What Microsoft can learn from Moblin

Living in a material world, and I am a material girl.  Those infamous words from Madonna's Material Girl can be slightly tweaked to sum up my operating system perspective: living in a Windows world and I am a Windows guy. But I'm writing this post from within Moblin running on the new Asus Eee PC I got for Christmas (thanks, mom & dad!). 

You might have heard about Moblin in discussions about netbooks and netbook operating systems. But for those who don't know, Moblin started as an Intel project to develop a version of Linux built around the Atom processor and netbooks.  The goal was to develop an operating system that minimized boot time, increased battery life, and provided an Internet-centric user experience designed for small screens.  The project has since been turned over to the Linux Foundation; however, Intel employees still dominate the project's steering committee.

The notion of a lightweight Linux distribution on a netbook is as old as netbooks themselves. Asus' original Eee PC shipped with a lightweight, relatively user-friendly version of Linux.  Although the original Eee PC was a relative success, netbooks didn't really take off until they started shipping with Windows XP.  In fact, consumers who purchased Linux-based netbooks often returned them for Windows-based netbooks.  My particular Eee PC shipped with Windows 7 Starter.  I've been using Windows 7 for a while and running Windows XP on my netbook seemed like a step backwards.  However, I was intrigued by Moblin and wanted to test it out.  So, I now have a dual-boot setup with Windows 7 Starter and Moblin.

Of course, other netbook-oriented versions of Linux have sprouted up, many with the Ubuntu distribution as a base, such as Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Eeebuntu.  There is even an Ubunto Moblin Remix.  Although these OSes have their merits and I intend to play around with them more, I'm not as intrigued by them and probably will stick with Moblin as my Windows alternative.  Why?  Well, it mainly has to do with the premise of their design: take the most popular desktop Linux distro and adapt it for smaller-screened devices.  Certainly not a bad goal, but the end result essentially is Ubuntu with a type of "dock" designed to minimize the need for the standard, full desktop by providing a one-stop shop for the most commonly used applications and tasks.  While you could argue that Moblin essentially does the same thing, the difference is that Moblin was designed for netbooks from the ground up instead of from the top down.  This might seem like semantics, but the difference is that Moblin doesn't feel like Linux whereas the other distros do.

With Moblin, the design team rethought the purpose of, and even the very need for, a desktop.  In fact, Moblin basically attempts to hide the desktop at every chance it gets in the hopes you'll forget why you needed it in the first place.  And so far, they've succeeded.  If you accept the premise of Moblin and can leave your desktop OS "baggage" behind, you'll find that your expectations are different.  Because you're not expecting a typical desktop OS, you're more patient and willing to learn the Moblin way of doing things.  In fact, you may even appreciate the Moblin way of doing things.  At least I did.

The other netbook-oriented distros still feel like Linux and ultimately lead me to the same thought I have when using their desktop counterparts: why not just use Windows?  Now before you start extolling the virtues of Linux to me, don't get me wrong: I can appreciate Linux, and the geek in me enjoys learning about and playing with other OSes as my Moblin usage hopefully demonstrates.  But Windows, Linux and Mac OS are pretty much just different ways of doing the same things.  So, from a purely pragrmatic standpoint, if one is working for you, why go through effort to learn a different OS?  That type of "comfort intertia" is partly why Windows has remained dominent on the desktop.

But with Moblin, the experience feels fresh.  Using it makes me think of netbooks less as scaled-down computers and more as purpose-built devices--kind of like mobile Internet devices (MIDs) that Intel envisions everyone using.  It's this type of fresh experience that I hope Microsoft pays attention to.  I think MS did a great job with Windows 7 and Windows 7 Starter works well on my netbook.  Asus even implemented a cool fast-boot feature in the BIOS that speeds up boot times (though I lost this feature after setting up the dual-boot).  The result is that Windows 7 boots up pretty darn fast--maybe not quite as fast as Moblin, but close.  And of course, starting up from standby is very fast.  And perhaps most importantly, I'm comfortable and confident with Windows. 

But Windows 7 Starter is still a full-fledged desktop operating system.  And as more of our computing experience occurs on Internet-centric devices like netbooks and smartphones and more of our application needs move to the Web, Microsoft needs to rethink the Windows user experience.  It's simply not enough to adapt Windows to these devices.  Rather, MS needs to figure out how these devices can leverage the benefits of Windows while providing a user experience optimized for the particular device being used.  Apple did this with the iPhone and we've all seen the response.

At the same time, Windows has that comfort inertia and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  People tend to gravitate towards what they know, which can be a huge competitive advantage since virtually everyone has used Windows at some point.  However, balancing familiarity with change is not an easy task.  In fact, after polling some of its user base (i.e., the enterprise space), implementing any change can prove a challenge.  Yet, if Microsoft can pull it off, it can extend its leadership into the next decade of computing experiences despite increased competition from Google and Apple.

So, if you were lucky enough to get a netbook this holiday season, I encourage you to check out Moblin.  If you don't want to install it, you can throw the live image on a bootable USB drive, boot it up, and play around with it.  Moblin.org provides easy instructions for doing this.  And if you already have tried Moblin, what do you think of it?

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