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Is the Dell/Microsoft Alliance Fracturing?
An anonymous reader asks: "Dell has historically been the most loyal of all Microsoft's partners. Even today, it is very difficult to avoid paying the Microsoft tax on most of Dell's desktops and notebooks. Recently, two things have made the news where Dell is not toeing the Microsoft line. First, was the announcement that Dell is trialling shipping desktop and notebook PCs in the UK with Firefox as the default browser, instead of IE (announcement confirmed here). Today we have news that Dell is not going to support HD-DVD, despite reported incentives that recently induced HP to do so. So, what are some theories as to why Dell has lately been less of a friend to Microsoft, and what does this mean for the future? Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?"
With the deals that Dell gets, the "Microsoft tax" is about $6. Hardly worth it for them to break up a uniform production process for that kind of money.
...than any other manufacturer. They'll follow the money trail. If they can sell more PCs by no allying tightly with Microsoft, so be it. If they can sell more PCs to the home market by appearing to be best buds with Microsoft, well, they'll do that, too.
Nothing to see here.
"Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?"
Sure, it might soon be possible.
the money. I'm sure more people than you (collective) or I at Dell are in the know about something. Perhaps they see the opportunity to ship BluRay drives earlier than if they ship HDDVD drives. If they wait for HDDVD, other OEMs will eat their lunch sitting around waiting for an os that makes an appearance in a year or so. And Firefox shipping is likely due to customer complaints about spyware and malware, enough people complain about something, you save money on tech support by moving to something secure.
I think Dell has a smart management team. They realise that they are a market leader in hardware, and the balance of power is shifting.
Microsoft can't afford to upset Dell. It would be unfortunate for MS if the income stream from Dell dried up, and disastrous if Dell boxes started going out with non-MS software routinely given priority.
Dell, on the other hand, increasingly has viable alternatives to offer and probably an increasing number of customers asking about them, particularly on the Windows vs. $OTHER_OS front. And of course, they can more effectively compete against other workstation and particularly server vendors if they aren't paying the Microsoft tax, and they have more legal shielding than ever against reprisals by MS.
Today, Microsoft is getting a very bad name in some areas, particularly among the techies who probably buy 99% of the Dell servers and a heavy majority of the workstations and support contracts. At a time like that, if you'll forgive the horrible cliches, it pays to know which side your bread's buttered, and not to have all your eggs in one basket.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Quote: "Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?"
I think if I was drinking milk while I read this I would have had a very dirty keyboard and monitor right now. Maybe this will happen when hell freezes over, or they come out with a distro that is as easy to use as a Mac...whichever comes first. I'd put my money on the former though, not the latter.
Today we have news that Dell is not going to support HD-DVD, despite reported incentives that recently induced HP to do so. So, what are some theories as to why Dell has lately been less of a friend to Microsoft,
I don't know about a cohesive theory to tie all of it together, but for the HD-DVD thing, I would suspect Dell's not supporting it because it keeps getting delayed, because they can't seem to get their shit together finalizing the AACS "content protection".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Apple-Intel-Dells (I know the OS is Mac, but I couldn't resist) Apple is on the blu-ray foundation and is switching to Intel chipsets, Dell is the largest consumer of Intel chips, Dell has an established 'PC' friendly name that is basically a 'go to' for the direct purchase pc order industry. This has the makings of a win-win-win situation, provided that Apple gets the final veto on all computer/peripheral designs.
What are the odds?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
.... with Steve Jobs.
;)
Wait and see.
According to the article, Dell chose Blu-Ray because of its greater capacity and long list of industry backers. Dell now realizes that it is not necessarily as advantageous as it once was to partner with MS on everything. With the rise of online companies such as Google, the MS stranglehold is loosening. Dell probably sees that and now wants to break out of its old marketing habits.
I still think that Dell will do whatever it can to sell the most PCs in volume, so if that means further customization without Microsoft products/partners, so be it.
Linux will be offered when enough people are demanding it as a viable alternative to Windows.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
As reported in the January 2006 Linux Journal. Details at http://www.dell.com/nseriesE510
Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?
No
Some settling may occur during posting.
I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's famous quote from Cosmos: "Observation: You couldn't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs."
/. do we see "Dell not supporting HD-DVD" --> "DELL MIGHT SPORT LINUX!!!" The economic realities of this situation just won't allow Dell to NOT use Windows. Nobody's going to know what this linux thing is (or, as my sister calls it, "that weird thing"), nor how to use it, and they'll be quite upset when they discover they can't play their games and applications on it.
Call me a cynic, but only on
It's a nice thought, but this is little more than daydreaming.
Today we have news that Dell is not going to support HD-DVD, despite reported incentives that recently induced HP to do so.
First off, this is because Dell is in on the advisory staff that came up with the Blu-ray spec. They have never said "No we are going to sell it", they have only taken the safe road in saying they will stick with their design until the market says otherwise. This probably won't take long since you won't be paying for the patent license at $30 a unit like you will with the Blu-ray product. Not to mention, media will end up costing less for the Microsoft product based upon the same premise.
Yes, Microsoft is trying to get in quick with the incentives, but that is only because they don't have quite the advantage of having Sony on their side. Sony/Dell/and company are going to end up losing out in the long-run for the excessive patent fees. Pair that with Sony being the biggest single contributor to our RIAA pains, and you don't have a great deal of support for the company.
I'm not saying Microsoft is great, just saying they'll be less likely to sue folks for utilizing methods to backup/copy their discs.
While Dell may be gaining leverage with the increasing popularity of non-MS products, I think its a bit hasty to imply that Dell has an advantage. The way I see it, Dell and MS still need each other. As time progrsses and MS goes into the internet market and Dell continues to increase its use of non-MS products. The relationship may become strained. Also, with Dell reporting declining earnings per share this past quarter, dell's move to linux and FF might be expidited.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
as much as I would like to see a Apple-Dell alliance, don't hold your breathe. In the current world Job's ego is as much of a weakness as it is an asset.
The reason is that MS is starting to make "computers" for the home that are starting to compete with Dell directly. In the long run, if Dell doesn't switch to another OS such as Linux or OSX, Dell will be literally in hell!
Dell is gaining a bigger piece of the general computer "pie" everyday. Perhaps they're finally getting wise and understanding they don't need the wing of Microsoft for protection.
Dell is under no obligation to ship IE with their machines
Unless IE has been decoupled with Windows recently without anyone being told, Dell, like everyone else, has no choice in the matter.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
"Even today, it is very difficult to avoid paying the Microsoft tax on most of Dell's desktops and notebooks."
It's not a "tax". Unlike a government (backed by armed force), I can buy a computer from many sources, up to building one from parts.* I have always been able to do this, even when Microsoft was in full swing. The main thing that drove the need for the OS wasn't the hardware but (remind me if you have heard this) "It's the apps, stupid!". Also unlike a "tax". I can "opt out" by simply not buying.
The "MS tax" argument basically is made by those who want the world to conform to their desires while ignore any form of reality, including economic. It's cute (like M$ cute), but the majority are more inclined to put it down as the rantings of the minority.
I don't think the AACS delay favors either format because it is delaying them both equally.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Of course they want to use firefox! It will save them a fortune in support calls.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So if Dell has to package an OS with their system, what will it be?
1) Windows: The status quo. Plug it in and it works (albeit not for long if it's not patched and updated). Extra cost for Dell? Probably a couple bucks per computer, which they gladly pass onto the consumer. Incentives? Coupons/Benefits from Microsoft for $??? total gain.
2) Enterprise type *nix: Dell would probably look at a major commercial player such as Red Hat or SUSE as their distro of choice. SUSE and Red Hat both have standard technical support already in place (for a fee - buying their Enterprise OS). This technical support is very important to Dell because they don't want to have to deal with Q&A about the OS of choice. It's not their field of expertise. However, I could see a deal between Dell and one of them to provide a desktop version of the OS with technical support. In addition, the business models of Red Hat and SUSE are similar to that of the closed system world, which is one less (major) adjustment Dell would have to make to their own system. The catch? There would be a *nix tax as well. Which puts us back at square one (with the exception of one less [troll] evil corporation in the mix [/troll].
3) Free *nix/BSD: Which one to choose? There's so many distros out there. Most of them don't have the status quo technical support available. Instead they have mailing-lists and Wikis. Do the majority of computer users know what those things are or are able to use them (especially if X won't load for some reason!). The majority of users need the technical support over the phone that most of us dread.
Until there's a solution made for the technical support that joe-schmoe user needs is made available for *nix distros, I don't see Windows being replaced as the default OS on consumer grade PCs.
http://www.asti-usa.com
Lower marketshare for browsers.
Higher satisfaction towards Windows in general.
So many everyday computer users end up with crippled Windows systems because of IE. I think this will make people happier with Windows even if it does make them less likely to use IE.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Apple uses software to sell hardware. If Apple licenses it, they give away their reason to exist. I don't think you'll ever see that.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
First off, this is because Dell is in on the advisory staff that came up with the Blu-ray spec. They have never said "No we are going to sell it", they have only taken the safe road in saying they will stick with their design until the market says otherwise. This probably won't take long since you won't be paying for the patent license at $30 a unit like you will with the Blu-ray product. Not to mention, media will end up costing less for the Microsoft product based upon the same premise.
