C
chrisv
Erik said:
What hardware, FUDmeister? On a typical office PC, all the hardware
is on the motherboard. You're full of shit, as usual, Erik.
What hardware, FUDmeister? On a typical office PC, all the hardware
is on the motherboard. You're full of shit, as usual, Erik.
C
chrisv
Erik said:
Idiot. That's not the point.
God, you are one fscking stupid, cretinous jerk, Erik. It's STILL
GOOD TO REDUCE COSTS. You can SELL MORE MACHINES if your price is
lower. Sheesh!
Erik thinks that there's no reason for a PC maker to innovate to
reduce costs, because his competitor will just do the same. Sheesh!
C
chrisv
Hadron said:
Your lies about how advocates changed their story on this issue
notwithstanding...
The OEM could just have a "Linux page" where you'd buy compatible
printers. Wow, that's difficult to figure out!
P
Peter Hayes
In said:
Vendor A will always be at an advantage over the competition, especially
as every round of cost cutting makes the cost of the Windows OS
proportionately greater.
$50 saved on a $199 machine makes it $149 - a substantial saving of 25%
or 33% depending where you begin your calculations.
Of course there's nothing to stop Microsoft dropping OEM prices to
virtually zero just to maintain market share, but that's a fast ride to
the bankrupcy court.
A
arachnid
Then you have to come up with something else. That's how the tech game is
played. I used to work in R&D. We'd come out with a feature knowing our
competition would copy us and in a year or two it would no longer set us
apart. So we had to keep coming out with new features faster than they
could copy us, and vice versa.
Also longevity isn't necessarily a part of the equation when other people
hold stock on your company. It's no secret that too many
stockholder-controlled American companies can't see farther than the next
quarter.
If that were true, nobody would ever look for a way to cut costs. After
all, the competition is just going to emulate you, and in a few years
you'll be right back where you were.
C
chrisv
Margrave said:
Oh really? Even when there can be $hundreds in savings in software
costs right off the bat with Linux?
Boy, you are a smart one.
B
Bob I
miss-information said:
The system ships with a blank hard drive, the just toss a CD in the box
with the PC when it goes out the door. And they don't make any bones
about "operating system support". They don't install it and they won't
support it. Maybe they will toss in a ubuntu cd next month if some one
will send them some freebies, same support.
C
chrisv
Kerry said:
Well then I guess we don't have much more to say. Personally I feel
it's quite obvious that if you offer a product that satisfies your
customers better than your (and your competitor's) existing products,
sales will increase.
Increased sales.
You also neglect that $hundreds in software costs can be saved by
using Linux.
K
Kerry Brown
arachnid said:Given the cutthroat margins in the computer industry, 10%-25% of the
cost of making the computer is not "insignificant" no matter how many
millions of dollars of business you do.
That I'll agree to. No matter how good Linux gets, it's going to take
a big manufacturer with some staying power to persuade people to give
up the devil they know.
Everyone's waiting around for someone else to be first.
That's very likely to be Mark Shuttleworth. He founded Thawte and
sold it for over $500 million so he has both the deep pockets and the
business skills. Judging by Ubuntu he also groks "user-friendly"
better than anyone else in the Linux world, which may be the most
important thing of all.
Whoever the OEM is, I'm certain the distro will be Ubuntu - and I
think Shuttleworth will do whatever advertising is necessary to get
Ubuntu accepted by the market. In fact it seems he's already doing
some marketing - he's mailing out free CD's to anyone who asks, and
Ubuntu billboards have been appearing in southern California.
The big players are being dragged in kicking and screaming because
governments and large businesses are beginning to adopt Linux. Losing
a bid for 5,000 machines because they're not linux-compatible tends
to get peoples attention, so most OEMs now have Linux compatible
machines. They don't advertise them as such because they're afraid
Microsoft will punish them with higher license fees, but they're
available if a business specifically asks for them.
I hope your scenario is right.
K
Kerry Brown
miss-information said:
It's a start but they offer no OS support for those systems. They aren't
really available to the average consumer. For an alternative OS to get a
foothold there would need to be a system that Joe Average could walk into a
store (or as in Dell' case phone a number from an ad) and walk out with a
system. Having to special order something that the rep on the phone probably
doesn't even know exists and has very poor support isn't going to help the
adoption of an alternative OS.
