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Dell No Longer Selling Systems w/o Microsoft OS
UPDATES
1. Effective 8/26 - New Microsoft contract rules stipulate that we can no longer offer the "NO OS" option to our customers beyond September 1st. As such all customers currently purchasing a "NO OS" option on either OptiPlex, Precison or Latitude for the express purpose of loading a non-MS OS will have the following options:
1. Purchase a Microsoft OS with each OptiPlex, Precision or Latitude system.
2. For OptiPlex and Precision - purchase one of the new "nSeries" products (offered for GX260, WS340 & WS530 - details in the attached FAQ) that are being created to address a different OS support requirement other than a current standard Microsoft OS.
We must have all "No OS" orders shipped out of the factory by September 1st. The "No OS" legend code and SKUs will be I-coded on 8/19 and D-coded on August 26th to ensure shipment of orders prior to September 1st. FYI - this effects all of our competitors as well.
The second the computer hardware industry gets over it's undying need to profit and destroy its competitors, it can finally do something about Microsoft. If they were all to tell MS at the same time "Hey, guess what, we're going to dictate the terms of what OS goes on our machines now", then MS would be up a creek without a paddle. Unfortunately, the likelihood of this happening is slim to nil, the second a large comp manufacturer did this, the others would go the other way and run to MS saying "Look at what CompStore2002 is doing! We won't do that, give us a break on the licensing!"
Microsoft is using the greed of the industry against itself. Without hardware to run it on, software is useless, and Microsoft is useless. They are in a far more precarious position then they let on...Maybe it's time to give them a little scare
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Even if this is legit, is it really that big of a deal? Most Linux users know enough to ignore the "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell" dude, and build their own systems anyway.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
There are two problems with that:
1. Microsoft is pushing that having a computer with an OS other that installed on it is illegal (especially when they are donated to schools.)
2. More imporantly, Microsoft gets paid for every computer that sells with their OS. If you buy with theirs and remove it, you just gave MS your money for no reason.
~ kjrose
What they mean is that they are going to go from offering "hardware A, available as model B, with option C" to "hardware A available as model D which is available only with option C"
Bascially, the contract with MS says that they can't get the OEM price unless they sell the model in question with only MS products. So, they have to create another "model" which they ship without an OS. The obfuscation in the letter is designed to avoid outright saying that they're using the word of the contract against MS, so that MS can't say in court that Dell violated the contract in spirit (I'm not sure how defensible that would be, but if I were Dell, I'd avoid it too).
They didn't even get a slap on the wrist for this behavior.
Read the court's findings of fact. The court decided this behavior was an "anti-piracy" measure--not the anti-competition measure it really was.
I see lots of angry condemations here - but this is actually very typical price negotiation. Microsoft didn't go to Dell and tell them they couldn't sell PCs with other OSes or they wouldn't sell them Windows any more. Microsoft went to Dell and offered them huge discounts to Windows if they signed an exclusive offer. Dell saw the dollar signs and agreed.
Dell has done a pretty good job with their letter blaming MS...but MS would be ignoring basic business practices if it didn't offer and option like this. I'm sure Dell is happy with the deal and laughing all the way to the bank.
Imagine the same action taken by a large publisher in the bookselling industry.
Barnes and Noble: "Our contract with HarperCollins stipulates we can no longer sell blank journals or college ruled notebooks. Customers will have the following options:
1. Purchase a book published by HarperCollins.
2. Purchase a book published by another publisher.
HarperCollins demanded this because we all know people don't use blank paper to write their own stories or notes, but to pirate their intellectual property.
FYI-This affects all our competitors as well."
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Look, I'm not some fanatical Linux Zealot on the fringes of society. I'm a programmer, system administrator, IT manager, whatever you want to call it. I use Linux and other free OSs, and I really hate being treated like some psycho zealot on the fringe when I try to avoid doubly (and sometimes triply) licensing microsoft software for Clients' PCs. ("You want what? We don't do that? Whats a EULA?" HP, Compaq, Gateway and now Dell. its all the same.) I mean, honestly, where is my FTC? Where is my consumer protection? It goes beyond frustrating.
Wendell
To illustrate the monopoly issue here, what would actually happen is this. Firestone would tell Ford that they have to outfit everything with firestone tires. Then Ford would put out a bid to the other manufacturers to provide a replacement for Firestone's tire. One of them would undercut Firestone, if for no other reason, than to keep them from taking over Ford's tires, and that'd be that. This is what happens in a competitive market, unlike what we see in the O/S market.
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Actually MS fraud would be more like their statement that their OSDN kits contain the complete Win32 API and that there are no secret API calls reserved for MS developers. That's an actual material fraud made over the course of several years and has changed the course of computing.
