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A report from Reuters cites Asustek Chairman Jonney Shih as saying nearly two-thirds of the Eee PCs to be shipped this year will carry Windows XP instead of the originally installed Linux OS. An analyst at JP Morgan commented that this is because a Windows-based Eee PC is “more attractive” to users due to the lack of familiarity with Linux, among other things. Now, although I agree that a Windows-based Eee PC will be more familiar to consumers than a Linux-powered one, I think this will go against the vision of the company for low-cost, consumer-affordable mobile computers. Linux is an efficient platform supported by a dedicated community of users and developers and of course its biggest selling point is that anyone can take it for free. Compare that to a Windows OS that you have to pay a few hundred dollars for, plus the fact that there have been a lot of reported bugs that keep it from operating smoothly. I’m sure you’ve realized by now that I’d prefer Linux over Windows (just for the Eee PC) but if you disregard that, I think you’d still agree that having a “retail” OS goes against the original vision of Asus for keeping the costs low, even if Windows lowers its pricing for XP for the sake of cheap computers like this one. At any rate, it will still be up to the user whether they use XP or Linux when they finally buy the Eee PC (if they haven’t already).

Read [Reuters]