John Bailo wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> > Dell Open Source Community Contributions Overview
> >
> > ,----[ Quote ]
>
> > ,----
> > | I think Dell is full of it. Why hasn't Dell offered on its web site
> > | the ability to configure a desktop or laptop with the option of having
> > | Ubuntu or OpenSuse preinstalled and save the consumers money that is
> > | going to Microsoft? Until Dell does that they are not helping the
> > | consumer.
>
> I think that's oversimplifying. The problem for these big companies
> suddenly promoting even a single mass available Linux machines is going
> to be "support". They probably just don't have enough experience to
> know what types of problems or issues or answers are needed. They
> certainly would not have enough people to handle them -- and that's not
> a slight on Linux, that's just saying it requires new support engineers
> and so on.
>
> My guess is that they are limping in just to get themselves up to speed
> before a bigger push with a Linux desktop from a major commercial vendor.
To elaborate a bit on the "support" issue. Someone has an existing
computer with a 'Brand-X' scanner, printer, iPod + iTunes... whatever.
Now they get a new computer (presumably with Linux) and the scanner
doesn't work the way it used to (ex: The scanning software no longer
crops the slides into individual photos.) They can print but they can
no longer select the paper source on the printer. They plug their iPod
in but can't access the iTunes web-site.
All this worked with their old computer. So surely something must be
broken with the new computer? So they call Dell and this is not going
to be a 6-8 minute support call.
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