My wife gifted me with a TomTom ONE 125 GPS navigator.  On charging it up and connecting it to my computer, I discovered that Microsoft had struck again.   The program to connect the device to the computer was Windows ONLY.  How barbaric.  No, not even that, for even barbarians were civilized in their own fashion, and had an advanced culture and society that was simply different than the Romans and Greeks had.  Perhaps immature would be a better term, for so blindly following a bully is certainly not a mature way of dealing with life.

I contacted the TomTom Support Team via their web interface:

Having received a TomTom ONE 125 from my wife, for Christmas, I was disappointed to find that your company was so far behind the times as to expect that a connected computer would ONLY be running a Microsoft operating system. Such behavior, in this day and age, is tantamount to a slap in the face to all the intelligent people in America and in the world who have decided to choose an alternative that does not require massively expensive equipment to run and exorbitant continued fees to maintain.

I, therefore, request that you remedy this situation by providing customers with the HOME software in a format (preferably in an Open Standards format) that would be available to Linux users.

I think it would be appropriate for me to mention, at this point, that refusal or failure to remedy the situation could result in significant loss of revenue, due to people becoming aware that your company is so locked into a monopolistic software empire as to not care about their customers.

I received the following reply:

Thank you for taking the time to contact TomTom Customer Support regarding TomTom HOME compatibility with Linux. My name is Ana. We are always happy to help. We understand the frustration such an issue might cause.

Due to software issues, our TomTom HOME program is not compatible with Linux and we do not have any software available for it at this time. We currently only have software available for Windows 2000, XP, Vista (latest service packs recommended), and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher. We apologize for any frustration this may cause.

We offer the TomTom HOME requirements on our website, please click on the link below to view them.

http://www.tomtom.com/9095

Thank you for choosing TomTom for your navigation needs. If you have any further questions or comments, please email or call us at 866-486-6866 Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM until 7:00 PM EST. Thanks again for writing. At TomTom we believe in showing you the way the easy way.

With Best Regards,

Ana
TomTom Customer Support

I very much want others to see just how customers are treated when it comes to the choice of operating system for their home computers.  To be compelled, without prior warning, to have to use an insecure, buggy, and extremely expensive operating system is absurd. That’s right – NO warning.  Nothing on the box notes any requirement for a Windows operating system in order for the device to fully function in the manner suggested in their literature.   Ignorance MIGHT be an excuse, except that others have also drawn to the attention of TomTom the fact that Linux exists.  Therefore, such behavior is unconscionable in the extreme – a blatant ignoring of a significant population of computer users and potential customers.  And worse, this shows that they are ignoring the fact that they are operating the TomTom ONE using Linux:

From ttgo.bif:
[TomTomGo]
DeviceName=TomTom ONE
DeviceVersionHW=ONE (v8)
DeviceSerialNumber=PB4378B02731
DeviceUniqueID=AKTHL B2C6N
RamDiskVersion=20080613
BootLoaderVersion=55019
LinuxVersion=198799
ApplicationVersionVersionNumber=8014
ApplicationVersion=9372
UserLanguage=English US
UserName=PB4378B02731

(Emphasis mine)  If that isn’t enough for you:

From http://www.tomtom.com/page.php?Page=HOME24 :
TomTom HOME 2.4 and later contains parts of E2fsprogs code licensed under GNU Library General Public License Version 2 built as a DLL on Windows and dynamic library on Mac OS.

Witch leads to – From http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2.html :
e2fsprogs, which consists of e2fsck, mke2fs, debugfs, dumpe2fs, tune2fs, and most of the other core ext2fs filesystem utilities.

And, for an explanation of  what e2fsprogs is – From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E2fsprogs :
e2fsprogs (sometimes called the e2fs programs) is a set of utilities for maintaining the ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems. Since those file systems are often the default for Linux distributions, it is commonly considered to be essential software.

. . . . . . . .

As the userspace companion for the ext2, ext3, and ext4 drivers in the Linux kernel, the e2fsprogs are most commonly used with the Linux operating system. However, they have been ported to other systems, such as FreeBSD and Darwin.

TomTom uses Linux.  But TomTom doesn’t want to acknowledge that, and therefore ignores potential customers.  Or, perhaps it’s more than ignoring potential customers.  For example, there is the publically demonstrated behavior of Microsoft.  Microsoft is noted for its anti-competative contracts with companies, its “buying off” companies, organizations and even political entities, and its subversion of even standards organizations.  (Oh, don’t believe me.  Go see for yourself.  Search for the lawsuit by the DOJ [such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft]  and the record of what happened at ISO with their “Office Open XML”, or their behavior in third world countries with the advent of the XO computer.)  Such behavior in an individual would be considered unethical at best and criminal at worst.  But because Microsoft has money they manage to get away with it.  If some combination of the above is the reason that TomTom has so ignored Linux as an operating system then their shame is complete, and they deserve to be known as “that navigation company that USED to be a contender in the market”.

Whatever their reasons, they are cutting themselves off from being able to sell various services.  I find it difficult that ANY company would willingly forego the possibility of additional income simply in order to support a dying monopoly.  Yet that seems to be the case.  Now, before someone points out that they also support Mac OS-X, please realize where the money comes from:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec97/apple_8-6.html.  Sorry, I just don’t see Apple computers as being separate from Microsoft these days.  I know they have a proud history (or say they have) and that they try to be different.  But the fact that Microsoft bought into them just sort of spoils the whole image for me.

So, here you go, TomTom.  Get your PR department out of the Service department, and start thinking of where you get your money.  Do you REALLY want to forego the income you could make by supporting the very operating system that you use?