Just like with the Eee PC, ever since the gPC started the low-cost Linux desktop market (yeah, yeah I am sure there is some cheap Linux PC that came before it), many, many companies have rushed to essentially copy the design and call it their own. This is understandable in the case of the Eee PC, since it has done so well, but it makes a lot less sense in the case of the gPC, since the gPC and all the copies so far have basically failed. I can even understand some early rip-offs thinking they could do better, but after every product in the market flops, you would think the flow of these cheap Linux PCs would stop, but it has not. Shuttle just set a launch date of mid-April for their “KPC.” (Even the name is a rip-off.)
While I am saying that companies should stop copying a tried and failed idea, I am not saying that no one should try to enter this cheap Linux PC market. Just don’t do the same thing as everyone else. To figure out how to make a better cheap Linux PC, look at the Eee PC. One major factor, at least in my opinion, in the Eee PC’s success is that it has appeal to both geeks and regular people. On the other hand, the gPC has almost no appeal to a geek (why would they want another underpowered computer even if it were free?)
There are plenty of ways to increase the geek appeal of a cheap Linux PC, you just have to think of it as a little more than your average Dell PC. As one commenter named Robert Pogson pointed out in a comment on “Will Asus’s UMPC Success Carry into Linux Desktops?,” Asus could make their new cheap Linux desktop PC a “base station for the eee (backup, software repository, home files, printing…).” Or how about an inexpensive media center/home server computer? All of this could be done.
The cheap Linux desktop PC market is not hopeless, it just needs some products that are not copies of failed ideas.
Stop Copying a Failiure and Do Something New
Just like with the Eee PC, ever since the gPC started the low-cost Linux desktop market (yeah, yeah I am sure there is some cheap Linux PC that came before it), many, many companies have rushed to essentially copy the design and call it their own. This is understandable in the case of the Eee PC, since it has done so well, but it makes a lot less sense in the case of the gPC, since the gPC and all the copies so far have basically failed. I can even understand some early rip-offs thinking they could do better, but after every product in the market flops, you would think the flow of these cheap Linux PCs would stop, but it has not. Shuttle just set a launch date of mid-April for their “KPC.” (Even the name is a rip-off.)
While I am saying that companies should stop copying a tried and failed idea, I am not saying that no one should try to enter this cheap Linux PC market. Just don’t do the same thing as everyone else. To figure out how to make a better cheap Linux PC, look at the Eee PC. One major factor, at least in my opinion, in the Eee PC’s success is that it has appeal to both geeks and regular people. On the other hand, the gPC has almost no appeal to a geek (why would they want another underpowered computer even if it were free?)
There are plenty of ways to increase the geek appeal of a cheap Linux PC, you just have to think of it as a little more than your average Dell PC. As one commenter named Robert Pogson pointed out in a comment on “Will Asus’s UMPC Success Carry into Linux Desktops?,” Asus could make their new cheap Linux desktop PC a “base station for the eee (backup, software repository, home files, printing…).” Or how about an inexpensive media center/home server computer? All of this could be done.
The cheap Linux desktop PC market is not hopeless, it just needs some products that are not copies of failed ideas.