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Posted on October 21st, 2007 by admin
Acer Taiwan-based company considered following Dell’s footsteps and included in its offer an Ubuntu-based machine. Despite the fact that the sales for the Ubuntu system went quite well in Asia, Acer said it would not release Linux-based machines for UK, Europe.
According to a statement an Acer official made for ZDNet.co.uk, Acer
changed its mind in releasing a Linux-laptop for the UK, because of the lack of demand:
“Acer models with Ubuntu pre-loaded are available at the factory level. However, there is no demand for it in the UK. Therefore, those configurations are not an option [for UK customers] at the moment. If the demand was there, then Acer would sell it and such demand would have to be reported to Acer by its UK resellers ”
Acer was the second, after Dell, to launch a Linux based system. Acer Aspire 5710Z, powered by an Ubuntu operating system is now on sale in Singapore. It seems that the idea of releasing Linux systems came to Acer as an alternative to the Vista-based ones, which weren’t able to keep a good sales trend as it has been expected. Gianfranco Lanci, Acer president, stated for Financial Times Deutschland that “the whole PC industry is disappointed with Windows Vista”. Lanci thinks the main reason why Microsoft’s new operating system wasn’t able to boost PC sales was the customers’ concerns over its stability and overall maturity.
Acer company owns the largest franchised computer retail chain in Taiwan, Acerland. Acer’s product lineup includes desktop and mobile PCs (laptops), servers and storage, displays, peripherals, and e-business solutions for business, government, education, and home users. Acer has also an Australian subsidiary, called Acer Computer Australia (ACA). This subsidiary has been set up in 1990, and is currently Australia’s third largest personal computer vendor, behind Hewlett-Packard Australia and Dell Australia and New Zealand.
Popularity: 90% [?]
Dell Inc. has recently started gaining some popularity as a company very fond of the Linux operating systems. The story started with Dell’s nice initiative of answering the users who demanded some Linux-based products on IdeaStorm forum. At that time, Dell announced the four Ubuntu-based systems which addressed the open source fans.
Soon after that, Dell was to add two other systems to this catchy offer and then announced they’re trying to develop a strategy for distributing them outside the United Stated too. After such offer, it seems that the customers got very excited with Dell’s Linux-based products as they’ve been asking for more. Even Mark Shuttleworth was saying in one of his keynotes at the first UbuntuLive conference, which took place in Portland, Oregon, that Dell should continue what they’ve started and release even more computers based on Linux.
However, according to Dell, this task is not as easy as it seems. According to some sources, it seems that Dell confronts some technical problems when it comes to putting a Linux distro on a notebook or desktop, more exactly the lack of proper Linux drivers for the hardware Dell places inside a computer. Amit Bhutani with Dell said at the UbuntuLive conference that Dell has several “areas of investigation” when it comes to Linux and he pointed to the Nvidia 2D and 3D drivers which, according to him, are quite a “challenge in platform enablement”.
However, if we are to think about some ATI Linux drivers, these ones are quite far from materializing. Dell claims that they would need a much better support for them in many areas such the audio/video codecs, ATI video cards, printers, wireless networking, TV tuners and remotes, LCD TVs or 3D effects. But we all know Dell’s wish is not something to be accomplished overnight, as Dell’s officials themselves admitted.
Popularity: 89% [?]
Good news just keep on coming from Canonical. Soon after Mark Shuttleworth announced the long term support for the forthcoming Ubuntu 8.04 distro, scheduled for release in April, 2008, at the first Ubuntu Live conference in Portland, Oregon, Canonical thought it would be nice to make another announcement regarding its precious distribution. [Read more →]
Popularity: 88% [?]
Because it hasn’t been on sale long enough over here, and it’s the wrong time of year, says Sony. Despite the $100 price cut (that is, 17%) on the PS3 in the US, the UK hasn’t followed suit. Why? [Read more →]
Popularity: 85% [?]
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