Mark Shuttleworth was a maverick billionaire. He invested in an debian derivative, gave it for free. For the first time ever in the history, someone spent millions to seed the CD‘s. I remember getting a boat load of CD’s from Ubuntu Shipit service which I gleefully installed in my system. Of course, to it’s credit, it gave “free updates” every 18 months following release of “Long term release” which was upgraded every 5 years (with an eye on the enterprise).

A lot has changed.

I shifted to Ubuntu Derivative called as Linux Mint and more than happy with something that works and not which needs extensive customization. I prefer to go with the default settings alone but thats a personal perspective.

Unfortunately, the newer 11.04 is moving towards an enclosed ecosystem. Yes, the developers need to make money. But I find the idea of paid software in software centre, totally reprehensible. If the product is good, I would donate my hard earned money for it. But I would not buy it. For the same reason, Ubuntu One is a decent service to host the files in cloud; that would be good enough for people who need to pay for extra storage and do nifty things because it does not affect the main OS.

But when it comes to free and open source, I would prefer it to keep it that way.

All the best for trying out the buggy Unity; good concept but useless execution.

This is the first time ever, I haven’t linked to main site pointing towards it’s download.

Related articles

• Four New Features Coming to Ubuntu 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’ (pcworld.com)
• Ubuntu Release blog: Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 1 (Natty Narwhal) available. (release-blog.ubuntu.com)
• The Fridge: Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 1 (Natty Narwhal) Released. (ubuntu-news.org)
• Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S04E03 – Lightning Strikes Twice (podcast.ubuntu-uk.org)
• Thunderbird Unity Launcher extension available to Ubuntu 11.04 64bit, more users (omgubuntu.co.uk)
• Ubuntu’s new Overlay scrollbars for 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) (chedean.com)
• Ubuntu’s new Overlay scrollbars for Natty (omgubuntu.co.uk)
• Why You Should Always Keep Your Ubuntu Installation Updated [Linux] (makeuseof.com)
• Ubuntu 11.10 will be Oneiric Ocelot [Massimo Luciani] (ecademy.com)
• ‘Test Drive’ offers install-free app try-outs in Ubuntu 11.04 (omgubuntu.co.uk)
• Ubuntu 11.10 will be called Oneiric Ocelot (downloadsquad.switched.com)
• Ubuntu 11.04′s new default desktop wallpaper revealed (omgubuntu.co.uk)

Tags: DTH, Linux, Open Source, Telecommunications India

Which is better? iPad 2 or Kindle?

It’s hard to decide on the specifications and my only interest to put up the post here is to mark a shift in the way Internet is being accessed in other countries. US remains a competitive market; partly because the mechanisms of delivery exist there. In India, people expect it for “free”. This is also one reason why I strongly oppose the “limited broadband” because that would affect the way users interact with the medium. However, rest assured that market is not mature enough for the numbers; there is no strong “demand” to question the pathetic supplies as yet and voice calls dominate the Indian market overwhelmingly.

Register has an interesting write up on upcoming Kindle. I remain deeply opposed to concept of “Ecosystem” which tends to track the users over a period of time to target advertising. There are credible alternatives in Open Source and in recent times, there is a huge surge of developer interest in polishing the user interface. ( FYI, everything on my system is Open Source alone barring a few proprietary codecs and Flash- I am still waiting for HTML 5 to mature so that I ditch it for good).

Kindle and iPad are ugly vestiges of ecosystem (as I mentioned above) which hardly merit attention. I think it was Amazon that has pioneered the use of a recommendation engine to it’s visitors. Apple tracks its payments through it’s iTunes interface keeping a lion’s share of the revenues. The content creators have nothing else but to gnash their teeth because iPad owners (and I would say a huge bunch of idiots and suckers) are most likely to loosen their purse strings for paying up the cash.

Hence it becomes imperative to check out what the linked article has to say.

It is not clear why Apple has delayed enforcing the rule – clearly designed to protect its own revenues, but also its position as the primary point of contact for the user’s mobile activity – until 30 June, since it already barred the Sony Reader app from its App Store last month on the basis of the same terms and conditions….Currently, its Kindle for iOS ereader app handles all ebook sales through Amazon’s own Kindle web store, with the revenue divided only between Amazon and the publishers. The more successful Apple’s tablets and apps are, the more difficult it will be for Amazon to walk away from its iOS platform – but it could whip up a dangerous level of consumer, developer and even regulatory opposition to the iPhone maker (though, as the proud owner of a closed ecosystem itself, it would need to tread carefully).

How do they monetise their platforms:

Amazon is rumoured to be planning a scheme where it will give away free Kindle ereaders, for instance, to customers who commit to certain levels of ebook purchasing, newspaper subscriptions or the Amazon Prime service. And of course, Amazon has an established retail platform and experience that commands high levels of awareness and trust, unlike the other tablet makers. It could enhance this with its own tablet because it could take its own 30 per cent cut of in-app purchases.

How is this going to affect the netbook sales:

For every 10 tablets sold, five netbook or notebook sales will be lost in developed markets, it estimates, limiting notebook growth to 8 per cent year-on-year in 2011, and pushing netbooks into a decline of 13 per cent, to 34 million units. Many areas – especially the US, western Europe, China and Indonesia – will suffer from overstocked retail channels for mobile PCs, although the iPad’s impact on emerging markets will remain minimal.