A lot of people believed in that promise and it gave MS the largest ISV community on the planet. And it was all built on a lie, one that MS now claims it never made.
What completely blows me away is that all the anti-MS people can't get their act together enough to document it and bring a class-action lawsuit based on it.
Despite all the rhetoric coming out of our government about how horrible this is and how we need a return of ethic to corporations, I'll be very surprised if anything really changes in the long run. The only real change I expect to see is stock holders will change the rules for their CEO's because it isn't in their long term best interest for a CEO to over-inflate his options and bail out.
But as far as ethics in business go, there is only one ethic: make money. The system is set up to encourage a company to find the shortest path to greatest profitability, and that's the way it will likely always be. Is this bad? Depends on what you want companies to accomplish. If you want them to achieve economic growth, increasing efficiency, etc, then they are ideally groomed to do this (as our economy has demonstrated over the past decades). But don't expect any higher moral sense to come out of a company unless there is a profit motive behind it. It can happen, but the system isn't designed to encourage it.
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Hm. Adding useful features to please the user *after* a monopoly is already established. How much sense does that make?
It's called "maintaining a revenue stream". Microsoft has no choice but to continually enhance their product, competition or no, or else people will no longer buy upgrades every few years. No new revenue == pissed off shareholders.
Of course, when they can't come up with any good ideas, they just break compatibility. Try using ANY Office document made with a new version on an older version. I'm sorry, but there's no technical reason at all why an Excel spreadsheet made under XP can't be opened in Office97. Just leave whatever miniscule new features that exist from being used. However, they don't do this. And as all new PCs come with OfficeXP, when you replace some of your office machines, guess what? You have to then go and upgrade ALL of your Office versions, at several hundred dollars a pop. For what benefit? I haven't seen any signifigant improvement in the Office suite since at least 4.2. I still word process the same way, and do spreadsheets the same way.
Fact of the matter is, Microsoft uses their monopoly position to force you to buy new software every few years, unless you're in the unlikely position of being able to keep every single one of your old machines doing what you want them to do, forever. And for the most part, it has nothing to do with adding new features.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I thought one of the stipulations of their settlement with the DOJ was that they wouldn't do that sort of thing any more.
The funny part is, that MS want's us to sell PCs with operating system and customers wants to get PCs without a preinstalled OS.
My firm is solving this thing by just adding a SuSE-Live-Eval CD to any PC that is delivered with an empty hard disk. So the customer is fine since he doesn't have to pay extra "MS taxes" and MS can't complain since we are shipping every PC with an operating system.
Dell makes great stuff, but hardly worth the price it fetches.
I just slapped together a dual p4 xeon2.0ghz system for 2500. It has a gig of rambus, 80 gighd, DVD burner and a gforce4ti4200 something a rather.
Dell only offered Xeons in the p3 flavor, similiar setup for around 800 dollars more.
I used to be a sysadmin, I know all the service benefits dell gives (pre-imaged systems, 24hr on-site part replacement, ect) but I think if you compare the cost a network being admin'ed by dell with a sysadmin who just "makes calls to dell" all day to the cost of a network being admin'd by a sysadmin who maintains an inventory of spare parts, uses ghost or NT2k Remote installation services, and buys his/her parts from a local screwdriver shop I really do think you would see a huge difference.
Parts don't really break that often, windows does. Especially outlook. Is there really a savings to pay for that dell "protection money"?
If you're currently a sysadmin in charge of some large corporate network, speak with your dollars, not with your slashdot. Try and talk your company into standardizing on a single platform. Here let me spec out a good standard...
Nvidia video (single unified driver = less driver headaches)
Creative sound (the standard by which all follow)
3com networking
Other than the motherboards changing over the next few years you won't really need to do a lot of work to maintain these machines over the next few years. Be smart, implement home directories and tell everyone to put whatever they want backed up in there. That way you can wipe their machines without hassle.
well, thats my 0.02. Wish I had caught the article sooner.
> Hm. Adding useful features to please the user *after* a monopoly is already
> established. How much sense does that make?
Well, suppose you are a monopoly - and near-as-dammit 100% of computers have your
software installed.
How do you stay in business when 100% of your customer base already owns
what you are selling them?
1) You add features - make it easier to use - so people will pay to upgrade.
2) You ban people from using the software they own on their next computer
by writing things like WinXP that physically prevent that.
3) You stop people from installing the software they already own on their
next computer by preventing people like Dell from selling computers
without another copy of the OS on them.
Microsoft are doing all three of those things...Duh.
Windoze version N *does* have competition - but that competition is
Windoze version N-1 and that's not helping the monopoly situation.
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