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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.
Interestingly enough, I was trying to explain this same concept to my father no longer then an hour ago. I'll have to show him this note.
He seems to beleive that "they just make the better product, so people buy it. That's why they are so big. Not because they're an evil company"
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purchase one of the new "nSeries" products that are being created to address a different OS support requirement other than a current standard Microsoft OS. Are they talking Linux here, or what? Does anybody have a link to the mentioned FAQ?
M$ has always been brash...I think it's this type of charging at the US government that has always kept them off-kilter. That, and their large portion of the US economy has made the Government skittish about confronting their obviously Monopolistic tactics.
All it's going to take is a young Attorney with the lack of political awareness to tell the Emperor that he has no clothes.
So let's toast to the young an Naive. Personally, in a world where M$ can do this, I think drunk is a preferred state.
Going Boldy where I surely don't belong,
JoeLinux
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet plane engines.
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)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, this might mean any of several things:
a) There has been some legal development in what's left of the legal arguement that we don't know about, but is distinctly in Microsoft's favor, and has made them more bold
b) Dell might have decided that the "No OS" clause doesn't restrict them from selling Linux boxes, and along with other vendors allowed Microsoft to set these terms to get cheaper licenses. What Microsoft defines as "No OS" isn't clear, but Linux certainly isn't "No OS", at least here in the real world.
c) Microsoft is becoming increasingly worried that the legal proceedings are not going well, and wants to get this new contract into effect before the judge forbids such moves
d) Or the most likely of all - Microsoft is ignoring all legal and consumer issues and is being openly anticompetitive in order to milk the cash cow some more. Maybe they believe that if they act like the consumer doesn't and shouldn't give a rip about it, it will be true.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Seriously, before we go off on a big spree about how Microsoft is bad and all that, let's keep in mind that Dell could have fought the licensing in court if they really wanted to. They could have used the precedent of Microsoft as a monopoly to tell them to fsck off. Microsoft could have tried to "punish" them, and Dell could have beat them down even further. There is/was a perfect chance to fight against the monopoly, but Dell just turned over and gave up.
Yes we're all QUITE aware of how evil M$ is. I could rant about that for days, but here on Slashdot it's preaching to the choir. What I see here is a company (Dell) basically enabling that evil to thrive. Wanna boycott something? Boycott Dell and make them realize they should have fought back.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
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).
This announcement will not have any affect upon the current litigation. At least not the case by the States.
The reason is that all testimony has already been taken.
It is just like the stupid decision by the appellate court that Microsoft did not try to monopolize the browser market. That was clearly incorrect but the court is strapped with the evidence in the case as of the testimony. And as of years earlier, Microsoft only acheived about a 50% market share. And, with those facts before the appellate court, you are likely to get such an opinion.
However, when the AOL case gets to the jury, facts will be completely different. Then 90-95% will be evidence. Very different indeed.
That is a basic problem with the legal system and it is why Microsoft lawyers can lie in public the way they do. Microsoft lawyers lie to the press and to the public based upon old facts that are clearly no longer relevant. But, to the ignorant, it is a sale.
Funny, however, that Microsoft again starts to lie about having a monopoly.
But, they are just a bunch of cheap liars anyway. They have proven that numerous times.
Remember the idiot under oath who told the judge that SUNs JVM was not included with XP because of the GPL?
And, remember the idiot that told the judge that Microsoft will withdraw from the market if it does not like the judgment?
And, remember the three stouges that each claimed they thought removing icons had something to do with commingled code.
Microsoft's lies are not even credable and yet they spit them out to defraud consumers. And, the judges as it turns out.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
It should probably be noted that this probably does not include PowerEdge servers. While I have never been able to figure out how to get an OptiPlex system without a Microsoft OS, I believe the servers will still offer the no-OS/linux OS option.
I didn't receive the e-mail, but the snippet above does not mention servers and they are usually handled differently.
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.
Lets say that Firestone tells Ford that if they want Firestone's high performance special tire for a new Ford hot rod (only made by Firestone) Ford has to outfit their entire product line with Firestones. It's an all or nothing deal. What happens then? Bridgestone, Cooper, and all the other manufacturers sue. They'd probably win too. How come that doesn't work here? This just plain sucks.
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
VADER: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
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.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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.
