Red Sun is rising on Linux

2000-07-14

And the conclusion is – Linux will not conquer the desktop or the laptop, but will win on embedded devices. This isn’t idle speculation: let’s face it – when a significant number of electronics manufacturers from the World centre of such products line up behind Linux, then the rest of us should take note.

Linux isn’t necessarily doomed on the desktop. Indeed, it might well have faced a rosy future if it wasn’t for the question: “what is the point?” The world has already chosen an operating system and hardware architecture which, whatever its faults, is proving adequate for most uses. Linux will not succeed on the desktop any more than, say, Windows 2000 – neither gives a user sufficient additional value to merit the swap. There will always be advocates for desktop Linux but the mainstream has already flowed one way downhill and would take some pushing to get it down a different route.

On embedded devices, however, we can see a different story. The advantages (and disadvantages) of embedded Linux have already been covered, but advantages do not a product make. How different the world appears when companies like Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and so on – 23 of them in all – line up behind the operating system. This isn’t one company setting a strategy to give it USP against its competitors, or a hopeful start-up looking for a niche. The message is clear: Linux is a perfectly adequate operating system for us to use in our devices. So much so, that we want to work together to make it even better.

Sony has been one of the loudest advocates of Linux. Already it has announced its support for the Linux-based TiVo video appliance, which can store up to 30 hours of TV programming. On ZDNet in March, it was noted that a Sony representative revealed the intention to use Linux in future generations of the Playstation. "We needed a stable operating system," explained tongue-in-cheek Phil Harrison, of Sony Entertainment America Inc.

So – what is enticing Japanese companies down the open source route? The obvious reason is cost – apart from the obvious research and development investment, there is no charges for licensing Linux which brings down product costs significantly (compared to licensing, say, Microsoft or Palm products). The second reason is the chicken-and-egg argument of choosing what everyone else is using. This is what makes it clear that embedded Linux is being taken seriously – everyone is doing it. There may also be an element of Japan seizing the opportunity to leap-frog the US software industry, an area that has only had limited success for Japan in the past.

There is one other consequence of the Linux move. Leaving the PC industry aside, electronics companies have traditionally taken proprietary approaches to platforms. Take, for example, the games system market with each of Sega, Nintendo and Sony guarding their own platforms for their own games. With Linux at the core we may well see an opening up of such platforms, with differentiation being on brand and functionality rather than on available software. Whatever happens, there can be no doubt that Linux has won over a large and powerful proportion of the electronics industry. It may not win on the desktop PC but given its huge potential elsewhere – plus the potential for embedded devices to put the squeeze on desktop computers – it is unlikely to be too upset.

(First published 14 July 2000)