Wal-Mart Lindows PCs Selling Well

andyring writes "CNN.com is reporting that sales of the $199 PCs have exceeded expectations. Although CNN terms them "full fledged, if low power," it seems customers don'd mind all that much if their computer does not run Windows and doesn't carry an Intel processor. Slashdot covered two reviews of those machines July 4."

Comments

There are great!

[IrvineHosting]

I just bought one of these for my dad. I installed redhat 8.0 and he loves it! He doesn't know the difference between it and windows. It is fun to watch is use mozilla for web browsing and mail. If microsoft disappeared off the planet I really think desktop computing would go on fine at this point.

$200 Walmart PCs with Mandrake?

[joestar]

Would be great... Because leaving Lindows to Linux newcomers is really the worst thing that can happen to them! 1) proprietary stuff everywhere 2) using the system as root = welcome to viruses in the future and so on.

Users need a real and *easy to use* Linux system! A pre-installed Mandrake Linux (8.2 or 9.0) is in my opinion the best system they can be offered. It's real Free Software, it's secure, it's fast, it's reliable, and there are many many software available for it.

Lindows' success is the result of it's CEO's address large book really a bad for Linux because it's just an attempt to provide a *very badly designed* system that looks as closely as possible to Windows.

This isn't the future of masses computing in any way in my opinion.

And with Christmas coming

[phorm]

It will be definately interesting to see how well these sell, and more importantly, what the sell-to-return ratio is after Christmas. I expect a lot of people are saying "hey, cheap computer!" and putting it under the tree.

Heck, for some guy buying a computer for his almost-never-used-a-PC-before granny/mother/aunt/etc this is a great present. Cheap, goes online, runs a word processor. They're not super-fast, but they're not retarded-slow either.

I doubt you'll see many gamers buying these, but for those who are just trying to get some letters printed and emails sent, it's a good deal.

Re:I may seem like a troll for saying this

[Raiford]

Right. Remember that folks that shop at Wal-Mart don't mind having an Emerson brand stereo system. Why should a computer system be any different. That was a real stroke of genius on their part !

Re:Intel that big a selling point?

[enjo13]

Yes.. The Intel logo does make a pretty big difference. Intel really does enjoy tremendous brand recognition and people tend to associate Intel with top of the line computer power.

However, while Intel is a big brand, Walmart is many orders of magnitude bigger. People are willing to overlook the lack of recognizable and trusted brand on the box because they have such high brand loyalty to Walmart.

Walmart has that effect. If anyone can inspire change in the industry.. its a retailer like Walmart. They have legions of loyal customers who trust them to stock merchandise that they can rely on... That's why I like this so much. Its only going to be much later that all of a sudden people realize that hundred of thousands (if not millions) of people are running these Linux PC's.. and THAT will be the day that people will finally realize that there is a world outside of Microsoft. THAT will be the day that Microsoft will begin to lose its desktop monopoly.