Re: Woohooo! Dell + Linux

<snip>

Max Hyre <max@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Their per-hardware-unit-sold
license was so much cheaper than the per-OS-copy-sold
license that it made no sense to do anything else. Thus,
any system sent out already had the cost of MS-DOS (later MS
Windows) built into its price. Hence, remarks about the
``Microsoft Tax''.

Once this happens, adding any other OS, no matter what
(>= 0) its price, means more effort for the manufacturer.
It raises the cost of the sale, and Linux is frozen out by
economics.

Thats a very fine point, I totally agree!

What I am wondering is when will the lost sales to consumers who want
Gnu/Linux on their boxes will outway the extra cost. In other words at
what cost say Gnu/linux offer >= lost sales.

I do think the Windows tax is a perceived cost even as you so pointed out
might not be a factual one. I think that consumers, expect to see a
Gnu/Linux system to be cheaper. So if I was Dell I would offer a base
model about 15-30 dollars cheaper then a similar Windows box let the
consumer choose the addons. I bet the increase in volume sales would make
up for poor product margins. I just hope that HP will get into somewhat
of a marketing war with Dell, see who can have the best Gnu/Linux offer.

One good thing that I see come out of this is good Gnu/Linux hardware
support. If this catches on, has some good volumes you might see Windows
only hardware support decline as it would be much cheaper just to use
Gnu/Linux. The cost to certify hardware for Windows might make that
choice easy, when a company knows they will not sell hardware to
Gnu/Linux and only have Windows they might change behavior. In fact you
might see a reversal instead of having hardware support for Windows, you
will have it for Gnu/Linux, then you have to add the cost of all the
different versions of Windows ie 64 bit Vista, 32 bit XP on and on.

Gnu_Raiz


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