I found this article on Ars Technica quite interesting.
Essentially Dell is arguing that Linux penetration on Netbooks is once again climbing as many companies are finally getting it right. Dell also feels that online sales do Linux based Netbooks better justice then brick and mortar businesses.
I tend to agree with this analyses as most Internet buyers are more educated then your average joe that walks into the store. I also find it interesting that the article notes Dell is looking to use non Intel chips for their new line of Linux based netbooks. It's great to see the company taking risks and playing to Linux's strengths. Supporting more energy efficient chip designs is a good move for netbooks (arm based designs are also the choice of apple for devices like their Ipod/Iphone).
Most Linux implementations done by PC manufacturers have been poor but so far Dell has made the wise choice by pairing themselves with Ubuntu rather then trying to splinter off their own distro. By staying uniform with one of the most user friendly variants and instead sharing the workload, I believe Dell stands a great shot towards a Netbook that anyone can use.
I bought my dad a Ubuntu based laptop from Dell and am quite happy with it's performance and speed (much faster startup then most Windows PC's).
The article does note though that Dell remains a Microsoft centric manufacturer for the foreseeable future. I hope that Dell can eventually splinter off this franchise and work out a whole Linux series of products. The real trick would be to create a kind of designer look and feel to them the way Apple does with their products. This way there won't be as much a comparison made vs Windows but rather it will be viewed in the same light as an OS like OSX.
The future of Operating systems is looking very interesting as more applications enter the cloud and we have yet to see the rise of Google's own operating system chrome (which runs of the Linux kernal but will likely not be handled as a Linux distro)
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