So why do so many people have DVD burners now when CD burners are so cheap? The players cost more, so does the media.
While not quite the same order of magnitude as the difference between DVD and CD storage, Blu-Ray simply offers more storage space than HD-DVD and that makes it much more practical to use as a third-tied backup for things like 400GB drives. That's why I plan to get a Blu-Ray burner soon after they come out. Even if the media and the drives are more expensive, being able to use half the number of discs and half the time (especialy half the time) to do the same backup is a huge draw for computer users.
Now come at it from the media angle. Consumers are not going to buy movies because the PC supports playing that format. When they will do is buy movies when they have a dedicated device, like a DVD player, that will support them. Who is almost guaranteed to have millions on millions of said devices in homes that are not even all early adopters? Sony, with the PS3.
On Microsoft could possibly have the hubris to think they could stop or even slow what is coming, which is a slam-dunk for Sony and Blu-Ray. And they could have done it to if they had delayed the 360 release to include HD-DVD drives in more expensive bundles.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Both HD DVD/BluRay are redundant and will bomb. So why should Dell start considering supporting either yet.
If they are smart they'll decline to take either side, ship CD/DVD machines meanwhile, and when things play out in favor of either format, and consumers start demanding either, they'll ship it.
As for Firefox, it's less support and infected systems for them. I seriously doubt they just have some l33t haXX0r Linux geek there who wants to screw MS by replacing their browser with the open source favorite.
Again, it just makes sense, since most sites now acknowledge Firefox, and it works better security-wise (and yup I doubt Dell cares if it has better CSS or whatever).
Same reason is why Dell will keep shipping the huge majority of its machines with Windows. Like it or not: it's useful and you use it, and need it, and your software requires it.
And calling it Microsoft tax is retarded, btw.
Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?
Yes. Soon. They will also come with a life supply of candy covered chocolate bunnies that will cure cancer and make you smile!
Dell is doing everything in their power to protect themselves from lawsuits. All of a sudden, Dell is now selling AMD processors and now offering FireFox? Looks like Dell is starting to get nervous.
There is an obvious answer to this question. The average joe trying to buy a new computer will not buy a computer unless it has Windows on it. If Dell were to start selling all of their computers with Linux preloaded, nobody would buy them. Dell would go bankrupt. Dell knows that and they will stick with Microsoft until the day that Linux becomes the OS preferred by the average joe.
Hell, I think BillG and/or Microsoft themselves have advocated not using IE, and specifically recommended Firefox for more secure web browsing on a Windows PC. Wasn't there some big hoopla over this in the past year?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Aren't PC's are any different, Mr. Dell? Maybe it's about time Dell start thinking more about what their PC customers want rather than what a single software vendor needs continue to control the market. No matter what technological initiative other vendors are trying to push (TC, DRM, HD-DVD, BlueRay, etc), ultimately it would be the customer to choose whether your crippled (or other restictive) hardware is acceptable to them. If not, the customers will find other vendors that will do what the customer wants.
Fractured alliance? Nah. It's just business as usual.
Coderz 4 Life
Well, I don't know much about the future, but I do work as a Dell OnCall Helpdesk Tech. As of right now, we support Firefox on any system. The way things look, our Scope of Support could change at the drop of a hat and we'll all have to learn Non-Windows OS's.
"I drank WHAT?!"--Socrates
Dell is happy with the current situation. Why would they stray? They get windows for the lowest price possible, and it kills their competitors. Look at the mom and pop pc stores - They have to pay full price for Microsoft products. This can directly mean $100 difference between their products, and Dell. What do you think most customers will do? Buy Dell of course. Dell probably is shipping FireFox in the UK becuase they get a buck for every machine from Google -
Once Dell makes it easy to buy a non-Microsoft os preloaded sans price of Windows (actually cheaper), I might believe it. Don't mislead yourselves into thinking Dell is going to shift away from the OS that has over 90% market share.
This guy is way out there
Dell has gone down the tubes so badly it's not even funny. It's obvious that it's no longer the company that it once was that quality of product was the main concern. Now it's all about the bottom line. That should be all that needs to be said. After all, they are actually denying warranty requests.
Dell has their own brand in the fire with Sony so it's not at all a surprise they may be bucking MS on this. Because Dell is already probably selling more systems than any other competitor and has more deals with third party makers they aren't going to miss that added "incentive" the IP royalties would mean more to them in the long term than the discount coupons from MS.
But more than that I think it stupid to keep going on about this "Microsoft tax." You can buy a pretty ripping machine from Dell or Gateway or emachines (I mean Gateway) at a very, very good price. These prices are possible because of the huge volume these makers sell, and that volume is possible because everyone knows, no matter how much it may or may not suck, when they get the machine home it will be "familiar" to them and they can go to the gazillion warez and spyware repositories and install whatever crap floats their boat.
Bot more improtantly it's that volume that beckons other OEMs. Third party makers like Adobe and Epson and Norton and others offer Dell and Gateway juicy licensing deals because they know the distribution of their "demos" and their cheapass printers with the ridiculously overpriced ink and paper supplies will benefit them in the long run. So while MS gets paid by Dell, Dell gets paid by Adobe and Epson and Norton. Whether it's money that directly offsets the cost of licensing windows or the cut rate hardware that allows them to make "special deals" that help them blow out thousands of machines at a whack, in the end it's Windows that is driving down the cost of the hardware.
Until there are third party OEMs like Norton and Adobe offering well recognized linux tools that will help sell even more machines, Dell would make LESS on each system by NOT including windows. Twice the support costs (now they have to field both linux and windows calls) but LESS PROFIT. They would have to charge MORE FOR LESS, which is exactly what you see now.
It makes zero sense for Dell to sell bundled linux systems and that isn't going to change until linux has evolved into a "killer brand" in its own right. And that's not going to happen because fo Dell, it's only going to happen because someone, somewhere, develops a desktop that offers something more than windows and does so in a way that is tangible to someone who doesn't spend their life working on this stuff.
There once was a Mac clone market but the clones out-competed Apple buy delivering better functionality at lower price. Rather than compete, Jobs killed of the market (refusing the internal OS/PPC specs of future systems to the clone makers). Dell would also out compete Apple when it came to selling hardware. Why would Apple go down this road again, having already failed?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Then it could be that Dell feels the Blu-Ray format is more commercially viable, as it's more likely to be accepted by content producers as 'secure':
"The only difference being that Blu Ray is adding another two supplementary security elements: ROM Mark and BD+. ROM Mark is a sort of stamp, invisible to the consumer, which can be embedded using special equipment available only to licensed Blu-Ray disc producers. Obviously, these discs will only be compatible with Blu-Ray equipments." (link)
With regards to the posted article, I don't see why Dell would be basing decisions on anything other than what's best for Dell (i.e., instead of some non-expressed dislike for Microsoft).
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
So now Microsoft goes to a court, gets the monopoly status officially terminated, and the gloves come off. ;-)
(Actually, the gloves don't come off, it's just that Microsoft gets to act like every other company that doesn't have a "monopoly" again.)
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I just got 2 servers and a presision workstation delivered at work. No OS installed on any of the three. One just has to shop carefully and not automatically go to the cheapest systems available.
--
Dell, being the market leader in PCs is reflecting the change in consumer tastes. Where Microsoft diversified into different industries [to dominate and eventually get "caught up"], Dell has learned that lesson--when Dell diversified into consumer products a couple of years ago, they found they couldn't keep up growth (as Microsoft thought when they diversified), product quality went down (as well as service), so now it's back to the core business. Dell doesn't have the luxury forcing industries to comply with a safety net of billions or so dollars like MS. Also Dell competes on 2 fronts compared to MS, they need to keep up with Apple (XPS) and stay cheap with Lenevo (and blades servers). Industries from Gov't to Grandma want choices nowadays. Linux offers them the flexibility that Microsoft currently does not offer.
Consumers are all well versed in Microsoft technologies and the costs involved. Unfortunately (since I'm a s/w guy), the current trend is about the hardware price point, not the software--just look at the iPod--it's wasn't the software.
Yeah as far as I know dell has supported a large number of both workstations and servers with linux on them for quite a while, check out here for more details.
Consider the fact that MS is in pretty warm water in the EU. It does not take a huge leap for MS to put a bug in Dell's ear to preinstall Firefox. It doesn't cost them anything. Windows is still installed, and paid for, and Firefox is no threat to Windows. Firefox drives 0 users away from Windows. So if it makes the EU happy, then it makes MS happy too.
Both HD DVD/BluRay are redundant and will bomb. So why should Dell start considering supporting either yet.
How about because I have multiple 400GB hard drives I would like to be able to back up to optical media in my lifetime?
I currently use extra hard drives for backup, but with just aorund 10 Blu-Ray discs you could have a form of backup easier to ship to multiple offsite backup locations.
Dell wants to include Blu-Ray I think not because they care who wins on the media front, but purley because it offers more storage and consumers want that storage to store things onto. From the standpoint of data alone there is a compelling reason to move to Blu-Ray.
