Linux invades mobile devices and mini-laptops

Linux as an alternative solution from the paid and more expensive platforms, has not only looks appealing for desktop & laptops only. Mike Ricciuti (News Blog) was reporting that Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, said on Monday that it plans to demonstrate the new version, called Ubuntu Netbook Remix, at the Computex trade show in Taiwan this week.

An interesting comment from Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's chief excetuvie during an interview with Glyn Moody (the Guardian) when asked "Do you think that GNU/Linux will ever become a significant force on the desktop?":

"I think that depends on how people define a desktop. If people continue to define a desktop as the thing that they run Microsoft Word on, then Windows will retain its position. My sense, though, is that people are increasingly defining the desktop as the thing that they get access to the internet from. In that case, there's a real possibility that we're able to shift people onto different platforms. I think it's the emergence of the internet as the killer application, the thing that describes what you want from the computer, that opens the door to us. ...That's my number one challenge: how to make the Linux desktop something that you want to keep on your computer."

While on the floor of Computex, Qualcomm introduced its own Linux-powered mini-laptop on last Monday. According to Dan Nystedt (PCW Business Center); the laptop is made by Taiwan's Inventec, is small and streamlined because the low-power chips inside don't need much space to disperse heat. Will cost around US$299 and offer quick wireless access to the Internet via 3G (third generation) mobile telecommunications networks. The product is not available yet, but similar products could be out by the end of this year, said Luis Pineda; senior vice president at Qualcomm, on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei.

We'll have to wait until next year CES 2009, that's supposed to be held on Jan 8-11 at Las Vegas, to find out more about this. Too bad, eh?

[blogged with my Treo 750v]