MemeMachineGo!

There are several lightweight Linux distributions specifically designed to breathe new life into old hardware.

With the end of support for Windows 2000 next month, Microsoft’s only supported desktop OS will be XP, which has heftier requirements than most machines older than about five years meet.¹

Microsoft has noticed that not everyone’s going to want to replace their old hardware for the privilege of buying their current OS. So they’re making a lightweight version of Windows.

The Eiger product is meant not for home users or small businesses but for large organizations that currently use older PCs with older versions of Windows. […] Eiger is being designed to run server-based applications; it won’t run Office or line-of-business applications locally. […] Eiger will also include Internet Explorer for access to Web-based applications and Windows Media Player.

As one wag on Slashdot notes:

So they’re going to include the worst of the MS product line, IE and MP, throw in a firewall and antivirus (because IE and MP are security risks) and leave everything else to an application server.

That’s like Ford re-introduing the Pinto, but just a stripped-down version featuring only a rusty rear bumper and a gas tank.

You’ll have to tow it behind a Ford pickup truck fitted with a special firewall/blast shield.

In other news, Bill Gates predicts Microsoft will kill the iPod; Steve Ballmer predicts the end of Google as Microsoft enters the search market and Paul Allen predicts that Microsoft-worship will supplant all the world’s religions.

OK, I made that last one up.

¹ I tried to look up when 600 MHz CPUs first became mainstream, without success. I did find this reference to the 500 MHz Pentium III being released in 1999.