It doesn't hurt that people will be able to put home movies on them and play them on the PS3.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not one of the linux machines in my household required drivers to be compiled. In fact every one of them detected every device with no problem. Besides, since the machines could be coming from Dell with the OS pre-installed (just like windows), all of the drivers would already be installed.
Add to that the fact that most users don't know how to install drivers on windows either, and you have a stale mate.
The real key is that Dell could ship their systems with Synaptic, and the repositories pointed to servers at Dell. This way they could easily push new drivers out to their customers in a way that MS never will. You see, MS doesn't want to loose control of the MS update site, but they also don't want to deal with third party drivers anymore than they absolutly have to, so what you get is minimalist drivers of questionable quality in the MS driver repository. You then have to identify your hardware, go to each manufacturers site, download the specific drivers, and THEN you can update. Linux has been that much of a pain for years.
It's been known for a while that Dell is building its own operating system. It's a Dell version os Windows, sort of. It is called Delldows.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apple-Intel-Dells (I know the OS is Mac, but I couldn't resist) Apple is on the blu-ray foundation and is switching to Intel chipsets,
Or, as I like to call 'em, "Apple-Intel-Desktop-Systems". A.I.D.S.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
4 or 5 months ago, Dell had one of those 5 day sale or such (in Canada), where you could buy a low end Dell Poweredge server (something like a Celeron 2.4 with 256MB of RAM) for 350$CDN, including Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition (and whatever CALs it usually comes with). Makes for a 2/3 discounted Windows license, with a bonus server for free! Throw more RAM at it and it'll make a cheap but decent [redundant] application server...
Also, I bought a HP computer lately. I was going to build a Athlon64 3000+ system myself, but using similar parts, it would have costed me hundreds more than buying that HP, not counting a Windows license would have been an extra couple hundreds after that... Save a few hundreds and get windows bundled with it? TYVM!
If that's what the Microsoft tax is, I'd like a triple order of it!
I read about that earlier also, but the existence of that even within five years is a lot more iffy in my mind. These holographic things are always so tantalizingly close but never seem to arrive when they are predicted to...
So I'll buy a Blu-Ray burner and hope the holographic thing is reality this time and comes in at an affordable price.
I do wonder how long it will be before we see a holographic movie format emerge!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I receive spam faxes from Dell every week or so. I've faxed them back requests to their "opt out" number, but funnily it's always engaged. Dell sell servers (in Australia, at least) for approximately AU$1000, with ECC RAM and such. OS is *optional*.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -- Albert Einstein
And... how do you know that Dell isn't thinking about trying to get into a competition with the PS3?
I also could see Dell selling a cheap consumer Blu-Ray player, that's not far-fetched at all... After all Dell sells TV's now.
I don't think it would exactly be competition for the PS3 though. And I jjust dont see the majority of people accepting TV watching on a computer when they would prefer a giant screen, which is often impractical for computer use.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Having Sony on your side is a pretty sure way to lose out in a format war:
Stop intellectual property from infringing on me
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.a spx/desktops_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
End of argument.
Thank you.
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
Dell in Sweden allready ships laptops with no OS installed. We recently bought two. I only asked the sales rep which laptops works best with linux. They suggested a model (latitude D610) and shipped. I actually expected there would be some MS stuff installed but when I powered them up they turned out to be empty. Quite lovely. They both now run Ubuntu. I had to work a few minutes to get native screen resolution though. /jarek
All your arguments about discounts could apply equally to Linux, except more so.
Sure, like any investment it's would be necessary to pay up-front. but a switch could pay for Dell in the long term. And the same applies to anybody in the computer industry besides M$.
Linux is already appearing in low end and specialty boxes. I expect it'll slowly move up the value chain. Particularly for large organisations, where per-seat licensing costs becomes increasingly economically stupid compared to the fixed price of software development.
M$ is currently taxing the world $40,000,000,000+ per year for a dozen programs mostly written more than a decade ago. I think most sensible software consumers would like to save that money.
---
Keep your options open!
I think the parent was supposed to be funny. It it wasn't then its sad. Its not like every week there's a story about how the linux desktop is only 1-2 years away. Face it people who create software themseleves are neccisarily biased for it and end up making some ridicoluous claims at times.
PS
I liked the addition of the $ instead of an S. That let me know what the company really wants! ( Stupid capitalist companies always wanting money!).
Linux is already appearing in low end and specialty boxes.
I just wanted to call bullshit, as people use Linux in extremely high end boxes, too, but I realized that you're right. One doesn't buy these, one builds them. And as such, they're not pre-packaged stuff, and thus not a sale for Dell or the likes.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Firefox drives 0 users away from Windows.
Not that I disagree with the rest of your post but Firefox (Mozilla actually) helped drive me away from Windows. Halo effect I guess.
The link is to an Inquirer article linking to a blog that cites an Inquirer article that cites a rumor.
Have Dell said anything yet?
Radio on your iPod
As the original poster said, they have absolutely been the least supportive of any major PC manufacturer of linux. Now they are trying to break into the 'server' market (which they are a jonny-come-lately to), which they try to define as ms windows, ms sql 2005, etc. the hell with em.
Did anyone else read that as Devil/Microsoft Alliance Fracturing?
Take latest PCWorld magazine and look Dell consumer rating. It sucks. It's sliding down, and fast.
Their hardware with laptops has never been good, but it seems now be even more worst.
In essence, Dell is a cheap big volume retailer. Maybe OK for casual home users, rest be beware IMHO.
Do we really want to give linux bad name and image it is diffucult to u se, if end users end to tinker with manufacturers hardware defects that have nothing to do with Linux?
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows has the trouble seen me, even I sometimes wonder why I write these line
One of Dells biggest money eating machines is Support. Although I don't have the figures I suspect that the majority of support calls can be related back to Spyware and it getting installed via IE with ease.
the thing with the M$ monopoly is that it has traditionally been that what's right for M$ is (quite deliberately) what's right for Dell, so that's what they've done. With that monopoly weakening every day we'll see more and more of this, particularly as the cost of the hardware continues to drop while the cost of the M$ tax is reasonably static (if not on the rise). Bear in mind also that given that Internet Explorer Sucks (with only 7 days in 2004 without an unpatched, public security hole), this reflects badly on Dell and is likely to be one of their major support costs (imagine how many 'my machine runs 10 times slower now than it did when we got it and i'm constantly harassed by popups' calls they get!). In contrast, Firefox on Windows was 7% unsafe (still a ridiculously high number - this should be very close to zero) - it's a no brainer.
Yep, it's true. Apple's entry into Intelland means more marketshare for Apple, less for Dell. It also means that Intel won't be held as hostage to Dell's threats of switching to AMD - those marketing dollars could just as happily go to Apple you know:
Ding! Da da da daa! "Think different.." and all that.
And Apple isn't merely content with selling computers, they seem to want to be the next Sony - another space Dell has tried to enter (unsuccessfully).
So, yeah, I think they have reason to fear Apple - and who knows? Maybe we'll actually see some sort of collaboration between the two. Remember, in this business - ANYTHING is possible.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
It could be that is the reason for the drift away from MS, either because he wants to make friends with Steve Jobs or a backroom deal has actually already been done.
This amounted to a pretty big subsidy for the Windows versions of computers; and if you add up all the software companies doing this game, I bet it vastly exceeds the cost of windows.
Until the crippleware subsidy industry gets as big for Linux, I expect you'll always see the OEMs prefer Windows.
Sure, like any investment it's would be necessary to pay up-front. but a switch could pay for Dell in the long term.
Dell is successful because they focus on shipping PCs and not making speculative investments. Look at IBM where they were bragging about the billions invested in Linux, all while taking a huge loss on each PC sold due to overhead.
M$ is currently taxing the world $40,000,000,000+ per year for a dozen programs mostly written more than a decade ago. I think most sensible software consumers would like to save that money.
Not if it would cost them $40,000,000,000,000 to convert.
The Linux conversion "value proposition" has always been shaky -- you spend a ton of money upfront, make a ton of assumptions about software features that will presumably magically appear in the future, and then when you are done, you end up paying the much more expensive "RedHat Tax" in place of the "M$ Tax". (Check dell.com where the RedHat workstations only come with only one year of patch support at the same price as Windows XP Pro.)
There's a reason there hasn't been any sort of mass-movement towards Linux despite all the optimistic predictions -- the numbers are bogus. Everyone is sitting around waiting for someone else to make Linux a full-fledged, drop-in replacement for Windows. And if that ever happens, Dell will be around to collect on their investment.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
This is not what we want but it is exactly counter to your claim. http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.as px/e510_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn
seriously, why is it that slashdot's hiring 14-year-old Counter-Strike players for editors now? Towing.
The reason MS would like to control the browser market is that browsers could be used to run platform-independent applications, i.e. applications for which you don't need Windows.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
I bought an ibook yesterday, its my first modern mac. Its superb OS X is fantastic, OS X86 should become a mainstream apple product, maybee we could see a dell server with a powered by Mac OS X86 sticker instead of that windows one. Also Microsoft seems to be stopping itself in the browser market. With dell rejecting IE and microsoft stopping its developpment of IE for mac. Its mocrosofts fault though, their failure to role out IE7 with RSS and tabbed browsing has lead to a firefox revolution for windows and mac. everyone I do work for wants firefox, its on my thumbdrive along with winzip, skype and openoffice for new installations
"Even today, it is very difficult to avoid paying the Microsoft tax on most of Dell's desktops and notebooks."
