Your browser maybe your next OS

As Web 2.0 ’s popularity is skyrocketing,people are using the web to do things that they did more often on their desktop.Google plays a major role in this web 2.0 revolution.Earlier people who used mail clients like thunderbird have now found satisfaction in gmail which has keyboard shortcuts,folders and almost all the things you get on a mail client.People who used MS office,Openoffice,koffice etc are slowly moving to the refreshingly dynamic google documents which allows you not only to create your presentations and spreadsheets but also to share them with a click of a button.Google reader also serves as a good replacement for a desktop feed reader.Also there are web-based im-messengers,music players and much more.

So,the browser is the new OS which u can say boots up when u click the browser icon on your desktop and the work begins.With the growing popularity of cloud computing and the plethora of browsers in the race the OS in a browser or rather a web based browser is close to erasing the thin line between the present and the future of next-gen computing.

This also may lead to a new unexpected change in the world of computing that is the OS popularity may go down.The trend of the OS market will change drastically as people will shift to opensource Operating Systems more as an user will think “If my whole work starts and ends within the browser why should I spend 400 $ on an OS?”.Linux again is getting web 2.0 friendly and if it keeps going on the same track the desktop market share stats may turn around.Examples of the same can be seen in the new twitter app in KDE 4 and online desktop in fedora.But you never know with the microsoft.

Windows Xp Sp3 beats Windows Vista Sp1 in benchmark tests

        Well Vista fans might be a little disappointed with this news,according to a benchmarking test conducted by Exo.performance.network(Xpnet), Windows Xp Service pack 3 outshines Windows Vista Service pack 1 which is going to be released in 2008.The tests were conducted using RC releases by microsoft and the results were quite surprising.

Office bench tests for various Windows Versions(Lower The better)

(image sources:exo.blog)

As the tests show the lower bars of windows Xp3 and even Sp2 prove that Windows Vista is a big performance dud as compared to Windows Xp which was released way back in 2001!.The tests were conducted on Dell XPS M1710 systems with 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU & DDR-II 667MHz RAM.Well Microsoft officials as always told that the Service packs are still in their development stages and will go through massive changes before being released and tests should be conducted once the service packs are officially released(that’s in 2008).The post on Exo’s blog clearly showed the extra edge of the grand daddy Xp over the mischievous little baby Vista which is not doing quite well these days.The real benchmark although will be the official release of Vista SP1 and XP SP3.The support for Service Pack 2 is ending on 14th April 2009 but Microsoft may just give windows users a reason “not-to-upgrade” to Windows Vista by releasing the much awaited Windows Xp service pack 3.Also a registry hack has been discovered which allows Xp users to download a RC build using Windows Update.Xp Sp3 will feature a 10% improvement in performance as quoted by Microsoft officials.So is Vista another setback like windows ME?Well here comes 2008!

(news sources:exo.blog-official blog of Xp.net)

Reasons for success of the 200$ wonder-Everex gpc

[Linux-The winner takes it all]

           

                Everex gpc is no doubt a big success(read about it in my previous posts).In fact it is touted to become the linux version of mini mac.With very low specs as compared to other Pcs selling in the market today,Everex gPC which comes with linux pre-installed proved to be a mighty product by running out of stock within just one week of its going on sale at Wal-mart.But what makes it so special even though it comes with a not-as-popular-as-windows operating system called Linux?.

The reasons are pretty clear.A person who uses a pc for his office work,mail,music and NOT gaming would never want to spend around 300-400$ on a similar config pc with an additional feature called Vista OEM.Further costs keep on adding because Vista doesn’t come pre-loaded with Microsoft office and most important antivirus,antispyware and firewall softwares.Lets take an example of three people Person A,Person B,Person C who have the same usage like web,office and music and are planning to buy a PC for regular use with low-to-midrange specs.Say they all have a budget around 300-350 $ which is quite obvious….

1) Person A buys a PC with Vista Home basic say this Everex Impact GC3502(again from Everex with Vista Home Basic installed specs are almost same) being sold at Wal-mart (its not out of stock lolz)
Price:298$. Now since this person is trying to save money and his needs being less he’ll definitely won’t go for Professional Office 2007 he’ll buy Office 2007 Home and Student edition Priced at $140 again at wal-mart Product link.
Again this guy constantly surfs the net so he will definitely need a good antivirus lets say he goes for Bitdefender Priced at 40$ at wal-mart again Product link
Now the total cost of the pc helplessly becomes 298+140+40 = 478 $ which is almost around 500 bucks for a person with a budget of around 300 bucks !

Total Cost: 500 $ approx

2) Person B can simply go for the 1.25 Ghz Mac mini priced at 500 $ but again the price goes very high considering the budget so he decides to go for something other.

Total Cost:N/A

3) Person C the wise guy goes for the now famous Everex TC2502 priced at 200 $ . He has the same usage as person A but doesn’t need to buy any extra antivirus(linux being invulnerable to viruses) or any Office product(as it comes shipped with Openoffice).So overall price stays the same.Also linux is very stable and support is provided at the ubuntu forums.

Total Cost:200 $

So here it is obvious that Person C is the clear winner

Some more reasons for Everex gpc victory

The market of low-to-mid range PC products is very big.This is the area where Microsoft scores over Apple(which costs really high).In this market a hot new entry like the Everex Gpc has given the Microsoft a great competition.Microsoft products need constant updates and there are a lot of bugs which need fixing from time to time.Most recent being the patch Microsoft released this tuesday. Also with the rise in the popularity of gaming consoles and also release of playstation 3,Xbox and Nintendo Wii people have reduced the gaming on PC.People who already own a console would in many cases won’t need to play games on their PC and in such cases people go for a mid-end or a low-end PC.Already market being hot with the recent release of Apple Leopard.,people who can’t afford it are definitely looking for something new,useful,efficient yet cheap.Students and educational institutions see Linux as an ideal learning environment.Reports have confirmed that Vista is not hitting the market as expected to do and Microsoft are already making Vista SP1.These things have affected the market in such a way that now-a-days people have started thinking of moving to linux.Linux has developed a lot as compared to the geeky looking previous versions of linux.The users have started realizing the importance of opensource and free software with the prices of premium software rising high and as linux hits where MS lacks,not far will be the day when Linux will be the apple of your eye and window to the world !

image source:wikipedia