Just a few days ago, the news appeared that there was a boxed version of Ubuntu being sold at Best Buy stores. While I, and just about everyone else, was excited, there is a reality, as a WorksWithU article pointed out, that just having the software hidden away on some shelf is highly unlikely to attract new Ubuntu users. This made me wonder if it would be a smart move for Canonical to introduce an Ubuntu PC, probably a laptop?

I have seen suggestions that Canonical should make “Ubuntu stores” in the same way that Apple has “Apple stores” and have always ignored them, because the likelihood of something like that happening is just about zero. I am not proposing anything like “Ubuntu stores.” My idea would be for Canonical to sell one, or possibly two, computers preinstalled with Ubuntu. These computers might be sold directly by Canonical, but the main point would be to get Ubuntu-based computers in major stores, both online and physical.

You might say that Dell and some other vendors are already selling Ubuntu PCs, so why not just promote those? The answer is that there are two potential problems with Ubuntu PCs from Dell:

1. Dell has no particular incentive to promote Ubuntu.
2. Dell (presumably) has Microsoft on their backs, quite possibly threatening to cut Dell a bad Windows licensing deal.

For these two reasons, Canonical could do a much better job of creating an Ubuntu PC that stores would really want to sell. How could this Ubuntu PC be differentiated from every other PC out there?

• Canonical would have to pay close attention to making an attractive design. Doubt the importance of design? Then tell me why there are reports of tons of Mac laptops at Linux events.
• Codecs for media playback and DVD playback should be preinstalled.
• The PC’s packaging should explain why you should choose Ubuntu on it, similar to how the boxed version of Ubuntu marketed itself.

Even if Canonical made little or no money on the PC itself, it would be a good long-term investment to make Ubuntu better known and it might even turn into a major source of revenue for Canonical. Either way, Canonical and other Linux distro sponsors should certainly consider creating and selling an <insert distro> computer.

With the huge success of Firefox 3, I think it is fair to say that a lot of people have been wondering how Firefox’s success could be achieved in other open-source projects. Firefox has two key advantages over other open-source software that have nothing, or very little, to do with Firefox itself. First, web browsers are used by almost everyone who uses a computer. Ubuntu shares this advantage, because everyone who uses a computer uses an operating system. Firefox’s second advantage, however, is not shared by Ubuntu, or any Linux distro. Firefox runs on Windows. Ubuntu has taken steps, however to make itself run on Windows and should take more steps in this direction.

Before Ubuntu Hardy Heron (the current version), the following are the steps you would have to give to a new user to let them try out Ubuntu:

1. Put the CD in the drive
2. Reboot your computer
3. Make sure your BIOS are set to boot from the CD drive
4. After you’re done, reboot your computer again

While the steps to try out Windows or OS X are even harder, even this set of instructions is not easy to convey to a non-technical user. In other words, it could be easier. In Hardy Heron, it is. The new instructions are just:

1. Put the CD in the drive
2. Install it (with Wubi)

These are not only fewer instructions, but also simpler and more ordinary instructions. This is the current state of things and, while this is really very good, it could be even better. How about this:

1. Put the CD in the drive
2. Start using Ubuntu

This would be possible if virtualization were built into the Ubuntu CD (or a separate special CD). If this were done, Ubuntu could almost be considered a Windows application, at least in terms of the advantages it brings for promotion. It would be incredibly easy to hand someone an Ubuntu CD without any explanation. After someone gets the chance to try it out, they might decide to try the Wubi installation or even the full installation.

Including this kind of virtualization capability would remove almost all barriers to people trying out Ubuntu and provide the chance for Ubuntu to have Firefox-level success, or even more success.

Regardless of what you think Microsoft is doing wrong, no one seems to think that Microsoft is doing a great job. They may still have the top position (by a lot) in desktop market share, but they are losing it fast. The point is, Microsoft seems to be shooting themselves in the foot. They may recover, especially with new management coming in, but they are certainly going to throw away a lot of market share, before they recover. The question is, how does Linux capture that thrown-away market share?

Right now, an average user who is frusterated with Windows is far more likely to turn to a Mac than Linux, since most people know some avid Mac users. As it stands, I suspect that Apple will pick up most of the desktop users that leave Microsoft, and Linux will pick up most of the business users. That’s pretty good, but Linux can do bettter.

As an average PC user looking to buy a Mac, you would most likely be surprised by the high prices. You can argue all day about Macs being more expensive for what you get or not, but they definitely start higher-end than your bottom-line PC. This is Linux’s easiest to understand advantage over the Mac.

To push this advantage, I believe a volunteer-based (so no big company paying tons of money for TV ads or anything) joint Dell and Ubuntu advertising campaign would be effective. The name Dell, which almost everyone knows, would make it clear that “Linux is not just for geeks” and the price would make people seriously think about trying Linux. Plus, Dell might be able to arrange some sort of “buy a PC with Linux, and if you don’t like it, we will replace it with a Windows PC for just $50″ (or whatever Windows costs to Dell.)

