[Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:49:05 -0400 (EDT), you wrote:

>> "Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu,
>> Apache, etc? Yes.
>> 
>> "Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that boat
>> has already sailed and further Linux branding won?t happen, at least not for
>> traditional business reasons.
>
>Google already has one.  It's called "Android".  Microsoft has been
>flirting with Linux for the first time in forever as every one of their
>efforts to compete with Android and IOS has underwhelmed, if not
>flopped.  At this point Linux actually owns a substantial chunk of the
>desktop, in the form of Android on tablets that have largely replaced or
>augmented actual computers,

Not even close.  Android on tablets is essentially dead, they only
thing the remaining tablets are used for is media viewers.

The Android app developers never developed tablet versions of the
apps, and Google dropped the ball yet again.

Google's latest attempt, announced several weeks back, is an attempt
at a ChromeOS tablet...

And when that fails, perhaps we will finally see Fuchsia.

> and is just under Apple in the phone market

Depends on how you measure, some ways Android is ahead.

But the big problem is that few people are making money from Android,
in part because few Android users buy apps.

>with M$ a joke down near the bottom in both domains.  

Microsoft existed the phone business several years ago, and at least
in terms of usefulness for doing anything other than watching a movie
their tablet offerings are far ahead of anything Android.  It's not a
coincidence that the latest iPad Pros announced today look like
Surface Pros.

>But Android is
>vulnerable -- lots of people dislike it and dislike the play store and
>all that goes with it and with iOS. 

The only people who hate the iOS store are certain techies, and
certain players big enough that they dislike the percentage.

The users love it because it is hassle free and has none of the
virus/malware/etc issues that they experience elsewhere.

Google Play is vulnerable because Google refuses to invest in it and
the developers increasingly leary of getting locked out with no way to
appeal the decision.

> IBM has the resources to actually
>make an OPEN tablet/phone OS if they choose to and are at least as
>likely as M$ is to be able to step into the market and steal away
>mindshare from Android and iOS -- if they couple it to a slick AI
>component, maybe semi-proprietary, they might even jump to the head of
>the line as Alexa and Siri etc leave a great deal to be desired.

Any attempt at an open tablet/phone would require signficant money and
there is no way IBM is going to invest the money in hardware and
software to try it.

Say want one wants about Apple, but they have had the best ARM
processors for mobile for a while now and noone appears to be close to
catching up anytime soon.