Re: David Faber Report : Putting 2 and 2 together

On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:44:37 -0600, John Galt wrote:

now back to my original point, the fact of
the matter is almost all corporate desktop computers sold include the
cost of a windows license. you cannot order a PC from any of the
major computer companies and get the cost reduced by $100 by telling
them you don't want to pay for a windows license because you're going
to put linux on it.

Sorry. My company does. From Lenovo. This laptop is still Windows, but
we support our entire corporate application suite on Red Hat, and as
our laptops get refreshed on a four year cycle, we'll be off MSFT. The
company no longer approves purchase orders for Windows or Office, nor
purchases machines with licences for those products resident.


well that's just dandy,

Yea, it is. I guess you were wrong.

if i'm wrong, you've not shown it. the issue i brought up long before
we got to this point was that vendors put out a couple models and claim
them as an alternative to windows but closer examination shows that a
similarly configured windows model costs the same. i specifically said
"don't even try to refute" unless you address that issue. (ie. prove
that the no-os computer is really $100 less than the same model with
windows by showing on their website where you can order the exact same
computer with or without the o.s. and that the price is actually reduced
by $100). i also specifically said that until a person can buy any PC
model/configuration combination from any of the major vendors that the
msft "tax" issue still exists. i've never said that it's not possible to
find "a" vendor selling "a" model without windows.

here's an article on the topic from 2007, the date's obviously not
current but the content is, imo, a good description of how it has always
been and i've seen little evidence that it has changed much since.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39286228-1,00.htm

"Top five PC manufacturers fail naked PC test
....
IT professionals are being forced to adopt Microsoft's operating systems
— even if they tell their PC supplier they want a system free of
Microsoft software, ZDNet UK's research has revealed.
....
The reasons — or excuses — were varied.
....
Acer said it would give our reporter a refund of £30 for not using
Windows, but would only make a refund if we drove to its Plymouth
"repair" centre. In contrast to other reports, Dell refused to refund the
Windows software if it went unused. Instead it offered to cancel the
shipping charge of £50 as a compromise.

We backed up our undercover enquiries with official calls to every one of
the five vendors. Two of the five — Acer and Toshiba — would not discuss
the matter with us. Dell, HP and Lenovo claimed it was possible to buy
naked PCs from their company — but our attempts to follow their guidance
to buy one proved impossible.

Dell and HP both claimed it was possible to buy a naked PC from them, but
we were unable to buy one from either vendor. Lenovo told us it sells PCs
with pre-installed Linux, but it could not tell us how we could buy such
a system.

Microsoft has placed considerable pressure on a number of PC vendors not
to sell systems without Windows. Critics have suggested that vendors have
yielded to such pressure because they are afraid of losing their bulk
purchasing discount with Microsoft. Others have suggested that it would
cost PC vendors considerably more in unit costs to produce naked PCs"


.

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