I couldn’t even find one of the CloudBooks within a 200-mile radius, anyhow. I was going to make it a fun road trip just to go pick one up. I need to spend more time with my current friends as-is (UX, EEE, etc.)

i guess the problem right now is that one have a hell of a software based inertia in the tech world.

a inertia thats even biting microsoft when it comes the vista.

As the Finnish Abomination proved to me, Linux is far, far away from consumer-grade.

Especially Everex’s version. Asus just about bulletproofed the EeePC and gave it just about anything an average person could want — as long as they understand to begin with that it’s *not* Windows. (Well, not until, you know, ha!, the Windows ones come out!)

If you substitute the words “mass market” for “Walmart crowd” in James’ comment, I think it describes the major roadblock/opportunity for this type of entry level PC.

You’re probably right, but that still sucks for me. I had hoped to be able to bus over to a WM at some point and pic up a CB. Now web order.

Unless I just wait for the 2133 (which lack of $ will probably make me do anyway…!).

I don’t believe the “Walmart crowd” for the most part is ready for Linux. They don’t know what it is, how it works or how to get going with it. My guess is that Walmart has experienced a bunch of returns when the folks buy the cheap laptop and then get it home and it looks like nothing they’ve seen before. They then take it right back and return it. That’s my guess, anyway.

Wow. At some other site, a guy posted about the strangeness of Linux being sold by Wal-Mart. I told him I got my C=64 way back when @ Toys R Us.

I guess he was right after all.

Kevin,

My guess is that there’s several issues here affecting Wal-Mart’s decision on this…

1) Obviously, there would be a lot of customers that would gravitate towards a Cloudbook when they see the price tag displayed. However, I’ll bet that some people would grab one just because of the low price, get it home and then go ‘WTF’ when they turn it on and wonder what happened to WinXP….so, return it to Wal-Mart

2) Even if the customer didn’t flip as per #1 above, the next issue would be when they boot up the first time and see that the buttons to accept or cancel setup steps are off the display and they go ‘WTF’ again and ‘Now what do I do????’….so, return it to Wal-Mart

As for market acceptance of Linux, think that this is the proverbial Catch-22….it’s hard for it to get more acceptance unless retailers get behind it, promote it alongside other options, and support it…otherwise, it will stay a niche item…

Same thing happened for the longest time with the Mac before OSX and Apple Stores…you’d go to the store and see miles of aisles of PC software and a couple outdated items for the Mac and no one there that could help you about the Mac….

So it goes….

;-)

Mark
Silicone Valley Digerati