This company pays only 1.8% in federal taxes
No they don't. M$ pays **NO** federal taxes (and no, I am not making this up).
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
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.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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.
That's what I'm buying for my clients.
Here's a link to one of their server config menus.
On the menu is Win2k, Netware and no OS. So MS doesn't have the strength to do this on servers as they do on desktops. That would be my conclusion, as they'll only do whatever they can for their own profit - consumers be damned.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
Actually, the libertarian and conservative factions are based less upon anti-trust ideology than just "anti-government anything". This is particularly true with the Cato Institute. They do not defend Microsoft as against AOL but rather just think the government should stay out of it.
As for fraud, you do need the deception or lie (and it only needs to deceive) but you also need the transaction where they get your money.
Lying to consumers about the price of IE is one example. You can lie and claim the billion dollar development project has no affect upon the price of the product, but the law says otherwise. Economics say otherwise. Corporations simply do not spend billions in R&D for a product they do not think they will get a return on. They just do not do that. Looking at the price of the OS before and after IE is bundled is not the test. As a matter of law, each item in the box is attributed to have received some of that money. And, even Microsoft claimed to stockholders that some money they get is allocated to IE. Of course, they tell stockholders one thing (the returns) but lie to the public (free product). But, when as a matter of law it is not free (as was in fact decided by Judge Jackson and not overturned by the appellate court) then saying it is free is fraudulent. And, perhaps actionable fraud.
The consumer class action suits against Microsoft are not over yet either. It will be interesting to see if some of that action is based upon fraud. Most likely it is but I have not read the complaints. There is about 100 of them. So, I am sure more than one made a claim for fraud in addition to the antitrust violations.
The problem with the API claim is with the money aspect. When Microsoft claims that no APIs are hiddle and developers are duped, technically they are not buying the product. Rather they are developing and helping to support it. They have been conned just the same. But, for actionable fraud some money or property has to flow from the mark to the deceiving liar. And, I do not think the mark has to actually believe the lie and in fact rely upon it. I think in many jurisdictions it is enough that the claim is false and the false claim was made for the purpose of getting the money or property. Some "marks" may very well not believe a statement but go along anyway suffering as the result (out of their money).
The FTC could be more instrumental here. Just as with PassPort, if claims are false, they should be held accountable. But, then as with PassPort, sometimes the "criminal" just agrees to stop while keeping tbe benefit of the false statements to date.
That is why it is very important that the illegal gains made by Microsoft in the browser market be turned back. Antitrust law is supposed to be capable of undoing illegal gains. But, if IE is not placed into open source by the remedy or IE's share of the market is not restricted or returned to 20% or so, the antitrust laws failed. And, anyone looking at that will just assume they are of no value. That is what Gates said and thinks. And, that is why that idiot violates federal law so much.
In the end, Gates may decide it was not worth it. But, if the AOL judgement is less that 10 billion or so, Gates will be conviced that illegal means are good business.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
I can't help but think about how MicroSoft is a monopoly-in-restraint-of-trade as bad as the American railroad ones of the 19th century.
In the 19th century, railroad monopolies charged people fees for shipping on competing lines. The goal was that you only do business with one rail line. Microsoft's response to BeOS is much like this one. Microsoft, like the monopolistic rail lines, coerced its customers, the OEMs, not do business with a competitor. However, instead of charging imaginary fees as punishment, MS uses sealed OEM licenses to forbid them from installing dual boot OSes.
However, I see why MicroSoft uses such tactics. If people got computers with Windows and BeOS dual boot or Windows and Mandrake Linux, people would actually realize that there's no reason to use only Windows.
BTW, although not monopolistic or evil, MS's frequent changes to the Word format is like the railroad lines' stubbornness against choosing a standard gauge.
On a personal not, this seems like it could have almost affected my situation. I recently bought a computer online from a NE Ohio computer company without an OS. I was planning on running GNU/Linux until I began studying at OSU, where I could get a legal copy of WinXP from a Microsoft club for $5. Of course, recent /. stories on EULA changes made me decide to use Win2k instead, and I bought a Like New copy through half.com. Unfortunately, Windows refuses to run because I have an "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". I feel like using an illegal copy Windows if I can't get it to work.