This is going to be a hard pill to swallow though I am sure that the manufacturers have built in supply chain efficiencies and they could foresee such an event. If I had piles of cash, I would enable Linux on all the netbooks and sell them at subsidised prices or give them away for free with a bundled service. Though this unlikely to happen but if anyone from the telecom industry is reading this, this is your last chance to popularize the 3G offering. Get into hardware sales, bundle it with 3G, work out the costs of supplying it to remote areas and you have assured locked in customers for say, 3 years. The specifics could be worked out but a mobile netbook with open source applications is a great “killer option”. If you choose to support Microsoft Tax (like you as assholes are capable of), this would be unviable in the long run and MS wants Windows 7 or whatever number of their crappy operating system you can imagine to run on the “tablets”. I mean who wants to deal with such demented idiots anyway?

Related articles

• Why Android Could Help Amazon and the Kindle Threaten the iPad (ostatic.com)
• Amazon is best hope of a viable alternative to iPad (go.theregister.com)
• Kindle ecosystem – the very best Kindle sites, tools, blogs (ireaderreview.com)
• Can any tablet challenge the iPad? (reviews.cnet.com)
• Can any tablet challenge the iPad? (reviews.cnet.com)
• iOS 4.3 Getting Started Guide, Which iPad 2 to Buy?, iPad 2 Teardown, Android Tablets to Fail, and More, iNews Review (lowendmac.com)
• The Kindle Is An iPad Accessory, And That’s Why It’s Still Going To Be Huge (AMZN, AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
• How can open source survive in a post-PC World? (h-online.com)
• Android makes tablet gains, but iPad to stay strong in 2011, say studies (linuxfordevices.com)
• Amazon hires more Android developers: color Kindle Android tablet in the offing? (teleread.com)
• iPad 2 will keep Apple top of the tablet market, says Gartner (guardian.co.uk)
• Apple iPad 2: Who should buy and who should pass (zdnet.com)

Tags: 3G, Advertising, Amazon, android, Android Tablets, App Store, Assholes, Broadband, China, Computing, DTH, Google, GUI, HTML, Idiots, India, Indonesia, Internet, iPhone, Kindle, Kindle Android, Linux, Microsoft, Mobile, Open Source, open source applications, Opera, operating system, overstocked retail channels, PC World, Publishing, retail platform, SMS, Sony, Telecommunications India, United States, web store, Wifi, Windows, Windows 7, Wireless

Forget the statistics, the “key words” or even foward looking statements. Although strictly not under the purview of the blog, mobile Internet has attracted the attention of lot of people. Even though, it cannot support the applications that a true broadband needs (due to inherent limitations of medium), it is perceived to be cheaper than laying down optic fibre cables. The existing mobile towers can be rejigged and made to serve the customers with fewer incremental investments.

In any case, this again is a reflection of state of mobile internet in India. Opera has launched Appia powered Mobile App Store which would serve the needs for “apps”. I am not aware of how the apps are coded but perhaps they are platform agnostic.

Opera Mini is on a roll. Not only they have a clear dominance in over 200 countries but a simple elegant Java powered mobile app is awesome. I have used it on my Android and can testify to it’s usefulness. Infact, it is easy to download and run it on an emulator and use it tethered to your GPRS handset.

Mini has also been sucessful over it’s mobile counterparts (or something like BOLT which are alternatives in mobile space) for one simple reason; it’s ability to compress the data and serve it to end user. So far, they have not mentioned about the huge amount of data flowing in through their data centre but nevertheless, they would be willing to scale up, build profiles (if I am not mistaken, best way out would be individually numbering each download) and then serve it up for targetted advertisments. It is all a matter of scale.

On the flip side, it’s petition in EU against Microsoft has not really worked “the wonders” that it was required to. It’s desktop share is still a pathetic 2% worldwide despite being ahead in the innovation game. I am using Firefox 4 presently (nightly builds) and can testify that it is one of most significant advances in the history of open source browsers. Though Web Kit based browsers are cool (over proprietary engines like Presto- which again is a matter of debate), I can see some real heavy lifting done by Firefox; be it in extension development or all around stability fixes.

At least, on my Linux Mint installation (with a few other extensions) it is a great product; in consonance with Thunderbird, the migration to Open Source is complete.

Getting back to Opera, it still needs to tone up it’s work flow. At least, that seems to be a despondent mood on the forums/ news groups. After sticking out years crowing about web standards (yes, they are important) but persistent arguments about Acid 3 compliance and being the “fastest” out their are wearing thin. I care not about the fancy “tests” for they have no meaning for me as far as the page is rendered on my useless BSNL. I see the lag where it matters the most and is hurting Opera users.

Still, I wish them the best for their app store which would be a significant gain of revenues; it could have been implemented with some form of micropayments (which would be a pain to implement it) in an ecosystem where there is no clear defined “way out”. App based advertisments (like Angry Birds for Android) is surely a way to go.

Related articles

• Opera Launches Appia-Powered Mobile App Store To The Public (techcrunch.com)
• App Stores Everywhere! Opera Opens Mobile App Storefront (gigaom.com)
• Opera Opens Mobile App Store That Works With (Almost) All OSes (mashable.com)
• Opera Opens Cross Platform Mobile App Store (readwriteweb.com)

Tags: Acid 3, android, Angry Birds, App Store, Broadband, BSNL, Computing, DTH, Embedded Linux, Google, GPRS, India, Internet, iPhone, Java, Linux, Media, Microsoft, Mobile, Mobile WebMobile Web, Open Source, Opera, Opera Launches Appia-Powered Mobile App Store To The Public, Opera Mini, techcrunch.com, Telecommunications India, Web Kit, web standards