Looks like ASUS is launching a “premium” 10.2-inch netbook, the ASUS N10. This one comes without the Eee branding and is obviously meant for the image conscious. Digitimes is reporting the price at €330 to €430, but really there are few hard facts available yet. Blogeee.net has more pictures.
Is anyone else as tired as me of all the various ASUS netbook/sub-notebook variations?
Blogee (French / Google Translation) [via Engadget]
In an interview with Ars Technica, Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of open source and standards, reveals that he believes that Microsoft’s OOXML format will die off, regardless of the outcome of the ISO appeals process.
He is convinced that the industry will regard OOXML as a dead end, and that will force Microsoft to accept ODF. We have already seen some evidence of this in Microsoft’s recent decision to support ODF in Office—a change of heart that was precipitated by pressure from ODF adopters. Sutor suspects that this trend will continue and that Microsoft will eventually fully embrace ODF.
It seems that ASUS is returning to the 7-inch form factor of the original Eee PC. ASUS’s Eee PC roadmap shows that four Eee PC 701SD models are to be expected, 701, 701SD(30G HDD), 701SD and the 701SD-4G. The key issue is going to be the cost, can ASUS sell these at a 200€ or even 150€ price point?
No specifications are available yet, but Laptop Magazine has a bunch of photos.
Laptop Magazine [via Engadget]
Dana Blankenhorn comments on the recent rumours of Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian joining forces.
He’s betting heavily against that eventuality, and with good reason. To me, at least it seems unlikely that the two will find their way together. I’m not even sure whether it would be reasonably possible to combine both code bases, they are rather different platforms, after all.
And on a personal note to Mr. Blankenhorn, if Google were to give up Android, it could “push” the code to the Finns, not the Swedes.
Is the adoption of open source systems being hindered by the rampant piracy of proprietary software?
So says Louis Suarez-Potts, the community manager at Sun Microsystems Inc. for the OpenOffice.org open-source project, who discussed the phenomenon here at the 10th annual O’Reilly Open Source Convention.
“Piracy hurts open source because open source asks people to help give back and contribute code, but they say, ‘Why should I help? I have Microsoft Office for free,’” Suarez-Potts said.
There is no direct financial loss to Open Office when someone has a pirated copy of Microsoft Office. To the extent that BSA enforcement actions cause fear in the market, that just benefits open source, so why join it?
On the other hand if we helped Oracle enforce its license terms we might accelerate the move to mySQL and Ingres.
Asus is bringing more Eee PC form factors to market. This time the Eee PC 903, 904 and 905 make their (unofficial) debut. Basically they feature the same internals as the Eee PC 1000, but in larger cases.
[via Engadget]
A message on the Debian Eee PC mailing list hints that Asus may be planning to replace Xandros on its Eee PCs with a modified version of Debian.
The message also asks “anyone currently working on Debian Eee PC to review and update our todo so that it accurately reflects anything you are working on, plan to work on, or believe needs attention by our team.”
“The tools market is dead. Open source killed it,” or so claims John de Goes.
The only commercial development tools that can survive today are the ones that leapfrog open source tools. With UNA Collaborative Edition, we have that—there’s nothing for real-time collaborative development that even comes close, whether commercial or open source. But UNA Personal Edition is more of an incremental improvement on what’s out there in the editing world.
InternetNews has some analysis on the direction that the sub-notebook market is moving in. The author, Mike Elgan, contends that as prices drop, sub-notebooks will come bundled with many services (e.g. broadband or 3G).
My prediction is that by the middle of next year, “mini me too” laptops will be given away in the United States, and by so many companies that they’ll become hard to sell at any price.
InternetNews [via Slashdot]
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