There's an incredibly simple way of not paying MS tax, don't buy a Dell. Buy your components online, build your machine, get a dodgy copy of XP pro or your choice of linux dist. and give M$ the middle finger.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
A point of a STANDARD is that everyone can use it. Microsoft as I see it is trying to push HD-DVD over BluRay for several reasons. One of them is that I personally as a PC user find that Java is slow and clunky, it realllly hogs resources. Another is I see MS trying to pick the lesser of the 2 evils, we know well Sony's recent multi-platform rootkit from DRM, not to mention that BluRay is -LESS- compatible with current DVD technology than HD-DVD is, so HD-DVD seems more logical on the war of compatibility with existing good technologies, plus it's DRM scheme is likely to be a lot easier on hardware and software to decode than something based on Java. As I see it, MS is trying an alternate tactic of creating a -standard- in the industry to benefit everyone, in the end us, the end user, the slashdotters who would love to share all those files with our buddies knowing that we won't run into problems because of 2 very different competing technologies which would divide the market and thusly make it so there isn't a true standard. I also see MS as doing this where the talks to unify BluRay and HD-DVD failed (which is a sad story in my eyes). In the end it's better for the consumer, the average person, to have just one form of disc, and it's the consumer who gets shafted more each day as more things are becoming subscription (and thusly you have to pay) where it isn't needed to line the coffers of big companies even more, shows just how bad greed has gotten out of control and how much we, the people, suffer under corporate demand that we just give up fighting and reluctantly fork over our money.
According to a heise article (in German only) Firefox is not installed instead of IE, but additionally. While Firefox is the only browser icon on the desktop, IE still is the default browser (that's a rather unusual setup ...).
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
How much does Dell pay per Microsoft license for XP, really? I tried searching google once but it's been a while, but all I found were estimates ranging from $40 to $90. Does anyone have a link to something substantial? I'm very curious how much they (and the cost is passed on to me) really spend per license... jet
Why don't the smug apple users ever complain about the Macintosh tax? Can I buy G5 and run linux on it without paying the Apple OS tax.
I already have OS X on an old machine and want to upgrade to a newer one--yet I still have to buy another copy of the OS.
I bought a home three-pack of the OS, yet if I buy another machine...I still have to buy the OS again.
It seems like there are many fewer OS options from Apple yet no one complains about paying the tax.
Also, Macs come with their own shovelware (to some useful, to others just clutter) like iTunes, iMovie, quicktime...although posible, not easy to remove (actually I think QT, with its really annoying paid upgrade ads, is required for some components of the OS like help.)
Although Dell already allow you to customise your PowerEdge server to have Windows, Linux, Netware or no OS, I think they do this because server purchasers tend to be more "clued up" and generate far less support calls (for OS/software issues) than home desktop/laptop users do.
However, how about this revolutionary idea - in the customise screen for Dell desktops/laptops, the OS section could have "Home", "Pro" or "No OS" options. If "No OS" is selected, then a big red warning is shown: "DELL WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY OPERATING SYSTEM OR SOFTWARE INSTALLED ON THIS HARDWARE - DO NOT CONTACT US WITH ANY OS/SOFTWARE PROBLEMS AFTER PURCHASE". And of course the price should be lower (one wonders if seeing the price diff is another concern for Dell because then we'd know exactly what Windows+pre-installed trial guff costs for Dell!), but I wouldn't bank on it.
The "No OS" option with no OS/software support gets around the problem of having to support 2 operating systems, plus the customer gets to start from a clean machine and decide exactly how to set it up (yes, some of those customers will use pirated Windows and indeed try to phone Dell support to moan about their install). It's quite likely that people buying a Dell with no OS pre-installed will be tech-savvy, so they probably wouldn't contact Dell support anyway.
I think Dell will *always* have to offer the Windows option in the foreseeable future, simply because for Joe Bloggs out there, it's the thing he and his computer-illiterate friends know and they offer more games than any other OS of course. If Dell can work out a way to have no OS installed and have it cost slightly less (heck, $20-$30 would be good enough), then you might see Microsoft's Windows market share (well, pre-installed share anyway) start to slip.
As for Linux, I'd actually like to see Dell "certify" certain distros as being installable and having all their hardware work with Linux, but not actually provide any support (i.e. you buy the "no OS" version and then install the certified distro yourself). Yes, that could mean Dell switching components to "Linux-friendly" ones, but that's no bad thing if they get a rep for Linux working out of the box straight after installation - it would surely gain them several percentage points market share without having to do too much (yes, they'd need a certification team and a change in hardware [or provide OSS GPL'ed drivers for their current hardware if they don't want to change], but I don't see that being too costly).
"Look at IBM where they were bragging about the billions invested in Linux, all while taking a huge loss on each PC sold due to overhead."
/. crowd's pervasive anti-Microsoft sentiment leads to all manner of theories which attempt to explain why MS continue to command such a massive share of the market (usually involving one or more pieces of pure distilled evil together with the fact that everyone out there is an idiot), the most obvious (and thus most likely) explanation is that 90% of the people who buy computers _want_ one with Windows on it. If this were not the case, then somebody out there would have cottoned on to the fact, and be making vast sums of money selling systems with desktop Linux on them, while all those vendors who are locked into the oft-mentioned diabolic pacts with MS lost vast swathes of market share to this new, customer-centric tech. leviathan. The fact that this hasn't happened _could_ be due to some yet to be discovered conspiracy that prevents anyone selling PCs anywhere in the world without Microsoft's permission, or be an indication that there isn't any real demand for desktops and laptops with Linux on them.
And none of their PCs or lap-tops shipped with Linux installed by default -- they came with Windows, just like those from everyone else. The only place Linux had any prominence was in their server line, but even that was nothing particularly distinctive: HP and yes, Dell (to name but two) were also offering servers with Linux pre-installed, because it is a viable and cost-effective alternative for those looking to buy a UNIX-like system.
"There's a reason there hasn't been any sort of mass-movement towards Linux despite all the optimistic predictions -- the numbers are bogus."
There has been a mass movement towards Linux, but not from Windows. It is the commercial UNIX market that has been steadily losing ground to Linux (with the notable exception of Apple), while the desktop market has seen Windows commanding a pretty constant 90% (of yearly sales, which is not of course the same as actual usage) for years.
And while the
NB: the fact that desktop Linux has actually lost significant ground to Apple's computer offerings over the last year or two says a lot about how much people actually want it. Desktop Linux does after all have a number of advantages over Apple's stuff: it runs on cheap, plentiful commodity hardware instead of expensive proprietary systems that (currently) use non-standard CPUs, memory, peripherals, and software; upgrades are in many cases available free of charge instead of being sold for $120 a pop; Linux often comes on the "free" cover CDs that come with magazines, whereas OS X only comes "free" when you buy a computer from Apple; Linux distros commonly include vast quantities of software, while Macs come with a few bundled applications, plus some development tools that don't get installed by default; etc., etc., etc. It would therefore seem like all the advantages are in Linux' favour, but people still don't seem to want it.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Hit the nail on the head, migrating away from windows on the home user machines is a bad idea, because there just isn't enough bollocksware for linux. It wouldn't be profitable. Plus, they'd need to retrain every single support tech, which would boggle the mind as they employ something like 85% of india's population.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
People aren't given a fair choice between running the Windows and Linux *OS* since the software,drivers and support for Windows is not available for Linux.
It's what we call a vicious circle and what the EU and US antitrust departments call a monopoly.
That in its-self is not a problem but Microsoft also uses unethical and possibly illegal deals with OEMs as one of it's many methods of what I and various anti-trust lawyers consider are illegal practices to ensure they maintain their monopoly.
This knowledge is not some hidden conspiracy, as you put it. There have in fact been several high profile anti-trust cases that Microsoft have basically lost. It's just that none of the proposals to open up the software market to fair competition and stop the Microsofts monopoly abuses have been successful.