With an advertising effort like this, Linux might be able to make people who are moving away from Microsoft thing twice before moving to the Mac.

Companies like Apple and Microsoft are starting to create a web of products that are all designed to work really well with each other. Perhaps the clearest example of this is Apple’s iLife software package. It includes a number of applications like a photo organizer and a movie maker. Another example, though, is Windows, Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center, and the Zune. In fact, you could really put almost every product Apple makes into one “web.” As I said before, all the products in each web are designed to be perfectly integrated into each other. There may be some cross-compatibility, but the products  are “best” together.

What these “webs” mean is that you can buy into the “Apple experience” or the “Microsoft experience.” The question in my mind was, what is the “open-source experience.” The problem, if you call it a problem, is that there is no one company or group to create an Apple or Microsoft-like set of products. It just doesn’t work that way. That’s OK. These super integrated product sets are the wrong way of doing things, anyway.

As an example, lets take two of Apple’s products: Mail and iCal. In a perfect world, there are a number of things Mail and iCal, or any E-Mail program and any calender program, should be able to do together. For example, you might get an e-mail that had a date for some event and want to add that event to your calender. Apple’s solution (which they may have already done - I just don’t know) would be to make it so that if you use Mail you can send event details to iCal. If you did this on the Linux side, though, what e-mail client and what calender program would you choose? That is where the right way comes in.

Instead of making program X and program Y talk to each other, why not create an open protocol for any application of type X to talk to any other application of type Y. If these sorts of protocols were adopted, it would solve the problem of the best applications, presumably from different companies, not working as well together as all the applications from one company. All you would have to do is find the best application for your needs and you would know that it will work with all your other applications. This should be the “open-source experience.”

Windows and Mac OS X are names from the history of early computing, from back when computers used big, bulky slow OSs. Technically, of course, computers still use OSs, but they are simple, small, fast windows to the cloud, rather than full OSs. What people used to call “web browsers” and now just “computers.” WiMax and other similar technologies blanket the globe, providing high-speed data access everywhere. “Desktops” are no longer used, just tiny pocket or bag-size UMPCs as well as the occasional laptop. Instead of using desktop applications, everyone uses web applications.

All of this could come to be reality in the future, perhaps even the not-so-distant future. Think about it. Web 2.0 applications are already competing with almost every desktop applications you can think of. UMPCs are taking off fast. After all, can you think of a major computer company without a UMPC? Apple, HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, and tons more all have them. And, finally, many of these companies are adopting an instant on Splashtop or Splashtop-like system. The technology is all here. And it runs Linux.

In a recent Datamation article, Matt Hartley put forward two suggestions for making future Linux PCs a success in stores like Wal-Mart. As many of you may know, Wal-Mart’s experiment with selling the gPC, a cheap Linux-based PC, was essentially a failure. I certainly agree with Hartely’s second suggestion for making future “Linux in Wal-Mart” experiments more of a success, which is to give consumers enough information to be sure that everything they use will work with Linux. Unfortunately, I am not as sure I agree with his first suggestion.

Hartely’s first suggestion is that Linux PCs sold should not use such low-end hardware. At first this makes sense, but if you add higher end hardware, the PC gets more expensive. The problem with this is that the $50-ish price saving you get from Linux is much less relavent if the PC costs $1000 than if it costs $200. That might be fine if someone was looking for Linux, but most Wal-Mart shoppers are probably just looking for a good deal. Perhaps a better solution than adding more expensive hardware is to use a less resource-intensive Linux distro such as Xubuntu or DSL. It would certainly be interesting to see a stripped down Linux compete with Windows Vista.

Apple and Microsoft are both in a situation where they are essentially forced, due to past mistakes or a lack of foresight, to spend a significant amount of time making behind-the-scenes changes. In this time, Linux could potentially get a real leg up on other OSs.

First, what happened with Microsoft and Apple? In Microsoft’s case, the main mistake was making Vista so resource intensive. When the Eee PC suddenly appeared as a major threat to Windows, Microsoft was not prepared. As a result, Microsoft has had to repeatedly extend the life of Windows XP, a product they would obviously rather retire. This mistake, making Vista so resource intensive, will presumably force them to make major changes in Windows 7 to bring down the resource requirements.

On Apple’s side, OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) has just been announced. Rather than introducing new features, though, Apple has decided to essentially do a maintenance release. I was very surprised by this decision, but apparently that is the plan.

