When anything goes wrong Lord Button is brought out of retirement - Tony Benn
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Intel lures Alan Cox away from Red Hat
THE BIG NEWS of the day is not that Alan Cox is leaving Redhat, but where he is going to: Intel. While this may not sound like a big deal, Intel has been rapidly beefing up it's OS division, and it looks like it may be preparing for war.
This may sound like a silly statement, but Intel has been very quietly developing itself into a Linux powerhouse. They have effective control over one of the most used distros on the planet, Moblin, and are not all that hot on The Broken OS. In the background they have been hiring open sourcers like mad, and putting out one of the best set of drivers there are for their products.
Could this be a prelude to an open war? The love between Intel and Microsoft has never been that great, both want absolute control of the PC market and related devices. Until now, MS has won the battles and set direction, but they are weaker than ever and losing market share in large chunks. If you don't think Intel sees this as an opportunity to flex it's muscles, you simply don't understand their love/hate, or is it hate/hate relationship.
In any case, it will be very interesting to see how warmly Intel embraces Windows 7, not in a PR sense, but for internal use and deployment. There is little to nothing stopping Intel from breaking the lock-in at this point, and they only have tens of millions a year to save. Won't this be a fun one to watch? µ
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flex it is muscles?
I wonder how pissed-off Intel was when Mic0$ucks decided to support AMD64 with LoseDoze XP 64-bit Edition. Nothing like giving your competitor - who was on the ropes at the time - new life with new technology. If that hadn't happened, Intel might still be trying to sell Pentium4 (or at least NetBust architectured) CPUs.
HB
aren't goog is also doing an OS? guess the real os war is coming...
One of the most significant appointments of the year.
Man, if that were true, MS could very well flip hard and fast in favor of AMD. Shares in AMD could get quite a ride. :)
got your head in the clouds?
I think it has something to do with Netbooks and Intel's desire to control this new emerging market. Linux on netbooks is currently a disaster with retail/etail returns higher than 50% according to peeps in the know. We all know microsoft sucks to work with so why not grab someone who can smooth this out for you while bypassing microsux.
because of hungry Vista, The Vole is Chipzilla best salesman.
Recently I use Xubuntu as OS for charity computer donation of 5+ year machines. Xubuntu can run over P II + 64Mb. I thing both Wintel get hurt if someone says: Ummmhhh instead of spend in new computer, switch to Linux.
(Bravo Linux + AMD)
"I would like to think that the vista fiasco helped strain their relationship in that department"
You would, but you'll feel let down. Microsoft is a cash cow, as they're the biggest seller of desktop operating systems- love them or hate them.
"It would be nice to see a version of linux that acts more like windows then linux."
It would also be nice to see users who could think their way out of a wet paper bag without armed backup. I don't want Linux to "act more like Windows then(sic) linux"- I prefer human readable config files, proper documentation, a decent scheduler, and a wonderful supply of useful free software right out of the box.
Fine, you can sling OpenOffice on the latest and greatest Umbongo desktop, and anyone brighter than Nick Farrell will be able to use it no problem, by just pretending that it's Windows. However, you'll just be getting a much safer, more stable and secure system for less. This sounds like a big deal (and probably is, for most users), but the real power of the thing is in the Lego-like power of the system, the ability to roll your own tools in minutes without much expert knowledge, or to install world-class carrier grade server software just to serve your front room.
Seriously, if all you want from your computer is a shiny desktop that works, consider a Mac. They stopped sucking recently, and have reached an uneasy sort of "bang per buck" parity with PCs of the same quality. An entry level Macbook, or one of the soon-to-be-announced new Imacs will suit you well, is amazingly easy to use and stable. Hell, they even come with a free utility called Bootcamp which makes setting up Windows dual boot laughably easy (it's worth keeping Windows around for gaming, at least for now).
Bah, I went off on one, didn't I? Sorry. I love my linux boxes, from my netbook to the huge rackmounted beasts which keep everything ticking over for me. It just makes me a bit pissed-off when someone calls for them to behave like Windows boxes- which means be slow, obfuscated, lock-in, expensive, stupid, technologically emasculating and crashy- something that only a total arsecandle could love.
Happy new year :)
I don't trust intel. How can I be assured a laptop I acquire will not be phoning home for whataver reason. I guess I have the suspicion intel has/is/willbe running apps at a level lower than the OS such as the bios or even worse, the OS will be hosted virtually.
Try to Remember that Intel Supplied Microsoft with Processors that had less than 200 Pins Active When XP started out, Up from 386 Cyrix of 6 Pins. 6 Pins work in Banking, Yet for complex software More PINS that are active on cpu better, once Software is written.
Today 700 or More PINS are Active, Open Sloathe won't have coordinated idea about much more than starting gate of 6. Sure they can write cheap software & it might work, kind of, sort of in way, before freezing up, Yet MicroPony needs all PINS it can Muster, maybe INTEL is Confused or REDHAT Gave employee to Intel to figure out what all those other Pins are for? There For Looking At Redhat, You Dumb Assed Spy. STeWie Drashek
I suspect this has as much to do with Intel's internal tool chain as anything else. That tool chain is very much a competitive advantage. IIRC, nearly all of Intel's tools are hosted on Linux.
gb
I would like to think that the vista fiasco helped strain their relationship in that department. It would be nice to see a version of linux that acts more like windows then linux.