When it comes to Linux netbooks, manufacturers should act more like cell-phone makers & telcos by selling customized & subsidized machines with online services, according to Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin.
According to Jim Zemlin the Linux netbook market is not realizing its full potential, because manufactures are employing an outdated business model.
"It benefits Microsoft and lets them regroup and get their act together to emulate these models," Zemlin said. He believes the Linux netbook market will get its act together - he'd just like to see it happen faster.
Zemlin will be taking the message to the Open Source in Mobile (OSiM) conference in San Francisco this week. He's expected to use the podium as a way to lobby handset providers and telcos to engage with netbook makers.
Manufacturers are simply swapping one operating system - Windows - for another - Linux - on the new netbooks, rather than creating additional value around the machines. In some ways that's good, because companies like Hewlett Packard, Dell and Asus have made sure the Linux works on their machines and it's affordable for ordinary users - ordinary users that want Linux, that is.
"While all that's great, we can do a lot better" Zemlin said in the article on the Register site.
"The thing Google can do on a grand scale is customize software and break business models. It's great for Google, great for Linux and great for open source," Zemlin said. Subsidies would mean more access to computing for more people he added.