Perhaps because OS X isn't crap.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
If you think back in the 90s when Linux was the new kid and Windows 95 was released with a big hoopla and people rushed to get Windows 95 like they wanted to see a super star. WIth MS touting and its partners spouting lies to sell the software ("Get the most out of your PC" was my favorite one where I knew I got more out of linux), and a promise that computers will be easy and crashes will become the way of the Dodo. People feel for it hook line and sinker. Then they started to realize after a a couple of years, when they got use to it and starting using it more then just running their old DOS programs, that it wasn't all that it was promised to be. Then Windows 98 Came out to fix a lot of the problems and integrated the web browser to say hey we are in with the internet now and less with MSN. People upgraded a little more cautiously knowing the problems they had during the last upgrade but still Windows was the best OS out there, Ignoring all the other viable platforms Linux, OS2 Warp, BSDs, Mac OS... People were still advertising with MS saying their products from PCs to Sewing Machines come with Windows 9x installs. But then the anti-trust case came out and MS moved in the public preconception from the bringer of technical goodness to a dominating company who is out to prevent anything better from growing. Even after the Bush administration basically ignored the legal rulings of the court and let MS go on its marry way, giving free samples of their products and PCs to schools who wouldn't be able to afford them anyways. The public started to get more concerned about MS but still in there mind it was the best thing out there they weren't just praising it as loudly. Then things like the "I LOVE YOU" Virus, and a bunch of other nasty virus started to infect the 95% majority of windows systems like wire fire. Many of MS's "Innovations" have become its greatest weakness. With Windows Me being a complete flop, and XP coming out with many of the same promises of 95, and when XP did come out it was just as badly attacked as its earlier versions. The common person started to loose faith in MS. They still use it because they are afraid of leaving all their favorite apps and relearn a new system (which is difficult to most people), and Loosing all their games. But they are now more keen to the idea that a Person who uses a Mac, or Linux is not some computer freak but someone who had enough courage and smarts to stop using the problems to a system with less problems. Now with PCs Prices dropping and making it difficult for anyone to compete in the market and make money, getting the Made in America Software doesn't seem as viable as it did 10 years ago for it is becoming the major cost of the computer, and if dell can position itself free of the MS hold then they can sell their products for cheaper and at a better margin.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You can buy G5 computers with no OS on them, just not from apple. I forgot where you can buy it from though, but I do remember seeing the adverts in a linux magazine and one of the gentoo newsletters.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
While I can't speak too much about OSX since I don't use it much, my experience with Quick Time has been less than optimal (on Windows). Videos play for the first few seconds, then the screen blacks out, and I get asked to upgrade every time I launch. I'll take the "Monopolistic" Windows Media Player over QT any day.
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So as Dell looks towards new markets to conquer with their low-cost business model, and involvement in those markets has less of a dependence upon Microsoft, Dell can be less concerned about keeping Microsoft happy.
In April, I did order a laptop from Dell (Latitude D610) without any O/S. You cannot select on the website without O/S, but if you pick up your phone and ask them, you can get almost whatever you want. In my case : the slowest (=cheapest) CPU, the fast graphics card (which, on the website, comes only with the fastest CPU), without O/S (and some other bells and whistle which are not worth mentioning here).
Also, you can order most (if not all) Dell servers without O/S, too.
They call that N-Series (you have a nice N-Series sticker instead of the designed for Windows XP sticker).
Toeing. Seriously.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line:
The phrase is often spelled incorrectly as "tow the line"...
There is no Macintosh Tax like Microsoft Tax.
If you call Apple, you can get a system WITHOUT the OS and get it cheaper. I've done it for graphic houses installations.
And if you are a Mac user, you know damn well that the so-called 'shovelware' is iLife that you're talking about is included FREE for new systems. All software on a Mac can be easily removed by dragging the application to the trash.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
I work in schools. Last month, I saw a couple of expert techs fail to upgrade a lab to XP SP2 after spending most of a day at it. With K12LTSP or EdUbuntu, they could have done the job from scratch in under an hour. For three months, my Linux network worked flawlessly while users of that other OS often could not log in or print. Such systems are a little more complex than most home use, but even a home with a new PC and an old one could benefit from this technology by using the old machine as a client of the new machine. With Linux, this is trivial. With that other OS, impossible without another licence, and likely beyond the ease of use Windows users hold so dear.
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
Im pretty sure that I've seen dell shipping desktop computers with redhat linux.
It may be free, but it's ANNOYING software. No better than the boatloads of spyware that we can also get for free in the Windows universe.
Not to jump on the "Dell lovez Linux!!! WHEE!!!!!1" bandwagon (because I'm not seeing it yet either), but who does better? In my experience with using a Dell (which I bought before I switched to Linux), I've had a very good time finding specifications for all components online (looking at what my monitor can handle when setting up X and checking the specs on the... I'm retarded) whereas I've had a bear of a time with family and friends' computers. I've also had no problems getting anything working on it; all components work right out of the box on Linux.
Again, I'm not trying to argue, but I've just not heard of any better 'support' from other manufacturers.
I don't know about you guys, but the past year all my experiences with dell have SUCKED big time. From rude reps in India, to broken parts, cheaper parts being shipped instead of what I ordered, etc. etc. etc. They have lied to me on the phone to try and get me to spend more money, not offering the 64 bit amd chips, I really could go on how a long time. They really aren't cheaper anymore either... Shit there are even large class action law suits against them for some of this stuff.
I couldn't be more dissatisfied with them, and most of my peers that I talk to agree. I even know some of Dell's huge customers are looking to leave them (for example one of the web's largest job boards, I'm sure you have used them....). I like the idea of firefox coming with the computer, but that doesn't compensate for shitty service and parts.
I just bought a server from HP and one from Sun. The both kick ass compared to allot of the crap dell was shipping us for the same price.
My theory is dell is getting greedy and trying to cut corners. They have to meet wallstreet's demands and are having trouble doing it. Dell is public now and they aren't much of a growth stock seeing how they dominate the market (except japan and china of course). They could be screwing with MS because MS will not give them greater discounts then they are already getting.
I'd say dell is trying to muscle MS, but that is only going to backfire. MS really made Dell able to beat HP/Compaq to become number 1. You should slap the hand that feeds you. When dell is competing against HP/Compaq on a completely level playing field I think they will loose.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... where does it say in the two Firefox articles that Firefox is going to be the default browser? Granted, it says it's going to be on the desktop, and that's a big deal. However, there's a big difference between being on the desktop and being the default browser.
I bought a Dimension back in 2001 before I really knew much about computers and it came with Rambus RDRAM. (I think it was an upgrade from the standard RAM provided, but I can't recall.) However, when I went to upgrade in 2003, I found that it was incredibly expensive (it still is), assumedly because it never caught on.
So while I support Dell making a decision based on its merits, let's hope this isn't Blu-ray's fate....
However, until the final changes of Microsoft's Licensing for Vista and Versions are in place it's still just rumors at this point.
"People aren't given a fair choice between running the Windows and Linux *OS* since the software,drivers and support for Windows is not available for Linux."
And why is this? Could it be due to the fact that manufacturers are reluctant to expend vast amounts of time and effort supporting a huge number of incompatible distros whose total number of desktop users put together is dwarfed by people still using Windows-95, who those same manufacturers have also stopped supporting?
"It's what we call a vicious circle".
No, it's what's called an insignificant and hopelessly fragmented market. OS X has a similar market share to the sum of desktop Linux, but it is far better supported by hardware and software manufacturers. This would not be the case if there were hundreds of different variants, each incompatible with all the others in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways, with different desktops and window managers, different versions of core libraries, update cycles that are not synchronised with those of any of the other variants, etc., etc. If you want manufacturers to support Linux, then give them a fixed target to aim at, not hundreds of annoyingly different little targets flitting around like starlings in a hurricane.
"Microsoft also uses unethical and possibly illegal deals with OEMs as one of it's many methods of what I and various anti-trust lawyers consider are illegal practices to ensure they maintain their monopoly."
1. The legality or otherwise of deals they made with OEMs has no bearing on anything, because said OEMs would not have been coerced into such deals if there was not a significant consumer demand for Windows. Big companies don't get pushed into positions that aren't favourable to them without having a very good reason for it. In Microsoft's case, it was the fact that consumers were overwhelmingly demanding Windows at a time when it still had several commercial competitors (OS/2, GEM, etc.) that they could also have bundled, but _chose_ to sign exclusive deals with MS instead.
2. Microsoft were convicted of leveraging _an existing monopoly_ in desktop operating systems to obtain monopolies in other sectors. Note the term "existing monopoly", because it is very important. Where did that "existing monopoly" come from? You can't claim it was from DOS, because MS had been trying to push Windows for years to DOS users without any notable success. The turning point came with Windows 3.X, which people started buying in large numbers because it was a compelling product that _they wanted to use_.
"There have in fact been several high profile anti-trust cases that Microsoft have basically lost."
See above. They lost because they illegally used _an existing monopoly_ to establish new ones. They still had to gain that existing monopoly in the first place, and they could not have done so if they were selling something people didn't want.
"It's just that none of the proposals to open up the software market to fair competition and stop the Microsofts monopoly abuses have been successful."
And they won't be, because (a) the law moves far too slowly for a rapidly changing ecosystem like computing, and (b) when legislation gets mixed up with high tech. markets, the end result is almost inevitably worse than if they'd simply left things alone. The current "hand content producers everything they demand, and treat consumers like criminals" trend by Western governments is an excellent example of this.
NB: a lot of Microsoft's success can be traced back to the general incompetence of the competition. Some examples:
1) Apple pissed away a large market share because "professional management" kicked out the original company founders, and then ran things as if there was no difference between selling computers and soda (there is an important one: computers cost a lot more than soda, so people aren't anything like as willing to buy one just to see what it's like).
2. Netscape's founder shot his mouth off about how the browser was the new pla
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
dell's server line already fully supports linux. I guess its a gradual move
That's kinda like saying "you can buy x86 machines with no OS, just not from Dell". If you're going to complain about one you kinda have to hold the other to the same standards.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Perhaps Dell preping themselves to cozy-up or come-against Apple in providing hardware for OS X.
