Open source halo effect

My eldest boy needed a laptop to do homework on, to write reports, surf the web and play some games. He's hooked on Minecraft at the moment, all well and good. I took an old Acer Aspire, running Windows XP Professional, and put Ubuntu 12.04 on it. Children start at school aged four and continue until eleven when they move on to Secondary. In that time they never experience any other operating system other than Microsoft's Windows. To most Primary school children a computer is Windows. I feel this limits both the students and the wider society. 

Creating options can change the course of industries. Apple has succeeded by getting consumers interested in their products at a young age using the iPod. As children become teenagers many become interested in music and today the most widely used portable device is the ipod. The iPod smoothly transitions these young consumers from the basic iPod to the more sophisticated iPod touch. After a number of years of iPod use, the jump as young adults to the iPhone is logical. The iPhone brings with it a halo effect which encourages consumers to try something different rather than stick with Windows.

Perhaps that is what the open source community should try. Rather than trying to mimic the high-end phones of Apple, Ubuntu or Firefox could try a Linux-powered portable music player. A sophisticated touch-based device, which would lead to a phone. By building all the stepping stones, we could create an alternative route for Open source software which has been proven by an industry leader.