Restaurants typically sell only one soft-drink vendor line, such as Pepsi vs. Coke, in order to get the best pricing/terms on the deal. In part it's the volume that does this (if they sold both, each would sell at half the level, and they wouldn't get the biggest price break), and the salesman push to get an exclusive deal (he gets more commission).
That doesn't hold for all establishments though. My local 7-11 has fountains for both Pepsi and Coke products (though nicely segregated). I guess for them the increased business and "goodwill" from having both sets of products outweighs the cost-savings of signing to an exclusive deal.
Perhaps something for PC suppliers to take note of.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Yes, I don't have to buy Dell, but there are good reasons. For one, they are just down the street.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Well, according to this, Microsoft paid $1,288,000,000 in income tax on $4,026,000,000 of total earnings in 02q1. That's closer to 32% than 0%, by my calculations.
I had an interesting experience just this morning. I have been a firm believer in a few things:
- Proprietary UNIX operating environments like Solaris and AIX are, in all aspects, the best platform for back office services
... i.e. data warehousing, CRM, etc.
- Linux based operating environments are the best platform for front tier platforms like web servers, app servers, file & print, etc. (especially using SAMBA, RH puts Win2K to shame!)
- Windows, especially Win2K (XP isn't worth the $$$ to upgrade) is the best choice for the typical office user and home user.
But, I've been wanting to try out Linux on a PC and see how much it's improved at the consumer level. So, I installed RedHat 7.3 on my IBM T20 laptop. I've had this laptop for nearly 2 years. I have a CD I built with all necessary Windows 2000 drivers on it. The machine came with Win98 and I didn't feel like getting IBM's Win2K, so I just used a generic Win2K installation that I own. I had to download about 20 IBM specific drivers and install them before the laptop worked "right". It functioned, but not well.So, I downloaded RH 7.3 iso's from NASA (blazing download speeds, over 1.7 Mbps) and burned the install CD's. I then popped CD #1 in my laptop and rebooted. In less than 1 hour my laptop was a functional dual-boot machine. I let RedHat make all the install decisions, rather than customizing like I would do on a server. I allowed GRUB to be my boot loader. It boots both Win2K and RH beautifully, no issues. RH runs great AND I didn't have to download one single driver to get my system to work with Linux. Win2K doesn't include support for my 2 year old network card, so I have to have that driver downloaded before attempting a Win2K install on this laptop, no such problem with RH.
I'm a believer now. RH 7.3 is definitely ready for the average end user's PC. The installation is no more difficult than Windows, if you set it to boot to graphical logon mode life is easy. And once in Gnome (or KDE) all the tools that a typical end user might want are there. With about the same amount of effort that it takes to install Office XP that same user can download, install and use Open Office (that took me about 30 minutes).
Best of all, I didn't have to use knowledge gained in 10 years of implementing and administering UNIX servers. It was pretty damn easy. To get the same easy installation with Win2K on a laptop I need to get the OEM version of Win2K appropriate to my laptop OR I can just get the generic RH distro. No issues, no worries, no compatibility problems.
Bottom line, MS OS is no longer superior in the consumer market based on what I just saw, and the Linux price is hard to beat. For the user who doesn't want to deal with creating their own CD's they can pick up the boxed set of RH for a low price down at Best Buy. Within an hour they can have a functioning system that is equal to Windows. The only thing keeping it from going mainstream is games. Come on game developers. Get those games running on Linux and MS is in big trouble.
In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
The fact that the OEMs may have a choice to put on a different operating system is not the point. The consumer should have the choice to buy a computer and any operating system they want--without paying any M$ tax.
Back around 1996 or so, I wanted to buy a fully assembled computer, and I wanted to put OS/2 on it. I searched everywhere. Not only did all the stores not want to sell computers with OS/2, they also said they wouldn't sell me a system unless I bought one with either Win95 or DOS/Win3.11. There was no free market, because I did not have any choice but to buy a M$ system! This type of situation is the reason anti-trust laws were made.
Microsoft only has about 35 billion dollars, and I believe their GDP is greater than that of Bolivia, or Uruaguay or something.
Looking at this logically, they have all this money and favorable public support so there is no Political solution to the problem. People like Microsoft.
So, a small number of us hate them, because we choose to not run windows. Welp, sorry to say, this IS a democracy (ok, *cough*) and the majority has spoken. Until the majority gives a fuck, nothing will change. You can lobby congress about the blah blah blah and this and that, but the bottom line is that M$ makes money for America, so it is a Good Thing. It puts money into the pockets of the shrinkwrapper at the factory and the needy Senator alike.
