thelinuxlink.net

Intel won't touch Vista

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... umps-vista

By Charlie Demerjian: Monday, 23 June 2008, 4:08 PM

ACCORDING TO A memo circulating a few weeks ago, it looks like Intel is taking a wise decision and avoiding the Broken OS entirely. Yes, Intel is not going to use Vista on its corporate machines... ever.

When a company as tech savvy as Intel, with full source code access and having written several large chunks of the OS, says get stuffed, you know you have a problem. Well, everyone knows MS has a problem, but it is nice to see it codified in such a black and white way though. Reassuring, like a warm cup of tea, or a public kick to the corporate crown jewels.

The real question is what are they going to use? The official answer is 'nothing yet', the one where they try not to offend is 'likely Windows 7', delivered with a pained smile. Since that is shaping up to be Me II SP1a, I am not sure Intel will bite there either unless they suddenly develop a GPU that can run it in that time frame.

So that leaves two other choices, Linux and Mac. Linux is a distinct possibility, they already have an in-house distro that causes employees look nervously around the room when you talk about it. Although it is not a desktop variant, there is no reason that they could not roll one given two years.

Now I don't know a lot about Intel's relationship with Linux but I noticed that my Intel GMA video card is well enough supported by Ubuntu that Compiz just works with all the fun little features. Does this mean Intel plays nice with the community? Are they less tied to Windows success to sell their chips than other big tech companies are to sell their wares? What if they announced a big plan to convert to Linux internally?

Intel have been good with making drivers that work well on linux and the source code too, recently they put the documentation up. There not perfect though, there wireless cards for a long time did not work.

That brings up an interesting quandary. Will Intel at some point in the near future not support devices running Vista much less any Microsoft product? That would be very interesting for Microsoft. I wonder if that was part of the decision for Mr. Gates to step down.

I doubt that is going happen and if does, AMD will be the Dominant cpu brand which i cannot see Intel giving up.

That is assuming Microsoft stays the dominant os in the market. If linux starts being offered on machines instead of Microsoft, Intel will be just as dominant. This next year will be very interesting in terms of market strategic and tactical moves. I wish intel had made that decision earlier, I know a lot of people who were dealt extreme grief and in some cases even the loss of their jobs because they recommended linux.

This would be profusely more probable if the gaming industry somehow switched to Linux. Perhaps thats what Intel is aiming for? Nvidia and ATI have the Windows gaming market cinched up. If Intel provided strong Linux support, shared their code, and invested in compositing/OpenGL research, they could re-enter gaming on the open source side. It would still just be a dream until they figure out how to capitalize it, but it is always a possibility.

mikeschoon wrote:This would be profusely more probable if the gaming industry somehow switched to Linux. Perhaps thats what Intel is aiming for? Nvidia and ATI have the Windows gaming market cinched up. If Intel provided strong Linux support, shared their code, and invested in compositing/OpenGL research, they could re-enter gaming on the open source side. It would still just be a dream until they figure out how to capitalize it, but it is always a possibility.

And you'd need some games that people in the Windows world would actually want to play. I love SuperTux, but it's not exactly something you can put next to Unreal Tournament 2007.

Tsuroerusu wrote: And you'd need some games that people in the Windows world would actually want to play. I love SuperTux, but it's not exactly something you can put next to Unreal Tournament 2007.

I think he implied games in general not free software games.

I would hope that linux would be recognized for more than just playing games. If people want to play games I recommend ms, If they want to do buiness then I suggest linux.

This is Intel we are talking about. A business. Most businesses don't sit around and play games. They want to get work done and not mess with viruses and unnecessary hardware upgrades. We're seeing some companies playing nice with Linux and that gives them a competitive advantage in some markets for very little incremental cost.

Linux could be the next driver for hardware upgrades. That's why Intell may be compelled not only to use it internally but to support it for all their products.

http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-extends- ... 10524.html
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/micr ... 141821.asp