Their gaming systems seem to be hardware enough for Apple specs. So, who knows?
In America cars are considered a god given right. There are many people who shouldn't be driving but are still given licenses. If you're driving a 1 ton vehicle while drunk or have poor vision, there is almost nothing that the engineers can do to prevent you from eventually killing someone.
Computers are a different story. Your mom might install spyware by accident or run a worm, but it's not entirely her fault. Quite a bit of spyware is installed through browser holes, which are not your mother's fault. If she runs an email which looks like it's coming from one of her friends but is really a worm, is it her fault that smtp is so poorly designed that it can't verify the sender? If the worm spreads to the other computers on the lan or floods network equipment, is it her fault that the equipment is poorly designed or not secure enough to handle such an attack?
iLife, the software that regularly wins praise when Apple computers are reviewed and has yet to have any kind of real competitor in the windows world is 'annoying'? If you don't want to use it, it just sits there. Trash the applications if you don't need them. How this is like getting spyware is beyond me.
Put in a few things, put some pressure on microsoft to cut an even better deal cause that makes a threat to take their toys and walk away more frightning. Would they get rid of Microsoft? hardly... all the crippleware they sell space for wouldn't work on Linux and that makes up a hefty chunk of change. This is simply a pressure tactic.
Yeah they sell AMD processors now, but only in boxes and not in working systems. This helps Intel claim they're obviously not pressuring Dell to only sell Intel crap, which is all they still actually put in systems.
Yeah they're shipping systems with FireFox preloaded, but only an obsolete version, and only in the UK for the moment. This helps Microsoft say that they're obviously not a big monopoly who forces systems to only be shipped with their own software loaded. But who will actually use this old version of FF?
Yeah they're not shipping HD-DVD systems now. Nobody is shipping HD-DVD systems! Or BluRay either! This makes it look like Microsoft's big announcement about HD-DVD support only in Vista isn't a convicited monopolist dictating the market -- which it is, IMHO. Lots of time for Dell to change their mind in the future and announce that We're just shipping what the customer is demanding. It's the same line they've used for years about why they don't ship AMD processor-powered systems yet.
I think all this helps Microsoft and Intel a lot more than it benefits me. In fact, helping MS and "i" doesn't benefit me at all since it reduces competition. I'm definitely not impressed at all.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Dell/Microsoft are alliance to each other in terms of money. Dell would depend on what consumers want, if for some reason, people think Firefox is better than IE, Dell would think the same. Ever since Firefox has been out, users tend to use it more than IE or at least research shown that Firefox is getting more and more downloads reaching IE's use. So to say, if the market likes Linux because security is more tightened, users move from Windows to Linux, then Dell would do the same. It's more of a supply and demand. You know the drill.
I pretty much agree with the gist of what you are saying.
I have no objection to OEMs choosing to distribute just Windows, based on it's merits.
However, Microsoft structure their deals with OEMs to force those OEMs to distribute and push Windows exclusively on the desktop otherwise they can't compete with the OEMs who *are* in bed with MS.
They do this for the same reason as they heavily drop the price of Windows in developing countries to ensure that Windows and it's competitors are not judged on their relative merits prior to the monopoly being established. After people are locked into windows they can always up the prices later.
Of course Microsoft isn't the only company to do this. Walkers buy up all the shelf space in shops so competing brands can't display new products.
As long as microsoft keeps bribing OEMs to only push Windows and it keeps it's binary dump office document format it sucessfully stops competing OS's from even having a *chance* of entering the mainstream market.
In fact I would say the biggest threat to Microsofts monopoly is OpenOffice and the pro "open-document-standard" lobby groups, whom, if they are successful, might break part of the MS monopoly. Once this is done some governments/states might use OpenOffice. If china/brazil start using OpenOffice/Linux rather than MSOffice/Windows I would guess the major hardware/software vendors would have to start supporting Linux and the issues about what version of linux to target would get solved in one way or another (standardised package format based on meta data etc,)
I'm not trying to start an argument, and I'd love to see the links where it says it will be the default.
Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?
Can I just say, as coordinator of the FreeDOS Project, how cool it is that FreeDOS still affects Microsoft, even in some small way, in 2005/2006? :-)
Did I not mention time was a factor? Yes I did.
Let's say I want to back up the 400 GB drive on a DVD that can hold ~5GB. You are only looking at raw cost, but how many DVD's does it take to back up 400GB? It takes *80* DVD's. Have you EVER sat through backup that took *80* disc swaps? That simply is not practical, not even if you were willing to do it just once a year!
Now back to Blu-Ray. As another poster pointed out costs will drop, but I could really care less. I just want to be able to back up data easily. Furthermore WHY do you assume you'll not be able to get dual-layre discs from the start? Of course you will. That means 50GB discs, for a total of only FIVE disc swaps. Even if the worst case were true and it took ten swaps - I could live with that once a month (which is how often I'd like to be able to do offsite backups).
Let's say the five discs cost some rediculous sum like $100 (which it wont). Even then it's STILL better. I can take those five discs and mail them anywhere for much less, and they take up far less physical space than another HD. Do not forget I said I ALREADY use a HD as a primary backup - what I was is a series of secondary offiste backups that are easy to transport. An HD is somewhat easy but very bulky compared to five DVD sized discs. And $100 is still cheaper than a 400GB drive, especially if you are talking SATA for hot-swapping out of a mirrored RAID.
Factoring in a one-time cost of the burner to get your final total is rediculous. Why do you think I would want ONE backup. Why would I not want multiple versions throughout the year, and therefore not care for re-writability? That is just a detriment. If I backup 12 times a year am I going to buy 12 different players? You are either an idiot or twisting the numbers t suit the argument you are trying to make.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
According to one review (midpage and lower), Dell doesn't like the idea of home users going out and blowing away Dell's custom MBR. According to the reps, using a different MBR voids the warranty support and you'd have to pay for their on-call service.
I don't think they're very keen to users installing Linux.
Volume makes low hardware prices, regardless of how much or little the software costs. Do you really think Dell's main customers, big dumb companies, put warez and other "crap" on their desktops? No, they usually pay the M$ tax twice because they can not use the "bundled" software provided "for free" to home and small office users. The minute Michael Dell thinks he can make more money selling computers with Mepis instead of M$ licensing headaches, he will and the people supplying him parts will be happy to keep supplying him parts at exactly the same price.
Until there are third party OEMs like Norton and Adobe offering well recognized linux tools that will help sell even more machines, Dell would make LESS on each system by NOT including windows. Twice the support costs (now they have to field both linux and windows calls) but LESS PROFIT. They would have to charge MORE FOR LESS, which is exactly what you see now.
Well recognized like DEC, Wang, OS/2? Brand name means nothing. Companies that rely on closed source sink like stones and are quickly forgoten about. Free software will outlive such nonsense. Performance and demand are everything. The performance gap between free and non free software is so tremendous the demand will only grow. We are close to the tipping point for M$. When Vista flops, and it will, it's all over for them and they can join the non free companies they so happily sank.
I'm going to be happy when the true cost of software is reflected in Dells pricing. A bare box will be cheaper than one with M$ crap on it or your favorite distro. Free software will be cheaper, because you don't have to pay licensing fees for the software, the drivers or any other part of it as you copy it.
I'll also dare to say that free software support costs will be much lower for them, due to free software's reliability. The cost of the clueless will never go away, but modern distributions are much easier to use than Windoze ever was. There will never be the cost of Melissa and all that badness.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They will do it on a dime and everyone will follow. When Michael Dell thinks he can make more money without M$, he will without hesitation. He will pull more than Dell's 17% of the world market with him too. Microsoft performance is so poor, the tipping point is here. It's been coming for years but it will happen so fast it Steve Ballmer's chair won't have time to hit the ground.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Repeat after me:
Drivers are written in assembly code. Assembly code on x86 is assmbly code on x86.
I think a lot of linux people would be perfectly happy receiving the assembly code (source, not compiled) and do the writing of the C code or other code that is necessary to interact with the kernel/OS.
The thing that bothers them, is that they do not want the user to have access to the source because programmers could also make private (possibly better) drivers for windows as well.
I don't get it.
I hate to pull a "me too", but: me too.
I like the fact of having firefox, thunderbird, gaim on Linux/Win/Mac. It did't drive me away from windows, but it did pull me towards linux.
I don't get it.
Over the last year my company has replaced every GX270 mainboard has blown. Its probably cost us a week of developer and IT time because Dell wouldnt do a general recall. And dell has as a result paid for ~20 onsite field replacement techs and part return waybills
Convergence has been the "next big thing" for about a decade. It's never going to happen.
There are no technological barriers, they're all ergonomic. A group of people don't want to gather 'round a keyboard to watch a movie, and nobody wants to create documents with a keyboard on their lap and the "monitor" across the room.
I thought the Halo effect was the mad rush to buy the Xbox....
"I have no objection to OEMs choosing to distribute just Windows, based on it's merits."
It isn't so much a matter of merits nowadays as one of brand recognition. Microsoft and Windows are household names that people recognise without necessarily knowing that much about them beyond the fact that they are related to computers, and boxes of software and games in stores seem to insist on them being there.
