Two new PCs running Linux out of the box hit the shelves last week: Asus's $399 Eee Flash-storage mini-notebook and Everex's $198 TC2502 gPC, courtesy of Wal-Mart. Yes, they both run Linux, but the similarities end there -- and my money's on the Eee being the real success story of the two.

For one, the Eee looks like it may be the first really successful product (in terms of both sales and execution) in its niche: low-consumption, low-cost notebooks that offer substantially more than a PDA without also being that much pricier. It comes loaded with some fairly classy and genuinely useful features: Wi-Fi, a small camera, a cache of useful preloaded open-source software, and USB connectivity. The exact feature mix varies between models of the machine, but even the "low-end" Eee, which is available for $299, is a nice piece of work. And if you go by what Asus claims, they're practically sprouting wings and flying off the shelves by themselves.

So what about the gPC? From what I can tell it's mostly getting attention because a) it's cheap, b) it runs the Ubuntu-derived gOS, and c) Wal-Mart is selling it -- not because it's actually breaking any useful ground. Its $199 price tag gives you 512 Mbytes of RAM (same as the Eee, actually) speakers, 80 Gbytes of hard drive space, DVD drive (something the Eee admittedly does not have but hardly required) -- but no display.

The lack of a monitor instantly makes the gPC that much less useful to its intended market in the first place. If you're working on a $199 budget to begin with, you're either going to have to shell out at least another $100 for a monitor of some kind, or (if you're dead lucky) pick one up from your local PC guru who's finally getting rid of his old Trinitron tube display and replacing it with a flat-panel. And if you're going to end up spending $299 or more for the whole package, why not just get the Eee anyway, which gives you portability and wireless access, and a display?

Read the rest of my blog post and leave a comment.

Serdar Yegulalp
syegulalp@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com

Fight! ACS' Boardroom Brawl
Even more so than in other vendor relationships, CIOs watch closely the health of their outsourcing providers, since they're so dependent on those companies' day-to-day strength. Customers can't be thrilled at the brawl going on at ACS over a failed private-equity buyout, which has led to five board members resigning.

Apple Bans Nuclear Plants From Running 'Leopard' OS
While researching a story about Apple letting users run Leopard in a virtualized environment, I came across some interesting language in the software's license agreement. Who knew you can't use Leopard to run a nuclear power plant, or a 747?

Can Any OS Live Forever?
For any CIO who's ever been caught on the wrong side of technology obsolescence, it's worth reading Charles Babcock's ode to a 30-year-old operating system that's still kicking.

Ad Blocking. You Know...For Kids.
With the commencement on Thursday of a Federal Trade Commission Town Hall meeting, "Ehavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, and Technology," The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), two public interest advocacy groups, again asked the FTC to investigate and regulate online marketing.

The two groups filed a 74-page supplemental statement that expands upon a complaint filed last year with the FTC about online marketing. Among their more eyebrow-raising claims: Behavioral ad targeting contributes to childhood obesity and it helped bring on the subprime mortgage crisis.

Nokia's Push Into Content Services Off To Shaky Start
Nokia was dealt a double blow today when two of its planned Internet Services products met with setbacks. The delay in launching its N-Gage gaming service isn't too severe, but the loss of Warner's catalog from the Nokia Music Store is more serious.

Desktop Linux: Yea Or Nay?
The debate about whether the open-source operating system will ever become a major player on the client side is heating up again this week, in the wake of Nick Petreley's "pro" argument, Why Linux Will Succeed On The Desktop and my earlier piece, 7 Reasons Why Linux Won't Succeed On The Desktop.

Google's Mobile Plans To Be Revealed Monday
I guess Google couldn't wait two weeks to spill the beans. It appears that Google is prepared to make an announcement on Monday regarding its plans in the mobile space, and sources say Sprint, T-Mobile and a bunch of handset makers will be involved.

A Few Cheers For OpenBSD
With all of the hollering about Linux, Ubuntu or otherwise, there's another open-source operating system that just celebrated getting a new 4.2 release out the door.  It's one that hasn't been quite as widely-celebrated as Linux but is still deeply important in its own way: OpenBSD.

Get Better Results from your IT investments
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