back to article Android-ocalypse postponed: Jide withdraws Remix OS from consumer frontline

So Remix OS won’t be “eating the world” after all. Parent company Jide, founded by ex-Googlers, is repositioning itself as an enterprise vendor, and says its Android-for-PCs (which also runs on cheap ARM hardware) will no longer be sold to consumers any more. Jide is also scuppering its hardware fleet. Kickstarter investors …

  1. MyffyW Silver badge

    Chromebook is going gangbusters

    Must pull you up on language. I far prefer "going great guns" implying a venerable battleship steaming into the fray to re-assert Pax-Britannica.

    Or am I just taking my vintage thing a step too far?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Chromebook is going gangbusters

      Must pull you up on language. I prefer "a bridge too far", implying a glorious last stand executing the futile plans of your betters with a proper stiff upper lip.

      :-)

    2. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Chromebook is going gangbusters

      "Going Gangbusters" must mean something different today than it did in the past. Chromebooks seem to be about as popular as a dogturd in a cupcake shop outside of the USA...

      I have yet to actually see one in the flesh.

      But, generally, they are too expensive. On Amazon.de, they seem to be more expensive than equivalently specced Windows laptops, in fact the Acer Chromebook R13 costs 400€ ($462), with 2GB RAM, Celeron Processor and eMMC storage. We pay around 550€ for a Core i5 notebook with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM... On the other end, you can get cheap Windows notebooks and tablets for under 200€.

      1. Is It Me

        Re: Chromebook is going gangbusters

        It is the education market that they are being sold to mostly, and that is the only place in the UK I have seen them in use.

        I believe in American school there are some grants that are tied to specific suppliers, and that has helped drive the uptake in them there.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Grants tied to specific suppliers?

          These grants wouldn't be from Google, would they? Surely getting personal information from the kiddies wouldn't be the plan of a company with the motto "do not evil"?!

      2. D@v3

        Re: big_D

        where as, i know a few people with Chromebooks, picked up for <£200. (in the UK)

        That does seem to have been near the beginning of their existence, as it is now hard to find one that is over specced and over priced. (big SSD's lots of RAM etc. Also hard to find one with 3/4G modem)

  2. big_D Silver badge

    Expensive PC...

    For the “next billion” users, their phone or low cost tablet could do everything a cumbersome and more expensive PC could do.

    Expensive PC? Cumbersome I'll give you, but expensive? Our company smartphones cost between 600€ and 900€ each, our desktop PCs around 300€ and the notebooks around 500-600€...

    1. AMBxx Silver badge

      Re: Expensive PC...

      They're very cheap if Google help you fiddle central government spending. Hence the 50% of the market in the US.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Expensive PC...

      I totally agree with you. I will say however I am using a droid turbo 2 that i bought used with a bad screen for 75 dollars and hooked up to the television using it for a media center pc. it could be better with remix installed on it. but yeah,. new, a good phone is just as expensive as a mid class pc.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Expensive PC...

      "Our company smartphones cost between 600€ and 900€ each, our desktop PCs around 300€ and the notebooks around 500-600€..."

      I don't know about your company, but most sensible organisations understand that the lifetime 'cost' of devices like these can far exceed the headline up front cost to buy.

      Obviously it's not in the typical MS-dependent IT department's interests to acknowledge that a non-Windows device might be cheaper to buy and support than a legacy Window box (in the right circumstances). However, some folk have known this for a long time, and it's increasingly going public.

      MS no longer seem capable of keeping these unbelievers (those end users and their suppliers) on board. Not even with the huuuge financial incenttives available within the MS ecosystem when a significant customer threatens to become an ex-customer. The direction of Windows 10 isn't exactly helping keep these people loyal either. Still, plenty money left in the pot at MS.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Expensive PC...

        @AC generally the smartphones are replaced every 2 - 3 years, the PCs generally get sorted out and replaced every 6 - 8 years.

        We spend about 15 minutes installing an image on the PCs, plus user configuration, another 15 minutes. We get about half a dozen calls a week relating to PC based problems (userbase of around 150). The smartphone takes around 15 minutes to set up for the user, plus often having to set up a Apple/Google account for the user, so they can use the app store - many haven't had a smartphone before and most don't use Gmail or Apple services.

    4. Mookster

      Re: Expensive PC...

      I can't imagine a 600 Euro PC lasting more than a year... In the real world, you are given the next Dell every 3-4 years.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Expensive PC...

        @Mookster our notebooks generally last at least 5 years, we are currently replacing a bunch of 2010 - 2012 Dell Latitudes with Fujitsu Lifebooks - the company switched to Fujitsu in 2012 and looking at the records, I think we have had to replace 2 Fujitsus so far. These are notebooks for building site workers and project managers, constructing/installing industrial manufacturing plants.

  3. grantpe

    So, both Chromebooks and Android are based around a Linux kernel, does that mean we might finally see the year of Linux on the 'desktop' (ok, a modified, tablet sized one...)

    1. RyokuMas
      Coat

      It already happened...

      See title.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It already happened...

        I don't think a bunch of GNU command-line tools in a cmd.exe window really counts as "Linux on the desktop"

        1. RyokuMas
          Coat

          Re: It already happened...

          I don't think a bunch of GNU command-line tools in a cmd.exe window really counts as "Linux on the desktop"

          Only as much as Google's proprietary OS might count...

      2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: It already happened...

        @RyokuMas isn't it time you got that chip on your shoulder looked at?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Android Tablets

    A Pixel C working pretty well here, the windowing modes work well, and it feels very close to a desktop experience. You also benefit for it not being a security shitfest like Windows is.

    1. Baldrickk

      Re: Android Tablets

      Nope, just the security nightmare android is instead.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Android Tablets

        Do you want to buy some magic beans? As you clearly you have trouble separating reality from fantasy.

        Despite there being more active android devices in the world than Windows PC, ACTUAL real world infections on android are really VERY VERY rare ( I have never came across a single infected device). Windows problems are very real, not a day goes by where I don't see infested windows machines (7/8/10 makes no difference).

        There is a huge gulf between theoretical vulrability and real world vulrability.

        Even Android biggest issue, stagefright, didn't actually affect anything, it was all purely theoretical.

        https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/15/google_stagefright_android_bug_zero_success/

  5. d3vy

    "repositioning"

    I thought that the preferred term in the valley when your plans go to shit and you have to come up with something else before your house is repossessed is that you are "Pivoting"

  6. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    "Android already has a huge and impressive app catalogue"

    Really? Where?

    Android hardware is predominantly poxy little screens and no keyboard. Unsurprisingly then, whatever is in the Play store is the kind of app that is usable on that kind of device. In addition there are painfully restricted "reader" versions of a handful of desktop apps. But there's next to nothing of the kind of software that normal people run on normal desktops for reasons that are both perfectly clear and very unlikely to change in the near future.

    Of course, if someone could add a way to run Linux apps on Android, it would be a different story. :)

    1. chasil

      Linux apps on Android?

      cc -static and Bob's your uncle.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Linux apps on Android?

        > cc -static and Bob's your uncle.

        So Android supports running native compiled binaries (not Dalvik/JVM)? And X11?

        No, I didn't think so.

  7. Joerg

    ChromeOS selling numbers are all fake! Only a few are buying that crap!

    ChromeOS selling numbers are all fake! Only a few are buying that crap!

    Just as simple as that.

    ChromeOS is even more crippled than Windows10S and anyway the shameful Windows10 should be enough to put everyone at Microsoft in jail for all its spyware and malware. Google managers and employees belong to jail too.

    If only the justice system wasn't so corrupted.

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