Status-Q

As of tomorrow, there will be a free version of VMware server available.

This is good news - VMware have a great product - and it's particularly interesting for us at Ndiyo. We've been starting to plan some experiments using a single machine to serve terminals with a mix of Linux and Windows - an organisation where one user really has to stay on Windows software could then still make a switch to a predominantly Linux system. Another option is that somebody with a Windows machine might be able to run a virtual Ndiyo server, and support multiple Nivo-based users, without having to pay any more licence fees.

It'll be interesting to see whether any of this is viable on a modestly-priced PC.

We've been updating the Ndiyo web site, and there'll be more news postings appearing there over the next few weeks. Please take a look and sign up for the email announcements list if you're interested. We're very respectful of your inbox and will try only to put quality announcements into it!

Paul Theroux makes a comparison between Malawi and Ireland in this Sunday Times article.

There's a very nice post by Nicholas Carr about Newnham Research and Ndiyo.

A key part of our message at Ndiyo has been that the traditional model of 'a PC under every desk' was a good one in the 80s and 90s, but it will never be sustainable on a global scale. (We call it the SUV Model of Computing). So we came up with a model that lets us share a PC between several people for a much lower cost than buying one PC each. And because the PC is running Linux, there are normally no extra software licensing costs to be paid when you add extra users, unlike proprietary software, where the licensing costs now often exceed the hardware costs.

The further we move towards web-based services and applications, the less dependent people are on any particular operating system and, as Nicholas points out, the more scope there will be for alternative hardware models. It's also good for most software companies, too; I recommend Paul Graham's article The Other Road Ahead if you haven't read it.