'Cloudbook' UMPC to Run Googleish Linux
Everex has confirmed plans to ship a UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) with a 7-inch screen, similar to competitor Asus' EEE PC. — Everex has confirmed plans to ship a UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) with a 7-inch screen, similar to competitor Asus' EEE PC.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third step in Everex's late-2007 Linux hardware push. The company put a $200 gPC desktop running gOS on shelves in October, then confirmed sub-$300 Linux notebooks for 2008 built on the same gOS distribution — an Ubuntu variant whose interface is organized around Google services instead of Microsoft applications.
First-order effects
- The CloudBook gives the 7-inch form factor pioneered by Asus' Eee PC its first direct rival from another manufacturer, turning what was effectively a single-vendor category into an open competitive field.
Second-order effects
- gOS graduates from a one-off desktop experiment to a multi-device platform, which pressures Asus to differentiate the Eee PC beyond price as more vendors ship cheap Linux mini-laptops aimed at the same Google-centric buyer.
Third-order effects
- If low-cost Linux machines organized around web services keep selling, the traditional Windows-plus-desktop-software assumption for entry-level PCs weakens — the pattern the corpus already flags where new Linux versions run on inexpensive hardware and work with Google services rather than Microsoft.
The trend: Budget computing is shifting toward small, cheap Linux devices built around cloud services, with Everex following the Eee PC into what is becoming a distinct product category.