__/ [ B Gruff ] on Thursday 11 January 2007 14:22 \__
> I found several aspects of this interesting:-
>
> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/10/tech-microsoft.html
>
> One interesting point is of course that MS is now pleading that it can't
> restrict what OEMs put on machines installed with an MS OS, because that
> would be illegal......
>
> .... but then I saw this:-
>
> "The concern arises from third-party software that hardware makers commonly
> install on new computers in exchange for a fee, many of which have not been
> tested and certified by Microsoft to work with Vista, the executive said.
> They include things such as links to online services, and demo versions of
> programs"
>
> You caught that? "IN RETURN FOR A FEE"?
> Does that go some way to explain why a Dell (for example) P.C. is no
> cheaper "bare" (or with Linux) than it is with Windows?
It could be so. Microsoft will, after all, have another cash cow on the way.
Do not forget that Windows Vista will be even more incomplete (crippled) by
design because of the number of editions. Think of it as a free sample of an
addictive drug (okay, addicative sounds bad here, so think "dependency").
As for Dell, for the sake of completeness (archives, news readers, etc.):
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/
--
~~ Best regards
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie"
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