K
Kerry Brown
altheim said:
I haven't had a change of heart. I would like to see more diversity. My
scenario was an attempt at a bit of humour and also to point out some of the
hurdles that marketing an alternative OS would face. I like Linux, I use
Linux. I try to sell boxes with Linux on them. I am also a realist who has
been in business for a long time. I know what it takes to market and sell a
product. My scenario was a poke at the industry in general as much as
anything else. The industry is dominated by large companies who have no
interest in changing the status quo. They foist the image of computers as
easy to use consumer devices on the general public when most people in the
industry know this is anything but true. The poor consumer is so confused
and misinformed they tend to stick with something they know or at least have
heard about.
K
Kerry Brown
chrisv said:
For most consumers, yes that is difficult to figure out.
K
Kerry Brown
chrisv said:
We differ on this point. You are right in one aspect. If offering an
alternative OS resulted in increased sales then there would be no reason not
to do it. I haven't seen this personally in my small operation. As none of
the large OEM's have easily available systems with an alternative OS I'm
assuming they agree with me. It will take someone with deep pockets who is
willing to try it to prove which of us is right.
K
Kerry Brown
Alias~- said:
Living in North America I was not aware of this. Thank you for pointing this
out. The way the anti-trust laws are structured in Europe an alternative OS
has a slightly easier road to acceptance. Maybe if an alternative OS can
gain widespread acceptance there it will spread to the rest of the world. We
can only hope it will be so.
A
Alias~-
Kerry said:
MS isn't too crazy about the EU, is it?
Heh.
Alias
C
chrisv
Kerry said:
My point is this: Linux makes so much sense in so many ways, that
there's got to be "a reason" why it's not used more by the big OEM's.
That "reason" is Micro$oft incentives and pressure to not do so.
Anything about Linux being "too expensive to support" is bullshit.
A
arachnid
Why would they do that? Why not choose hardware that's compatible with
both Windows *and* Linux?
I worked in R&D for 25 years. If we didn't want to have to write the
drivers ourselves then we just told the supplier to come up with them or
we'd choose a different chipset from someone who would. The major
chipset suppliers all have teams whose sole job it is to fill these
requests. It's simply not the OEM's problem. Even if it were, you're
trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Creating drivers
represents an insignificant percentage of the overall production cost of a
computer.
If that were true, they wouldn't consider OSS at all and you wouldn't have
to run around FUDing all the time.
Except they don't have to hire their own programmers to do it because the
OSS developers are damn good and damn quick. Look at Intel's release of
the IA-64 and AMD's release of the AMD-64. In both cases company engineers
worked closely with open-source volunteers on coding the drivers. The very
day those chips were released, the open-source crew had a 64-bit OS
ready-to-go, all of their open-source drivers were already recompiled to
run on 64 bit systems, and they had thousands of 64-bit applications. A
year later Windows finally came along with an OS. Several years after that
we're still waiting for the Windows drivers and applications. Even
Microsoft is telling us a full set of 64-bit applications is at least
another year past the commercial release of Vista.
Now imagine that you're an OEM wanting to give consumers or a large
corporate customer a reason to replace their perfectly good hardware.
Touting the benefits of new technology is the usual way to go. However you
can't sell them on the new 64-bit CPU's if they run Windows and are tied
to all those 32-bit-only Windows apps. If only they ran Linux, though...
You mean like Intel and AMD needed to *know* there'd be an OS, drivers,
and applications for their new 64-bit CPU's?
Tell me Erik, who was there first - open source, or closed source?
Poor Erik. Your FUD is wearing so thin these days.
J
JEDIDIAH
Actually, I have a large number of Dells with an alternative OS.
This notion that large OEMs, PC OEMs, aren't willing to offer
alternative operating systems is quite misleading. They simply don't
see the profit on the DESKTOP side. It may be genuine or due to Microsoft
meddling. Either way it doesn't matter.
Linux is seeping into the PC OEM space, if not from the bottom
then from the top.
J
JEDIDIAH
Or they could have logos for each of the major platforms.
Dell might not want to completely ignore the Mac user.
A USB port is just a USB port, even on a minimac that Dell
didn't get to sell you.
H
Hadron Quark
Lies? What lies? Stop sticking your head in the and calling people
liars. It doesnt strengthen your position.
The OEM? But they dont make printers. But I see in a way you are
agreeing : look up first before purchasing as Linux doesnt support all
printers as well as windows.
liars. It doesnt strengthen your position.
The OEM? But they dont make printers. But I see in a way you are
agreeing : look up first before purchasing as Linux doesnt support all
printers as well as windows.