"However, Microsoft structure their deals with OEMs to force those OEMs to distribute and push Windows exclusively on the desktop otherwise they can't compete with the OEMs who *are* in bed with MS."
They would not however be able to do this if consumers weren't already demanding Windows in huge numbers. OEMs are forced to play by Microsoft's rules because that's what the market they are serving dictates -- if there were enough people out there who didn't want Windows, then Microsoft would have a lot less leverage on OEMs.
"Of course Microsoft isn't the only company to do this. Walkers buy up all the shelf space in shops so competing brands can't display new products."
Nearly every company out there does everything in its power to trounce the competition whenever it can. We get all worked up over Microsoft's antics because computers are an important aspect of our lives, but most of the people who actually buy the things couldn't care less about how MS behave towards their competitors and OEMs. They want Windows because it's what they use at work, or what Larry next door is running some great games on, or what the software their accountant recommends works with, or a whole host of other reasons that are purely pragmatic, just like most of their other buying decisions are based on a pragmatic evaluation of products rather than an in-depth study of the way their manufacturers behave towards competitors and suppliers.
"In fact I would say the biggest threat to Microsofts monopoly is OpenOffice and the pro "open-document-standard" lobby groups, whom, if they are successful, might break part of the MS monopoly."
OpenOffice itself isn't a threat to MS because it is constantly chasing their coat tails. The latest version is inferior in almost every respect to an the ageing Office-2000 system that sits on my Windows lap-top (I am not a fanboi: this response it being written on a Mac, and I also have a system which runs SUSE Linux), and cannot hold a candle to subsequent ones. You do not defeat a massively entrenched piece of software like Office by being nearly as good as it was 5 years ago -- you have to be better than it is now, and capable of importing documents that contain macros, VBA scripts, Access databases, and all the other assorted gubbins. I actually use OpenOffice fairly regularly because its multi-platform nature suits my rather mixed computing environment, but this is the only thing it has going for it besides the price when compared to Microsoft's offerings.
As for the open document lobby groups, I wish them every success, because despite the cynical tone of my comments, I am just as sick of Microsoft's constant attempts to lock users in to their closed proprietary formats as anyone. However, I am a realist, and recognise that (a) MS have a massive arsenal of dirty tricks that they will use to try and derail such efforts at every opportunity, and (b) even if these fail, they can simply give their apps the ability to read and write said standards, and then tell the world how benevolent and standard-compliant they are. Net loss for Office: zero, net loss for Windows: zero.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
One could also argue you can buy a powerpc box from IBM with linux on it. If you want linux, go to the company pushing it.
Besides how hard is it to drop in an ubuntu (or better distro) disc and install. I'm dual booting my iBook G4 right now with ubuntu and Mac OS 10.4. Aside from no airport extreme support, ubuntu supports my hardware fine. (i've never tried the modem though) I picked ubuntu because it had the easiest install directions for a mac i could find. Suse just started supporting them and fedora had no documentation at the time. I didn't feel like going through a gentoo install this time.
I find it odd that people call it the microsoft tax. Most dells are cheaper WITH windows than WITHOUT. Look at their n line or whatever without an os (freedos isn't preloaded). The machines generally cost more money than the windows counterparts. Sometimes they include a real video card (not intel), but other than that they are the same. Price used to be 100 dollars more. I haven't looked since september.
Another odd thing is this person mentioned g5's. Most dells shipped are more like iMacs in terms of quality and specs. (well apple's have better video cards across the line) You should compare Dell Precisions to G5s since they are both workstations. I'm making the assumption the person was talking about powermacs because most people don't talk about iMacs as g5s even though they do contain a g5 chip.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Repeat after me:
Windows device drivers are not the same as Linux device drivers, even when running on the same CPU.
Not every Linux machine is based around an x86.
Device manufacturers who write drivers often want to keep some of their APIs secret. They will not therefore give you the source code for their drivers. They do not care whether you are happy about this or not, because they would have already written a driver for you if your happiness had any importance to them whatsoever.
"The thing that bothers them, is that they do not want the user to have access to the source because programmers could also make private (possibly better) drivers for windows as well."
Baloney. They stand to to gain from letting somebody else develop drivers that makes their hardware work better on its primary platform, especially if said developers do it for free. As I've said above, the reason they don't release their driver source is because they want to protect certain secret APIs from competitors, who could utilise such information to build cheap work-alike hardware that reduced demand for the original.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
It is only true that an AACS delay affects them both if they are both ready to go to market today and they have to wait.
If one of them (Blu-Ray) is still not ready for market anyway, then the delay to HD-DVD caused by AACS is in fact playing to Blu-Ray's advantage. Where HD-DVD was thought to have the first-to-market advantage, it's now scrod.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
In fact, one of the "better" bang for buck AMD64 laptop offerings happens to be the HP/Compaq line of units. Reasonably reliable, maximized functionality, decent screen options, etc. All for 1000USD in most places. Not bad. Not my first choice in machines, though- what I wanted (But couldn't justify to my wife or myself...) was something in the class of Savrow's Katana KX9 or similar. Dual core, etc. I'd use the NVidia GPUs over an ATI one right at the moment. While the drivers work decently well, the ATI drivers work nicely with my Xpress200 setup on some games, others it bogs down BADLY. Under Windows, I see some of the same, but not as bad. In the case of NVidia's offerings, I do not see the same problems.
If I had any regrets with my Pavillion zv6000 so far over the past 3 months, it's been one of the GPU. Forced to turn on the UMA instead of just the integrated (which I'm suspecting is where part of the real slowdowns are coming from on this one...), slower on some stuff than it ought to be.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
They had a "non-fragmented" market back a handful of years back. Dell tossed it to the curb, most likely due to pressure from Bill and Co. only months after doing it. Did you know that Michael Dell owns a good chunk of Red Hat? Did you know that Dell Ventures was one of the VC groups that helped take them public?
And don't go and tell me "fragmented"- what are the main distributions?
Red Hat
SuSE
Debian
Slackware
Mandriva
Now, realistically, the hardware involvement for support is largely the same for all of the above . That, my friend is all Dell cares about. What's the picture for Windows?
XP Professional
XP Home
Media Center
2003 Server
Vista(Eventually...)
Each of the above setups realistically, with the exception of XP Home/Professional, have ever so slightly different hardware requirements and available driver profiles. Gee... Seems they have the same level of "fragmentation" and not all hardware can be realistically supported with each version- some drivers really only work with 2003 server or XP only, etc.
Any time someone trots out the "fragmentation" argument, I have to question ignorance or attribute it to trying to sell someone something, because it's mostly an empty argument. Which would it be in your case?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I think you are unnecessarily pessimistic.
I wouldn't understimate the effect of price, most people do not like paying for things if they can get by with something free! Most peole would also be happy with MS Office 5 years ago from a functionality perspective. Also, most people don't use VBA(or even know what it is) nor do they access databases from office files.
If some goverments/countries switch to OpenOffice it's likely some companies will also switch to OpenOffice. The more users it has the more developer hours will get put in and the more pressure will be on microsoft to support it's doc formats.
Microsoft may be unsucessful at blocking OEMs from installing OpenOffice/StarOffice on new PCs in the wealthy west too. Once one OEM rolls out free unlimited office suites there is going to be more pressure on the others (OEMs even on Dell).
Once upon a time no one thought IBM would lose it's dominant position either.
If you've got a Dell purchased on or around Sep-11, keep an eye on it. I'm seeing boatloads of them start failing lately.
I suppose you got this figure from one of the Microsoft funded comparison studies?
Dell must have a good reason to throw in with the somewhat more "evil" Sony camp, presumably a financial one. Sony is putting a *lot* more DRM into Blu-Ray, as the BR effort is mostly run with interests of Sony's media division. The chances therefore are quite good that Blu-Ray will be much less open source friendly than the more pro-fair use HD-DVD is.
After all, it was Linux that was the key driver for DVD-Jon to break CSS, because Linux support for the DVD format was not great, and Jon wanted to watch his movies in a fair-use mannner.
Now, the intelligent approach is to ensure the hardware is well supported and easy to work with for the open source crowd - if people can just use it without needing to break it, why bother breaking it? Sony, of course, has no remorse nor common sense, and like the other members of the *AA they will opt for the deny-deny-deny business practice and try to lock open source completely out of Blu-Ray, seeing it (perhaps rightly?) as a real threat to their new stranglehold. I almost guarantee if you do get Blu-Ray playing on a PC, it will be phoning home and rootkitting your system as much as it can anyway.
Not going to happen? Three months ago if I'd have said Sony was putting a rootkit on people's computers just for putting a CD in it, you'd laugh at me.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Dell is successful because they focus on shipping PCs and not making speculative investments.
There's nothing particularly speculative about putting a tickbox on the order form that says no OS. Nor is it particularly speculative to put a tickbox on the order form that says "UbuntuLinux (warning, for experts only, only paid support available from blahblahblah)".
Look at IBM where they were bragging about the billions invested in Linux, all while taking a huge loss on each PC sold due to overhead.