But yes, it goes beyond frustration. Having to pay for something you don't use. Like, dammit, I had to pay for the spare tire in my car, but I've never had to use it. That's bullshit, I should never have to pay for it unless I use it.
Guess what, you still have a choice. DON'T BUY DELL! You can get PC's without OS's on them from other manufacturers. Yes, the manufacturers will probably be hurt by MS's licensing requirements. SO WHAT! Buy from a open source only builder. Or build yourself. Or hire some college student to build for you for 10/hr!
Or if it really has you that worked up, buy a gun, and shoot yourself, because MS isn't going away, the bastards.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
It's pretty easy to explain what this entails and why this is happening - I'll make a bet that the XP installs that Dell ships after the cutoff date won't need to be 'activated' through Microsoft, but will recognize the machine and bios as a 'licensed platform'. This effectively means that the OS license is built into the machine - so so Microsoft won't let them ship them without paying Microsoft.
Ok, so maybe Dell will make a few machines ('n-series') that don't run Windows - but they're now a completely different machine. The previous court order stating that Microsoft cannot charge for every machine sold (regardless of OS) has now been circumvented.
That's enough of a step backwards to behaviour already found to be illegal on it's own, but this seems to be the first step towards making manufacturers have to distinguish "Microsoft ready' machines from OS agnostic machines.
A few more steps like this, differentiating Microsoft machines from the others, and it's a sure bet that the commodity hardware - 'Microsoft OS ready' machines - are going to be the much vaunted 'Trusted platform' - complete with a bios that will REFUSE to boot anything except a Microsoft OS.
Yes, I'm paranoid about Microsoft's intentions. but I suspect that I'm not being paranoid enough.
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
The issue is not so much what you desire, but what you are willing to do to get it. There's nothing wrong with working hard and getting "stuff" (where stuff is money or regard or political clout or whatever coin interests you). There IS something wrong with hurting other people in order to get "stuff", and that's what capitalism has so far failed to address.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Fact - you can't sue a company for refusing to sell you something (or providing you service). If they refuse to deal with you, you can only go to the competition.
Fact - The competition is also doing the same thing.
Fact - You are locked out. You cannot buy a machine without paying financial tribute to Microsoft.
In any other field/industry (telecom anyone?), this would instantly lead to class action suits.
So how would you go about "generating" a class action suit?
Here's the how-to:
Pre-requisites:
First, get yourself a class-action compatible lawyer. Don't worry about costs - you will incur none. Any law firm worth its salt will recognise the publicity value of this action.
Coordinate with people across the country, and make sure that they have a legal representative with them when you do the following:
Action:
1. On a pre-decided day (post Sep 1 - if that date applies to Dell, it will probably apply to all others aswell), have many individuals attempt to buy a PC without an OS from Dell, IBM, HP/Compaq, etc. Make sure that these are *individuals*, not *groups* - groups make bad class-action initiators, groups of individuals have the under-dog advantage, and besides, groups may put the "target" on alert (witness the anti-Microsoft tax day that effectively achieved *nothing*).
2. Make sure *everything* is documented (in writing whereever possible, witnessed by a legal rep if on the phone or in a shop).
3. Collate the unsuccessful experiences of *all* these inidividuals, cataloging experience with each computer company to show:
a. Policy within the company in question
b. The big picture - that this is an industry-wide phenomenon.
At all times, keep in mind that the computer companies are as much victims as you are - keep that in mind.
That's it. Let the lawyers take it from there. This is the stuff their wet dreams are made up of. Just make sure that thelaw firm gets plenty of publicity to:
a. Encourage them to keep going
b. Discourage them from backing out (either because they turn chicken or because the seniorpartners mysteriously start driving fancy cars).
Remember this - like the cases against the tobacco industry, there is valid evidence there that what is happening is not good for citizens of your country. It will be a long battle, but with enough evidence out there, vote-dependant Government officials will begin to see the light, especially when they start losing elections. With that danger, they will clamour to bring this matter to justice, i.e. into court.
And once in court facing the *people* (instead of purchasable commodities like senators), there is very little chance of victory for Microsoft (or anyone else who tries stunts like this).
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you