Eee PC: Why Linux is a bad idea

The Asus Eee PC is an interesting beast. A cheap, lightweight and robust laptop is the sort of device the market is crying out for and it's not surprising it sold out across Australia.

While the device is fascinating and it opens up some interesting markets that previously wouldn't have considered PCs, there's a few problems with the product.

Bundling the unit with Linux is a terrible idea if you are going to sell the product into the home market. To make it worse, Asus' channel partner is Myer. The fatal mistake is to fixate on price when selling to the consumer.

The worst possible place to be in the IT industry is at the low price of the consumer market. Not only are the margins horrible but the customers are disloyal and demand high levels of support.

Dell have learned this to their cost and it appears Asus are prepared to make the same mistakes.

Giving Myer exclusive rights to the machine also fudges the issue. Myer are not a low cost channel, so that's going erode Asus' margin even further. Worse for the customer, Myer and Asus is that Myer is not renown for the high tech geeks it employs.

I hope the Myer stores have plenty of stock of Xandros compatible hardware and software and the phone number of a good Linux tech handy.

Which brings me to the choice of operating system.

Going with Linux may have kept the unit price down. It's is probably an excellent choice for the hardware configuration, as opposed to lumbering the device up with Vista. But the fact is the bottom end of the market demands Windows compatibility.

I'd hate to be on the Asus support lines when little old ladies start trying to connect their twelve year old HP laserjets to these system or a cheap Lexmark printer they picked up for $50 at Officeworks.

It gets worse when you throw kids into the mix.

In fact Elissa Baxter of the Sydney Morning Herald should be reported for child abuse for this comment.

if you're thinking of buying a laptop for your school child, this one could be it.

Sure Elissa, if you want your child to be struggling with a Linux based machine in a school full of Windows or Mac users.

If you want her humiliated by the school system administrator's snide remarks when he can't figure out how to connect her to the Intranet.

If you want to see hours of his work wasted when it turns out Open Office's Impress is incompatible with the school's Powerpoint or Keynote.

The idea of packing a kid off to school with laptop running Xandros fills me with horror.

This is not to say Linux is a bad idea, it's a very good idea in the right market.

But school kids and home users looking for a cheapie PC are the wrong market. As a result, we're going to hear people whingeing about the lack of compatibility and how they couldn't download iTunes. In the end, Asus will give this up as a bad, unprofitable idea.

The risk for the Linux community is that Acer's experience will give rise to the myth that the channel can't make money from Linux machines. Worse, consumer will associate Linux with cheap systems that don't work very well.

In my view that's a real shame as the Eee PC and Xandros are both good products.