's called a bandwagon. If more companies keep jumping on it, then it tends to become the default path-of-choice. Do you really want 99% of media products out there to be laden with MS DRM?
Re:Not quite a backwards step (Score:4, Interesting)
Where will the next generation of middle managers come from? The ranks of outsourcing engineerings in China & India. Where will the next generation after that of executives come from? The ranks of successive middle managers overseas. Where will the following generation of entrepeneurs come from? The ranks of all three overseas. Business people make a big deal about "supply chains" but apparently don't see when their own children's "job supply chain" is being destroyed by their own actions.
Strictly speaking HP was far more "money grubbing" during previous periods than they are now - now they simply are in a race to the bottom and to the end-of-life for the HP brand and corporation.
During the previous era, HP lived on mind-bogglingly large margins (as most techology companies do) which in turn funded a healthy R&D: HP essentially invented whole classes of products (R&d) or was the first to make whole classes of product finanical viable (r&D). HP "lived" on the upper leading edge of the Technology Adoption Curve [berkeley.edu] usually entering markets at the inflection after the "Chasm" or 'C' and exiting markets on the trailing edge. Take the integral of the area under the curve and you get the product technology market capitalization and HP's previous strategy was to take most of it!
The "New HP" is now consciously dedicated itself to entering markets on the trailing edge of this curve and exiting on the trailing edge. Basically they are taking table scraps left by others, letting others control their destiny and limiting their own growth potential. Pretty much a recipe for death. HP is already a walking dead company and the current executive team have slandered and debased Bill's & Dave's legacy and triumph! We just waiting for the HP brand to be bled away.