On Nov 10, 8:37 am, Hadron <hadronqu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> William Poaster <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:02:13 +0000, Homer wrote:
> >> That, ladies and gentlemen, is racketeering, pure and simple.
>
> Garbage. People want Windows. The suppliers sell more PCs by including
> Windows. People simply do not want to install an OS. They have no need
> to and why should they. Hardcore geeks who want to can buy from another
> source or reinstall after.
That's probably more in question right now. Apple is now about to
become #2 by dollar volume, and #1 in terms of profit. There are now
a bunch of really upset PC makers who have been bleeding red ink over
Vista, and if Obama doesn't enforce the clause of the Antitrust
Settlement telling Microsoft not to interfere with OEM's attempts to
sell competitor products like Linux - the OEMs very likely will. Acer
and ASUS have already gotten concessions from Microsoft by offering
"Linux-only" sub-notebook machines to the retail market. Microsoft
gave them XP Home edition, but even then, they are selling more of the
Linux machines than they ever expected.
More and more companies are switching more and more corporate
workstations to Linux - usually starting with Point of Service systems
then Call Center systems and eventually managers and executives. The
Retailers are fed up too. CompUSA went bankrupt and had to close down
almost all of their retail stores. Circuit City just filed for
bankruptcy and is also likely to have to close down many of it's
stores, if not all. The PC has been a horrible loss engine,
ESPECIALLY since the release of Vista.
> >> Hardon obviously doesn't like choice, because he supports this
> >> racket.
> I support giving people what they want. And why I was so pleased to see
> DELL offer a Linux solution.
The problem is that, especially in the United States, you can't
actually walk into a retail store and get a hands-on experience of
Linux on that Dell.
It was a huge breakthrough to have ASUS and ACER sub-notebooks on
retail shelves during back-to-school season. ASUS reported that 60%
of the EEEs sold were Linux versions. When people actually get a
first-hand experience of Linux, it's new, different, but not so
horrible that they couldn't consider using it at all.
What the OEMs and Retailers REALLY want, is the same deal Apple gets,
the ability to ship machines with *nix AND Windows, using parallels or
something equally practical and cheap.
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