HP no longer playing by Microsoft, Intel rules, exec says

[The Catboy]

Dell was selling Inspiron laptops at one point that came with Ubuntu pre-installed instead of Windows. It was the exact same price, pretty much defeating the purpose of not including an OS that isn't free.

You see the issue there? They were selling it at the same price as the Windows laptop, which you're right completely defeats the purpose of selling a laptop with a free OS pre-installed on it.

 

[Taleweaver]

Ok, so HP will have a line of steam machines* in the near future. But I'm more interested in what services they'll provide to companies. It's one thing to provide a whole bunch of PC's (be it desktops, laptops, tablets) with a different OS. But will they create, let alone maintain, drivers for their entire printer line-up as well?










*that isn't in the article. But it's really not that hard to guess.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

The same could be said about Windows 8, a lot of people didn't like the changes in it, but ended up keeping it because they didn't want the hassle of changing their OS. I doubt this will bring Linux up in the world as the dominate OS, but I am pretty sure will sway some of the users who don't care to change or end up enjoy it.
Most people have grossly out of date opinions on Linux because they remember using it once and having a bad experience, so they just assume it will always be bad and never try it again. Maybe this will change some more minds about Linux.
Personally for an advent Linux user I am pretty happy to see this, why? Because that means all the parts either work out of the box for Linux or they won't be hard to work with, compared to my boyfriend's HP Pavilion dv6-6c11nr Entertainment Notebook which every Ubuntu past 12.04 won't boot, until you install 12.04, then the drivers, then upgrade. These laptops look like something I can get into.

Except it was still Windows, which still ran Windows programs and was still user-friendly.

I mean, I'm not a Linux hater or anything (Fuck, I'm about ready to dual-boot Linux Mint on my new laptop), I just don't think trying to mass-market laptops with a Linux distro is going to work all that well with the majority of PC users.

 

[The Catboy]

Except it was still Windows, which still ran Windows programs and was still user-friendly.

I mean, I'm not a Linux hater or anything (Fuck, I'm about ready to dual-boot Linux Mint on my new laptop), I just don't think trying to mass-market laptops with a Linux distro is going to work all that well with the majority of PC users.

But a good potion of PC users just pretty much keep their laptop on stock, if they can get online, most don't care what it's running and don't want to go through the hassle of re-installing a new OS. At least pretty much everyone I know, I could be wrong and just know some pretty lazy/computer illiterate people.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Expect these machines to corner .05% of the market at launch!

 

[DinohScene]

Don't really think this will have a major impact tho.
It's nice to see more options on a PC but avid Linux fans will always install Linux and Windows fans will use Windows.
Pretty much only fools keep their machine stock with tons of bloatware.

I really like the fact that more and more hardware will be supported by Linux out of the box.
Saves a lot of configuring and other rubbish when installing a distro.

 

[user64]

...RIM started making Blackberry laptops? When?

RIM is called Blackberry now.

 

[Sakitoshi]

but there are already HP laptops that come with linux. I remember my mom laptop, came with OpenSuse 6 IIRC and I needed to wipe that and install Windows 7 because that's the more easy to use and compatible OS out there at that moment, I didn't wanted her asking me every 5 minutes how to do something.
Linux is nice and all but for n00b users Windows is the more error free and compatible solution, but things can change.

 

[FAST6191]

Linux is nice and all but for n00b users Windows is the more error free and compatible solution, but things can change.

Windows 7 is just old enough now that it is starting to not have the newer hardware, similarly I have yet to see an end user manage to do much more than fumble a printer driver disc into the drive and replace the cartridges/toner (share it properly, install without the crud, get proper scanning stuff set up... not so much).
That combined with most things happening in a browser, libre office looking more like the office program most people were taught and skype being on linux makes it at least a halfway compelling option in a lot of cases.

 

[KDH]

... Linux is nice and all but for users who have only ever used Windows, Windows is the more error free and compatible solution, but things can change.

Fixed that for you. You can start a total computer newb out on a Linux distro and they'll be just fine. Take my mother for example: before buying my old laptop she hadn't used a computer since DOS 3.2 was brand new. So I did a fresh install of Slackware 13.37 plus a few extras like flash, and took the laptop over. After just ten minutes of showing her which program does what and another five of helping her set up her e-mail client I was done. She hasn't had any problems with it.

