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____/ Rex Ballard on Wednesday 30 July 2008 21:21 : \____
> I was overseas and had some last minute shopping to do before I came
> home. I went to a store that was described to me as "The WalMart of
> the Eastern Hemisphere", with stores throughout Europe, the Middle
> East, and Asia.
>
> I was there earlier this month picking up a cell phone, and they had
> the usual PCs, laptops and desktops, all pre-loaded with Vista, and
> all configured and priced for XP.
>
> But this week, I saw something that almost made my jaw drop. There
> were a whole new selection of computers, starting with a low end model
> from C4, some company I haven't heard of, offering a machine with 1
> gig of RAM, 120 gig hard drive, and "No OS" for about $600. There
> also new computers from ASUS and Acer, with similar configurations,
> and one of the Acer models had a larger disk drive, and was preloaded
> with Linux.
>
> Further back, there were some other boxes, one with XP, and several
> with Vista, all running almost $1200 in price. Of course, this was
> with 4 gig of RAM and 250 gig hard drive.
>
> The store had also figured out how to get around Microsoft's objection
> to a side-by-side comparison, by turning off all of the computers and
> locking them into displays which prevented anyone from typing on the
> keyboards.
>
> Of course, if you wanted to see one of the Linux systems in action,
> the salesperson could take it out and boot it up for you. And if you
> wanted to see the Vista machine boot up, he could put the Linux
> machine away and boot up the Vista version.
>
> If you wanted to get an OS for your PC, the books and magazines
> section had several different flavors of Linux, including Ubuntu,
> Fedora, and OpenSuse an well as a few other flavors.
>
> With all of the machines turned off, there was a very strong argument
> for Linux. It seems that if you want Vista, you will now have to pay a
> premium in both hardware and licenses.
>
> Oh, yes. There was also a Dell laptop that was also configured with
> "No OS".
> I also noticed that there were no "loose" copies of Vista anywhere.
> No OEM disks that the dealer could install for a price, no "under the
> table deal". Since the penalties for stealing are very severe, it
> seems that the store will take no chances on piracy.
>
> If the price-tags weren't enough of a deterrent, one would think that
> even the boot-up would really bad news for Microsoft. Linux, even
> when booted from a hard drive, gives you a fully functional system in
> about 1 minute. On the other hand, if Vista boot-up is anything like
> XP boot-up, the user will be looking at a pretty desktop after about
> 60 seconds, and will wait another 2-3 minutes for the system to
> actually become functional.
>
> All I can say is bravo to this chain. Maybe in a few weeks, I'll give
> you the name of the chain, but for now, I think they deserve to stay
> out of Microsoft's radar.
When I shopped for a computer a month ago there was over $100 worth of discount
to get a PC without an O/S, which was _advertised_ too. In fact, I think all
machines came without an O/S by default. The O/S is just an add-on.
Things are changing.
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | "The speed of time is one second per second"
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
05:20:01 up 9 days, 15:26, 1 user, load average: 0.85, 0.71, 0.66
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
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