Linux rises, but Vista still rules
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| Looking for a cheap PC this holiday season? Good luck trying to find one
| with anything but Windows on it.
|
| That's odd. Linux is more popular than ever, Apple is resurging, and
| Microsoft's efforts to put Windows Vista on store shelves have been hobbled
| by delays. You'd think consumers would have more choice as the holiday
| season kicks off.
|
| [...]
|
| While Microsoft can't punish companies for selling rival operating
| systems, machines with anything but Windows installed don't help PC
| makers meet the quotas necessary to pay Microsoft lower rates.
|
| "Microsoft doesn't leave much room for negotiation," says Citigroup
| analyst Brent Thill. Nor does it have to.
|
| What if Linux went luxe?
|
| Hewlett-Packard could, in theory, save some money upfront by putting
| Linux on 10 percent of the desktop PCs it sells at retail. But that
| would just make the rest of its Windows desktops more expensive,
| because it would no longer be selling as many Windows licenses as
| archrival Dell, and Microsoft could legally charge it more.
|
| HP, which recently overtook Dell the world's largest PC maker, can't
| afford to hand its vanquished rival any cost advantages.
|
| In a nutshell, switching to a rival OS system will hurt more than
| help the bottom lines of PC makers. The straightforward economic
| scheme that regulators set up to keep Microsoft in check is
| essentially keeping the PC industry in the Windows fold - just as
| Redmond's brass-knuckle tactics once did.
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http://biz.yahoo.com/hbusn/061109/110106_microsoft_vista_biz2.html?.v=1
Someone ought to step in and supervise. This leads to a monopoly that hurts
the customer (poor service/product, high prices).
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