Top 10 things Dell customers want from the company
,----[ Quote ]
| 1. No Extra Software Option. When ordering a PC or laptop, there should
| be an option to get it with none of the assorted rubbishware, leaving
| users to decide what they want to install. Nice.
|
| 2. Pre-installed Linux. Someone wants Dell to offer the top three free
| Linux versions for pre-installation on Dell PCs. While popular, this
| is something few mass-market PC users would care about - but as the
| submitter points out, they might try applications like OpenOffice if
| Linux came on their new computer.
`----
http://techdigest.tv/2007/02/top_10_things_d.html
Maybe Dell should replace this so-called 'rubbishware' with something useful
like OpenOffice. But then Microsoft would 'whack' them (see below).
Related:
Investors sue Dell on payments from Intel: WSJ
,----[ Quote ]
| An investor lawsuit seeking class-action status accuses Dell Inc. of
| improper accounting in its relationship with chip giant Intel,
| according to a media report published Thursday evening.
|
| [...]
|
| The suit alleges that Dell received at times as much as $1 billion
| a year in "secret and likely illegal" kickbacks in the form of
| "e-Cap" or "exception to corporate average pricing" payments"
| from Intel to ensure that Dell used no other chip supplier,
| according to The Journal.
`----
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/investors-sue-dell-payments-intel/story.aspx?guid=%7B400315B0%2DE375%2D4920%2DB300%2D784220BEFE35%7D&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo
Dell's secret Linux fling
,----[ Quote ]
| Dell's love affair with Linux is a clandestine affair these days,
| conducted in secret, away from disapproving eyes. But now the pair
| have been spotted in China.
|
| When Michael Dell first saw the web-footed beauty, he fell head over
| heels. Six years ago Dell pledged a series of strategic investments
| in Linux companies, including Eazel and Red Hat. The romance
| attracted the disapproval of Microsoft however, and barely lasted
| weeks. Very quietly, Dell dumped the bird.
|
| It later emerged that Microsoft's OEM enforcer Joachim Kempin had
| promised Steve Ballmer that he'd be putting the screws on PCb
| uilders, or "hitting the OEMs harder" in his words.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/09/dell_linux_china/
Microsoft 'killed Dell Linux' - States
,----[ Quote ]
| The States' remedy hearing opened in DC yesterday, and States attorney
| Steven Kuney produced a devastating memo from Kempin, then in charge of
| Microsoft's OEM business, written after Judge Jackson had ordered his
| break-up of the company. Kempin raises the possibility of threatening
| Dell and other PC builders which promote Linux.
|
| "I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux.
| ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to Ballmer, in what is
| sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases ("knife the baby", "cut off
| the air supply") with which Microsoft enriched the English language in the
| first trial. Unlike those two, this is not contested.
|
| [...]
|
| Earlier memos described that it was "untenable" that a key Microsoft
| partner was promoting Linux. Kuney revealed that Dell disbanded its Linux
| business unit in early 2001. Dell quietly pulled Linux from its desktop PCs
| in the summer of 2001, IDG's Ashlee Vance discovered subsequently, six
| months after we heard Michael Dell declare his love of Linux on the desktop
| the previous winter.
|
| Compaq was also mentioned in other memos, with Microsoft taking the line
| that OEMs should "meet demand but not help create demand" for Linux.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/19/microsoft_killed_dell_linux_states/
,----[ Quote ]
| A 2002 e-mail exchange filed with an Iowa court during one of the last
| state antitrust suits seems to say so; Redmond defends the thread.
|
| "We should whack them, we should make sure they understand our value,"
| wrote Paul Flessner, a senior vice president in Microsoft's server
| applications unit.
`----
http://news.com.com/Did+Microsoft+want+to+whack+Dell+over+its+Linux+dealings/2100-1014_3-6153904.html
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