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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.
No. It's not what I want anyway. I want to see Windows be entirely eliminated.
You might think that's a bit extreme. I don't - I'm under no illusions about our friends in Redmond. You think after over a decade of monopoly gained by breaking the law and then getting away with it, they are just going to say, "oh look! a competitor! we'd better start competing fairly then".
No, they aren't. Despite what their marketing guys think, "focus on the customer" isn't going to turn their company around - it's too far gone for that, almost certainly. Microsoft have never played by the rules of the market before, why should they now? In short, they are too dangerous to keep around, history has rammed this lesson through our skulls time and time again.
There are other considerations as well. I think the world would be better if our computing industry were based on free software. It would increase the free flow of ideas, code and would increase innovation. There are selfish reasons as well - I think I can do better for myself helping people solve their problems by using free software than sitting in the offices of a huge company reinventing the wheel day after day for a living, because the cost to pay me to work around stupid bugs in Internet Explorer is lower than saying no to Microsoft.
So in summary, I don't think the world would be a better place if Linux and Windows (or MacOS) shared market share equally. I don't think that's good enough. They'd always be looking for a way to cheat the system, to get the upper hand, to kill Linux and let things return to the status quo. It's too dangerous. Windows and the tactics and ethos it represents must go, and then if Microsoft can survive without them - then maybe I'll look on them lowering prices as merely the workings of the free market.
Anyway. Rant over. I'm pissed, because I ran the numbers and judging from what MS have said lately I don't think IE, and by extension the web, is going to move forward technologically until about 2010 at the earliest, probably more like a decade from now (factor in upgrade times to longhorn, even assuming best case and IE actually improves in that period). I'm sick of seeing them try to wipe out cool stuff. It has to end, completely.
Lindows is Lindows. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not a good product for some people.
Another reason Linux isn't ready for the desktop.
Microsoft, like 'em or not, tries to make their OSes a good product for ALL people. (Let's not waste time arguing about whether they succeed, or where they got their design concepts from...) Linux vendors are settling for 'good enough for SOME people' right now. If you're not one of those some, you're still SOL.