handyfloss

It seems that the Fnac (at least the Spanish section) has been remodelling its web recently, which caused some downtime last week, and a really slow experience right now (their webmaster must lack the experience to realize that great changes should be made first in test computers, then moved to production ones. Or maybe they lack the resources to buy a spare server…).

Anyway, I’m visiting the place to check the prices of netbooks, more precisely an ASUS Eee 901, and, to my surprise, the Linux models are gone! I have previously seen both Windows XP and Linux-based netbooks in Fnac, but now only the former seem to survive. I suspect that the XP netbooks are always over-represented in stores, that is, they have many more XP units than Linux ones, even though they are sold on par. Or even more Linux units are sold.

However, this plain and simple oblivion of any Linux offer is outrageous, and can only point to nasty activity by Microsoft, who moves the necessary strings (money when possible, threats when necessary) to secure a niche (that of netbooks), that is one of the biggest market entry points for Linux, and thus the greatest menace to MS’s monopoly.

Right nowk, the Fnac Spain “Ultra Mobile” page (can not make a direct link because URLs inside the Fnac site are a thing to fear and hate), shows only one Acer Aspire One with Linux. All other netbooks, including all other Acer Aspire One models, and all Eee PCs, are exclusively Windows machines.

Update: The Linux Eee PCs seem to be back. Maybe it was just an error? Probably I’m just too paranoid :^)

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The European Union decided last wednesday that they’d impose a 899M euro penalty on Microsoft for not providing the information they had been asked to release in 2004.

The short story goes like this: the EU decided that MS was to make public the specifications of some protocols and formats for allowing interoperability of Windows with other OSs. MS decided that this would be bad for their monopoly, so refused. Later, they pretended to comply, by sending the EU 30k pages of basically bullshit (for practical purposes, that documentation was useless). Now, the EU has decided that we should take none of it, and has fined MS for not complying.

Go, EU, go!

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