 

[nando]

You see the issue there? They were selling it at the same price as the Windows laptop, which you're right completely defeats the purpose of selling a laptop with a free OS pre-installed on it.

it doesn't because hp makes more profit from those sales which is i think, a good thing. manufacturers make marginal profits on window pcs while microsoft makes like a bandit.

microsoft doesn't need to pay themselves to include windows, so they can be more competitive hardwarewise putting competitors at a disadvantage.

 

[calmwaters]

Stuck between a rock and a hard place: I would never use HP; their heart points are extremely low. Who knows how many more hits they can take before they faint. Microsoft is a bit better since they've had '98, XP, and 7, all of which are good operating systems. I don't use their Internet Explorer, but that's not going to be enough to make me drop them completely.

HP laptops are the new Dell PCs in terms of crappiness, never thought I'd see the day

No wait, Dell still takes the cake

You're not far off from the mark, actually.

People seem to forget here: the generic x86 platform that Microsoft has been developing for during the last 20+ years can run any software, not just Windows.

Chromebooks have specialized hardware put in place to lock you into the ChromeOS ecosystem and stop you loading any other OS on the device.

...and Microsoft is the evil company, apparently.

I did not know that; that's awful. But Microsoft is not an evil company; they just died a little bit when Bill Gates stepped down.

 

[Skelletonike]

Well, my default OS will pretty much be Windows 8 until microsoft releases a new one. =3

I've used some of the Linux builds and I didn't like them, I've used OS and while it's actually nice and stuff, it's not very practical for the programs and games I use. People complain about Windows 8 yet it's a pretty good OS imho, it changed a bit, sure... But the first PC I used was a 3.1, compared to that 95 was also a pretty big difference and some people also complained.

Changes come and go, like all the rest.
Stupid move by HP though. z.z

 

[Zerosuit connor]

Nobody pick on HP! My Envy TouchSmart 15 is actually pretty excellent! For gaming and such it out does anything else I've seen around at the moment, but that might just be Australia's lack of up-to-dateness in any mobile or PC releases.

 

[Foxi4]

RIM is called Blackberry now.

I think you may have missed the joke... no, I'm sure you missed the joke...

 

[raulpica]

Well, I'm sure that now is the perfect moment - computers are just reduced to lowly Twitter/Facebook outlets, so whatever OS they came with, as long as they can access SOCIAL SITES HURR DURR people will be okay with it.

Sigh, what a sad state of affair is the modern computing world in right now.

 

[ipwndeveloper]

If desktop computing is really on the line, I don't wan't to have my options be limited to Candy Crush.
At least XCOM came to iOS, now all we need is CIV and KSP.

 

[Taleweaver]

Well, I'm sure that now is the perfect moment - computers are just reduced to lowly Twitter/Facebook outlets, so whatever OS they came with, as long as they can access SOCIAL SITES HURR DURR people will be okay with it.

Sigh, what a sad state of affair is the modern computing world in right now.

Until they try to print or scan something, that is. Then they'll realize that their HP computer that came with "windows from HP" (meaning: ubuntu, chrome or android) cannot work with their HP printer or scanner because of "something with drivers".

And don't forget the corporate world. In businesses, it's still important that the thing can use (often specialized) programs and other hardware.

 

[The Catboy]

Until they try to print or scan something, that is. Then they'll realize that their HP computer that came with "windows from HP" (meaning: ubuntu, chrome or android) cannot work with their HP printer or scanner because of "something with drivers".

And don't forget the corporate world. In businesses, it's still important that the thing can use (often specialized) programs and other hardware.

Printers pretty much work out of the box with Linux, it's no where near he hassle of installing printer drivers like Windows.
And most of the businesses world won't actually lose anything if anything they will gain a more secure OS compared to Windows.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Well, I'm sure that now is the perfect moment - computers are just reduced to lowly Twitter/Facebook outlets, so whatever OS they came with, as long as they can access SOCIAL SITES HURR DURR people will be okay with it.

Sigh, what a sad state of affair is the modern computing world in right now.

this is all angry birds fault!