A year after launching its low-cost, minimalist Windows CE “Core” product, Microsoft and assorted industry analysts say the program has played a major role in helping Windows CE become one of the top embedded OSes.
Looking back on one year of Microsoft’s 3USD Win CE “core” license
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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As far as i know, Linux and custom OSes still brings my DVD player, set-top box etc. to life. I wonder about the costs, because really, i couldent care less what embedded OS runs my stuff, as long as it works. But is it cheaper to use winCE than an embedded Linux kernel for example? The engineering staff would have to customize it and write the control interface anyhow. I guess in the end – the costs of both are quite equal, except for the royalty charge per unit or per. 1000 units or whatever they charge by. I think OSS could have an impact on the bottomline for OEMs if they choose that over a royalty based embedded OS. Anyone know about the pricing schemes typically used for embedded OSes?
is to remove the non large players like they do in every other market. Fact is there are better solutions than windows CE for embedded stuff. Why do you think Cell phone companies are moving away from MS. You can only pull the same scam so many times.
If MS wasn’t a US corporation, this would be considered “dumping” and they’d get nailed with huge fines… do they charge a more reasonable price for this in the EU?
– chrish
Well, I think that as long as the price stays low after they gain market share there really is no complaint that could legitimately be made for Mircosoft’s pricing. If they can afford to sell it for dirt-cheap then that is great. In a free market, there is nothing wrong with selling a product for less than your competitors. Just don’t give it away and then jack up the price after they achieve dominance.
If you think volume of sales == quality, I have some great Britney Spears albums to sell you, 100 dollars apiece (after all, she might be the greatest artist since Elvis)
I think that most of those people making those announcements or proclomations have a vested ($$$) interest in that being the truth or end result. It’s unfortunate, but I never read an article that makes those claims without also asking the authors motive (if any, some do actually just report the news) or financing behind the research house that created those numbers.
My question though, and others have raised it, is how in the world can someone possibly track linux shipments? Every machine I use is on debian, installed with ‘net install.
>don’t understand that people use, buy and continue to
>enjoy/promote Windows because it just works.
I do not know anyone who enjoys Windows, the enjoy the apps they run on top of it but Windows itself is often called crap, buggy etc. by its users. To many security, stabiltty and virus problems. If Linux was running ALL the apps Windows does run the Windows user base would shrink to about 60% in two years.
>I thought you loonix types were all about choice? I guess
>you only support choice if the choice is Linux…
Nope that would be dumb, choice is choice if you want to run Windows as am OS fine but that does not say anything about the quality. I hate Britney Spears for her music but i like her looks.
1.) They’ll do the same damned thing they do in all the other markets they compete in: They’ll compete and price cut like mad, and when they crush their competitots, they’ll completely stagnate and shitten up the market again.
2.) The reason they’re probably kicking arse in the server market is because:
1. They’re using open standards.
2. Their stuff works well out of the box (ala Active Directory, SQL Server, etc). No existing enterprise directory service in the freeware world integrates or works as well as Active Directory.
” 1. They’re using open standards.”
Since when? Nothing in Windows is even remotely open, the Samba team still has to reverse engineer their protocols to support Windows connectivity. Microsoft is not about openness at all. Can’t tell you if the stuff works out of the box, the one Windows 2003 server we sold to a client wasent setup by me. But 9 out of 10 requests we get for server rental/lease/buy is for Linux or FreeBSD, or after a quick conversation about their needs we convince them that a preconfigured *Nix server would fit their needs better, and without the extra license charge. The only times we actually sell Windows 2003 servers is when customers really need Microsoft Exchange Server.