HP Indonesia ready to support new Linux-based PCs

HP Indonesia ready to support new Linux-based PCs

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Hewlett-Packard (HP) Indonesia says that it is prepared to
support the recent plan of its parent company to globally expand
its line of desktop personal computers (PC) based on the
GNU/Linux operating system (OS).

However, HP Indonesia will, for the time being, only offer the
Linux-based PCs to corporate customers, and not yet to the
public, who are mostly still unfamiliar with the OS.

"We have actually been offering Linux-based PCs since 2002,"
company president Elisa Lumbantoruan told The Jakarta Post
recently, adding that monthly sales of such PCs had reached a
maximum of 2,000 units.

The managing director of HP Indonesia, Andreas R. Diantoro,
meanwhile, said that the company currently has about 50 corporate
customers of mainly banks, governmental agencies and small and
medium enterprises (SME), which are already using HP's GNU/Linux-
based lines of computers.

"Providing Linux-based systems is part of HP's efforts to
satisfy our customers' various needs and anticipate the market
trend," he said.

Popularly known by its kernel created by Finnish programmer
Linus Torvalds, GNU/Linux also comprises essential GNU Not Unix
(GNU) programs from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), among
other things, all of which are worldwide collaborative works by
volunteer hackers, as well as paid programmers. The GNU/Linux was
created to compete with various closed OS available on the
market, including Microsoft.

Due to its free and open nature, the OS is available in
various distributions, such as Debian, RedHat, Mandrake,
Turbolinux and SUSE Linux.

Many computer experts are predicting that Linux's recent 2.6
version, which has addressed many of the current home-computing
needs that its previous version had not, will boost GNU/Linux'
position in the desktop PC segment, aside from its already
increasing status in the server computer niche.

HP recently struck a deal with software company Novell to make
SUSE Linux the official GNU/Linux distribution for HP's latest
line of business PCs for corporate customers -- the dx2000 and
the dc5000 series -- by the second half of 2004.

The Palo Alto, California-based computer vendor had also
previously used SUSE Linux for its line of server computers, as
well as RedHat Linux, Mandrake Linux and Turbolinux for its
current d220, d330 and d530 series of business PCs.

Andreas, who is in charge of HP Indonesia's GNU/Linux
division, said that the d220 series was indeed the most popular
among the company's current corporate customers already using
GNU/Linux-based desktop PCs.

Prices for the d220 series, pre-installed with Mandrake Linux
or Turbolinux, both of which already include the OpenOffice.org
software suite, start at US$349. Prices for the same series with
Microsoft Windows XP, start at $429. Prices for the new,
GNU/Linux-based dx2000 series, meanwhile, start at $389.

"Most of our customers are those who have already been using
Linux-based HP server computers, and then want an integrated
computer networking environment from the server level to the
desktop level," Andreas said.

Andreas also explained that the Tokyo-based Turbolinux
distribution was particularly popular in the Asia-Pacific region,
including among HP's customers in Indonesia, as it was developed
so that it would be capable of displaying Chinese characters and
others used in Korea and Japan.

"SUSE Linux should also be developed to be able to display
such characters, if HP wants it to be the worldwide, official
distribution for its Linux-based systems," Andreas said, adding
that HP Indonesia would continue to support its current customers
regardless of the GNU/Linux distribution that they used.