Wombat Diet

I thought Apple was hitting balls out of the park these days but Kevin Allison writing in the Financial Times last month quoted Davey Winder slagging off the latest Apple operating system (Panther) saying, in effect, that it’s got Windows-type reliability problems. I don’t read Winder’s blog very often, but I know who he is (first blogger, inventor of RSS and someone who is more famous than rich). His credibility factor is high.

I was thinking of buying Panther for my son for, who defected to Apple some time ago, for Christmas. I’ll hold off now. Winder’s comments should be one in the eye for Walt Mossberg, but probably won’t be for the same reason that most Daily Telegraph readers never visit Guido Fawkes blog. “It’s the Wall Street Journal so it must be right, right?”

Now there are reports that Apple’s OS is increasingly being targeted by hackers (example). However, what I’ve read about security problems so far seems to involve tricking people into installing software. As in aviation, the human is often the weak link in the loop; whether the computer is an Apple or a PC makes little difference. Alas, there is no technical cure for stupidity.

This evening I discovered that none of my MBA classmates had heard of Ubuntu and most hadn’t hard of even Linux. It came up in a discussion of new laptops over coffee. I mentioned the new Asus EEEpc which is being sold for £215 on Tottenham Court Road (London’s electronics shopping area) — when they can keep it in stock. I’m told the first shipment sold out everywhere within 1 day.
The idea of an “instant-on” laptop for that kind of price caused more re-examination of assumptions about the real need to run Windows than I’ve seen for years.

I just need something that runs Microsoft Office

is the starting point.

Last month I persuaded an engineering student at Imperial College to give Ubuntu a try; he’d been finding Vista unbearably slow on a brand new laptop. I gave him a live boot CD to try. Now he’s a convert. Vista has been removed and he’s installed Ubuntu and swears by it.

The new Asus PC will run Ubuntu. An 8Gb version is due shortly, maybe in January.

Microsoft gets an enormous amount of business as result of the network effect, people using Office because it makes life easier when working with others. Vista and Office 2007, however, are discontinuities that require people to spend more on more capable hardware and learn new things. Just as they did when moving to Windows. Now it’s just as easy to spend less and learn Ubuntu and Open Office.

As hardware costs continue to decline that will become increasingly to apparent. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds. Last week Microsoft Office 2007 was offered to me through the university at a “student price” of £38, down from £100 in a few months ago.

My guess is that Microsoft will offer cut down products for cut down prices in 2008.

All Ubuntu needs now is for a hardware platform to become popular in the way the MP3 player took off with people who “got it” early. A 16Gb version of the Asus PC, or similar, with Ubuntu 8.04 (due in April 2008) could be just the ticket. I’d move into that hardware market segment fast if I were Microsoft.

Tags: Apple, Asus EEEpc, cost, hardware, Microsoft Office, Mossberg, Office 2007, Panther, software, ubuntu, vista, Wall Street Journal