So what will Linux be doing well Apple and Microsoft are essentially standing still? The short answer, I hope, is: running. There are two reasons why Linux will not have to take time off for a “maintenence release.” First, Linux has not made mistakes such as dramatically increasing resource requierments. Second, even if some people (even an entire distribution) decide to work on only behind-the-scenes stuff, new features will continue to flow in from projects that are moving ahead. No one project or person can stop Linux innovation. Because of this, I am hopeful that Linux will be able to push ahead of Microsoft and Apple as they stand there correcting past mistakes. Anyone thinking of the tortoise and the hare?

From the perspective of a Linux user and watcher (and I guess in my case writer, too) of the Linux news, it certainly seems like the Eee PC should be increasing Linux’s number of users, but what do the real numbers show?

Unfortunately, it is very hard to know for sure how many people are using any particular operating system, since there is no way to measure OS usage. Luckily, there is some data available from Net Applications. Net Applications uses the information browsers give to various websites to get an approximate idea of OS market share. Here is what the Net Applications data tells us:

• From March of 2007 to September of 2007 Linux gained about .15% per month
• From September of 2007 to May of 2008 Linux gained about .3-.4% per month, with the exception of January to March where Linux lost .3%

Interestingly, the Eee PC appeared around the beginning of November of 2007, or about 1 month after Linux’s market share started going up by .3-.4% per month.

If the timing of the Eee PC’s arrival had been slightly different (one to two months earlier), it would look like the Eee PC made a huge difference, but since the larger increase started before the Eee PC arrived, it does not appear to be possible to show a connection between the Eee PC (and other Linux-based UMPCs) and Linux’s market share.

This is what I would have predicted, though, if I had been forced to guess. The reason is that Eee PCs can only make up a tiny part of all the computers in the world. Thus, the only reasonable way to expect them to increase Linux’s market share is if they cause people who have good experiences with them or hear about other people having good experiences with them to want to try out Linux on their main computer(s). There are two problems with this, though. First, it takes time for people to get around to downloading Linux and time for them to tell their friends (though it would seem like 6 months would be enough time.) And second, people need to know they are using Linux on their UMPC before they can be inspired to try out Linux on their main PC. With most of the current UMPCs, there is no real way to tell they run Linux (assuming they do.)

Will this improve in the future? Yes, it probably will. For one thing, these UMPCs are going to get more press and, through that press, more and more people will learn that they are actually using Linux already on their UMPC. Perhaps more importantly, though, I am hopeful that we will see more UMPC-specific distros or distro-variants that brand themselves so that it is easy to tell you are using Linux. I am particularly watching Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, hoping that it will be used as an opportunity to promote Ubuntu.

Even if UMPCs are not yet directly affecting Linux’s market share, they are certainly helping Linux get a good reputation with more people and there is hope that, in the future, UMPCs running Linux will contribute to Linux’s market share noticeably.

Acer appears to be joining the ever-growing list of companies that are backing Linux, a list that currently includes Asus, Dell, HP, and others. Acer has even gone beyond many of the companies on the list by not only announcing a computer of theirs that will run Linux, in Acer’s case the  Aspire One UMPC, but also saying “Microsoft has a lot of power and it is going to be difficult, but we will be working hard to develop the Linux market,” according to CNet.

OK, so it is great to see Acer’s support for Linux, but what does that quote, which is from Acer’s Vice President of Marketing, mean? Although it is hard to be sure it is more than just press, I suspect that it means two things:

1. Acer probably has a bias against Microsoft - “Microsoft has a lot of power” certainly seems to imply that Acer feels pressure from Microsoft to use Windows
2. We will probably see more Acer computers running Linux in the future.

Whatever this quote may mean exactly, it is good to see that Linux has another backer. I just wish the name Acer didn’t sound so much Asus - I have trouble keeping them straight!

Many Linux users have looked on happily as the Eee PC has taken off, bringing Linux to so many more people. Unfortunately, unless you learn some other way, there is no way to know that you are using Linux on the Eee PC. Thus, very few Eee PC purchases will result in someone trying Linux on their primary computer, unless they know from some other source that the Eee PC runs Linux. The same issue is true of most other Linux-based UMPC OSs.  If Ubuntu’s “Netbook Remix” takes off, though, this problem looks like it may go away.

What makes Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix different is that it appears, from the Ars Technica screenshots, to be clearly, though not annoyingly, Ubuntu branded. When people see the branding and have a good experience with their UMPC, they may choose to go try out Ubuntu on their primary computer. Because of this, Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix could bring Ubuntu to many people who purchase UMPCs who have possibly never heard of Linux.

Unfortunately, hardware makers are not exactly jumping to be the first to use the new Netbook Remix, but hopefully by the end of this year, when Canonical says the Netbook Remix will first be shipped, some hardware makers will jump on board and use it on their devices. And if the Netbook Remix is heavily adopted, we may begin to see a significant boost in the number of people trying Linux and Ubuntu out because of their UMPC expierience.