HP falling out of love with Windows

Hewlett Packard is reportedly looking at ways to either make Vista easier to use, or even creating its own operating system. The studies appear to be HP’s response to concerns of losing business to Apple in the low-priced notebook market.

According to BusinessWeek, there’s a faction among HP’s staff which is exploring the idea of a Linux-based operating system which would be exclusive to HP computers.

The firm’s technology chief Phil McKinney (pictured) admits such studies have taken place, but tells the magazine there haven’t been senior-level discussions. And he points out that there’s been no “huge” funding for the project.

However, McKinney did confirm that HP is working on technology involving touchscreen software that will let Vista users view movies and images without having to go through Windows itself. He says “Our customers are looking for insanely simple technology where they don’t have to fight with the technology to get the task done.”

HP has bypassed Windows before: it developed QuickPlay, a system which stores audio and video files in a separate disk partition that uses Linux, allowing users to turn on their computers and watch or listen to a file without booting Windows. However, the system doesn’t work as designed under Vista and users now have to load Windows before they can run the software, which somewhat defeats the point.

Ironically touchscreen technology is pretty much the only confirmed new feature in Vista’s successor, Windows 7.

Whether HP really would make stronger moves away from Windows and towards Linux is far from certain. Despite its position as world’s leading computer manufacturer, HP could still be wary of straining relations with Microsoft. And company lawyers could have concerns (whether justified or not) about the more relaxed attitude to licensing involved in open source.

It’s worth remembering that an article in BusinessWeek may have consequences more serious than the technical realities of a story might justify. Many, or even most, readers will be executives (or wannabe execs) with little technical knowledge, so the perception that Windows is falling from favour may prompt them to begin asking questions of their firm’s IT departments.

• How does Microsoft love Vista? Let thee count the ways.
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• Vista and DRAM falling prices raises DRAM usage
• Microsoft hoped SP1 would help IT Vista deployment, it didn’t
• Microsoft does a Linux deal… of sorts