Will Microsoft Subsidize WinXP For Lindows Buyers?

kinema writes "Ars Technica has an interesting little article about Microsoft's alleged "dumping" of Windows XP. It seems that Microsoft is selling XP through TigerDirect for only US$50 to customers who have purchased a Lindows computer." Note that Tiger says nothing like this on their site (No, you can't buy WinXP for $50 there); Lindows CEO Michael Robertson says (in the linked column) that "Microsoft's latest offers to TigerDirect are extremely lucrative and I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately cave to Microsoft's pocketbook." PR ploy or reality, you decide.

Comments

Why

[Cackmobile]

If you had bought a Lindows system, why would you wanna buy XP. You've obviously made a choice not to buy windows.

Re:Why

[twstdr00t]

Because if the decision was based mostly on price, $50 looks a lot better then $200.

Re:Why

[llamalicious]

...and then you use it, can't communicate effectively or share files 100% with the rest of your family, see a cheap way to get that "Windows thing my sister, brother, aunt and uncle have" and say, hmm, only $50...

Not trolling, I'm dead serious. If one of my less technically inclined siblings bought a Lindows machine from Wal*Mart, you can be sure after a few days or weeks of using it for emailing stuff back and forth (excel, word, ppt, whatever) with the other family members, they be begging to get Windows on their computer (Why can I open this CoolStuff.ppt on my computer??.) Ok, in fairness, they wouldn't necessarily be begging for Windows, per se, but they'd be begging to be able to have a working solution. Just for the numerous kids educational titles out there they'd get it.

Please, don't start in with the run it on Wine shit either, unless your going to provide free on-site tech support to resolve library and native vs. Wine dll issues on each piece of software they have.

Yes, I do know I reference MS Office file types up there, which cost far more than the discounted $50 XP. I'm over-generalizing just to make a point. IMO Lindows is great, for someone who *knows* they want to get away from Microsoft, or want to get started in Linux without starting up a distro from a Floppy, network install or CD and figuring it all out. But not for any typical home user I know...

Now, to my actual point:
Yes, I've used a Lindows machine a family member bought on a whim; it's no longer running Lindows. You better believe they didn't know it didn't have Windows. Lindows/Windows... it's all the same... right??? He didn't have a clue what he was getting. None. I'll be a good chunk of all the Lindows machine buying folks don't know either.

Ahhh... well, that's my big rant for the day, time for some coffee to calm me down.

Agree/disagree...? I wanna hear about it.

Re:Why

[Quantum Skyline]

Agree wholeheartedly.

The average user doesn't know the difference between Windows/Lindows, except the fact that there is no Word, Excel, Outlook (Express), etc yet. No one's heard of WordPerfect. Barely anyone I know uses Netscape. I would have to explain why Kazaa doesn't work...and they don't care about alternatives - its Kazaa or bust. Can't run MSN Messenger? Screw it. Even if Sim or Everybuddy or GAIM is better.

Most people who are buying a computer that cheap are buying it because it is that cheap. They don't care what's on it as long as it runs the games it needs without any extra work. I try to educate users about licensing, but explain to a 12 year old like I did this weekend the concept of copyright and licensing. It goes right over their heads. And since parents probably know less than their kids about computers, parents will ask "Is this what you want?", get an affirmative, and pull out the Visa.

Kids get to play their games, parents get rid of another headache.

Re:Why

[mgv]

Excuse me, if you want to open Words, Excel, etc, you can use Open Office. It works fine for me.

Then you haven't tried to put motion video into your talks. I do alot of talks, and they have alot of video's in them - 1 second repeating loops to be precise, for technical reasons. But the problem applies for any video. (I have actually though of reencoding some of this stuff as an animated gif, which would be a really ugly solution ....)

Open office doesn't do video, or other fancy includes. It doesn't do the macros for excel right.

That doesn't make it bad, but it does make it less than 100% compatible.

I'm not here to troll on this one, but if open office could do my talks, I would be doing them all on a linux laptop now. But it doesn't, and any amount of people on ./ saying open office does everything isn't going to make it so. Sure, it works for you. It is getting close to better than word for doing wordprocessing. It isn't that close on excel, nor powerpoint. We won't even talk about porting over access databases ....

As soon as OO does this stuff reliably, I'm switching over. Until then, I _HAVE_ to use microsoft for this part of my work, and windows stays on my laptops, even with a room full of linux servers & workstations at home.

Michael

True or not, does it really matter?

[Machine9]

Even if it's true (something which is far from impossible considering microsoft's attitude towards the competition), does it really matter?

I mean, do we *really* want Lindows to be the thing the masses at large associate with linux, or alternative OSes in general?

Hooked on Crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, Bill says, "Here, have this first taste on me..."