IBM's investment in OSS is independent of whether they sell PC's with Linux/M$Windows/whatever. Don't conflate the two. It is to IBM's strategic advantage to invest in anything that will bring M$ down a notch or two. It is also to there advantage to not be contributing to their main competitor's revenue stream every year.
Not if it would cost them $40,000,000,000,000 to convert.
You're handwaving and the cost is incremental anyway. Organisations that have switched to Linux on the Desktop report that the training costs FUD is no big deal and that's been my personal experience as well. Switching costs are grossly exaggerated.
The Linux conversion "value proposition" has always been shaky -- you spend a ton of money upfront,
No you don't. You do it incrementally, use free downloads and use staff time that would've been taken on commercial vendor assessment anyway.
make a ton of assumptions about software features that will presumably magically appear in the future,
No you don't. You look for the features your office needs now. If all required features aren't available then you go with whatever is available. Incremental again. If you're a large organisation you pay for the features you want to be added to the packages you're using. Much cheaper than trying to do the same with a closed source app. No magic needed.
and then when you are done, you end up paying the much more expensive "RedHat Tax" in place of the "M$ Tax".
No you don't. If you're a large organisation you have your own or contracted third party IT team. Much cheaper than per-seat licensing.
(Check dell.com where the RedHat workstations only come with only one year of patch support at the same price as Windows XP Pro.)
Unlike M$ this is a free market. Red Hat is only one of many options, everything from employing the secretary's teenage son/nerd to full IBM contract support.
There's a reason there hasn't been any sort of mass-movement towards Linux despite all the optimistic predictions
What predictions? I haven't seen any. This is just a strawman that M$ proponents like to raise.
-- the numbers are bogus.
Not bogus at all. Any large organisation paying for per-seat licensing is being economically stupid. When the organisation gets to the size of China or India it becomes even more compelling. Spend a few hundred million to get whatever applications you want up to scratch rather than a few billion paying for M$ licenses. And as a bonus you get a home grown IT industry, better security from USA backdoors and assorted other insecurities, less of a subsidy for a commercially dangerous foreign competitor (M$) and more control over your own direction.
Everyone is sitting around waiting for someone else to make Linux a full-fledged, drop-in replacement for Windows.
No they're not. Linux is being incrementally improved all the time in different directions by different groups and individuals. It's becoming worthwhile for larger classes of users all the time.
And if that ever happens, Dell will be around to collect on their investment.
Yes, that's the beauty of OSS - it's win-win. Dell may do some incremental steps in the direction of Linux but they get the payback from all the other organisations doing their incremental bit. Everybody wins.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
"I think you are unnecessarily pessimistic."
I really do hope you are right. However, 25 years in the computer industry has taught me that it is prone to being dominated by massive and overbearing commercial monopolies. The name of the monopoly may change (it used to be IBM, now it's MS, but they wouldn't be in that position if they hadn't been in bed with IBM when it was the big, bad monopoly). And these monopolies persist even when governments take action to try and thwart them. Group Bull for example was heavily funded by the French government in an attempt to break IBM's stranglehold on their computing sector. All government procurements were from Bull; heavy subsidies allowed Bull to undercut IBM in virtually every sector; yet despite this, IBM's share of the French IT market kept getting bigger and bigger.
"I wouldn't understimate the effect of price, most people do not like paying for things if they can get by with something free!"
People opt for what they think offers the best value, and this is not necessarily the item with the lowest price. The fact that MS Office has a user base which dwarfs that of all other similar software combined (including both commercial and open source offerings) would seem to indicate that most of the people who want office productivity software consider that the MS version offers better value than any of the others, free or otherwise.
"Most peole would also be happy with MS Office 5 years ago from a functionality perspective."
Indeed, as is indicated by the fact that people don't upgrade Office anything like as often as MS would like. There is actually a significant proportion of people still using Office-97, because it does what they want and they see no reason to upgrade. Note though that they are sticking with an obsolete version of Office, not switching to OpenOffice.
"Also, most people don't use VBA(or even know what it is) nor do they access databases from office files."
You are wrong about this. Custom VBA Office applications, Word and Excel macros, and stuff that uses MS Access (often as a front-end to corporate RDBMS systems) are very common indeed in both business and government environments, which are precisely the ones where MS is most entrenched, and from which it derives the bulk of its profits. If OpenOffice cannot migrate or at least handle this sort of thing, then it will remain forever on the sidelines, because every small business and individual who has to deal with these corporations will stick with MS Office rather than risk going with an at best only partially compatible alternative.
"If some goverments/countries switch to OpenOffice it's likely some companies will also switch to OpenOffice."
See the example of IBM and Group Bull above. Some may switch, but most won't, because dealings with government are usually handled by specialist departments in companies, and they frequently use different software from the rest of the organisation. This will even be the case for government contractors, who may well use OpenOffice for exchanging documents with the government itself if that is a requirement, but continue to use MS Office for internal stuff, communicating with suppliers, etc.
"Microsoft may be unsucessful at blocking OEMs from installing OpenOffice/StarOffice on new PCs in the wealthy west too.
Once one OEM rolls out free unlimited office suites there is going to be more pressure on the others (OEMs even on Dell)."
None of which will affect big businesses at all, because they buy their PCs without operating systems or software and install Windows etc. from disks that MS supply as part of bulk licensing deals. And if the big businesses are still using MS Office, those who deal with them will have to use it too. So the only people who will end up bothering with a pre-bundled version of OpenOffice will be those who probably wouldn't have bought MS Office anyway, i.e. pretty much the situation we have now.
"Once upon a time no one thought IBM would lose it's dominant position ei
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Our company got a shipment of 18 or so GX270s about 2 years ago. In the first year of operation over half of their power supply units failed and had to be replaced.
Time is changing and what was true a few years ago won't hold true any more.
My father just given his 64 bit MS-Windows back to the shop for refuned because of bad driver and software support. At the same time I plan to deinstall my 32 bit Linux since I have not started it in 6 Month.
For clarification: I have not started the MS-Windows on that computer for 2 years. I use a 64 bit Linux.
And of corse I don't have to send my 32 bit Linux back for refund as I got both 32 and 64 bit Linux on the same DVD paying only once.
Martin
"Baloney. They stand to to gain from letting somebody else develop drivers that makes their hardware work better on its primary platform, especially if said developers do it for free. As I've said above, the reason they don't release their driver source is because they want to protect certain secret APIs from competitors, who could utilise such information to build cheap work-alike hardware that reduced demand for the original."
Not quite. Close but not quite. The reason that's been handed to me is patents. Everyone is either violating everyone elses, or are afraid that they might be. Keeping the code secret adds a layer of protection against litigation.
every desktop and laptop computer in the world can trace its ancestry back to that original IBM PC line, and nearly all of them are running software written by the company that IBM contracted to supply an OS for that original PC. It _is_ the same monopoly with the same behaviour -- the only thing that has changed is the names of the people who are running it.
;)
Ok so we switched from a hardware monopoly owned by IBM to an Operating System monopoly owned by Microsoft. I fail to see quite how this is the same monopoly, unless you define whatever the current monopoly in the IT industry is as the same monopoly.
As I've already mentioned I think large multinationals and government may start demanding an open document format for future compatibility reasons and if MS falls into line then the monopoly is already heavily crippled. I also think home users will use whatever is the cheapest office suit that is "good enough" and can read/write normal word files they use at work/school/government.
The lock in to VBA-backend databases is more of an issue but I think you exaggerate the usage of this. A business could still mandate all normal word documents are saved in an open document format but allow MS office VBA applications. My view is that if VBA excel spreadsheet applications did die a death the financial industry as a whole would be better a place anyway, unlikely as it is. As you are probably aware some governments *are* now telling microsoft that they might switch to a different office suite unless MS support an open document format in MS office.
Microsofts strength has always been seeing another companies new idea, cloning the technology and adding it into the windows portfolio.
I think the "new" monopoly company after MS could be using open source technologies and might even be web based. With so many companies now jumping on the opensource bandwagon MS finds itself being attacked on all fronts (OS, WebBrowser, Office, google-internet) by a nebulous enemy that for the first time in history is eating it from the cheap end up in the same way as MS did to Unix.
If I was to put money on it then I would guess that over the next 25 years microsoft will have a substantially smaller proportion of worldwide IT revenues than it's had over the last 25 years.
Time will tell
"Ok so we switched from a hardware monopoly owned by IBM to an Operating System monopoly owned by Microsoft. I fail to see quite how this is the same monopoly, unless you define whatever the current monopoly in the IT industry is as the same monopoly."
We did not switch from anything. Nearly everybody is running Intel CPU instruction sets because IBM selected Intel's 8088 for their PC, despite the fact that it was a dreadful processor when compared with the competition (already well established 8 bit CPUs such as Zilog's Z80 were at least as performant, and a _lot_ cheaper, while virtually every one of the newer 16 bit processors was superior in every respect, and comparable in price). We are likewise running Microsoft software because IBM selected Microsoft as the OS supplier for said PC. Again, the OS itself was basically a piece of junk that nobody would have bothered with if it hadn't been part and parcel of a PC with IBM written on the box, yet it ended up dominating the market. The emperor may have changed, but it is the same empire.
"As I've already mentioned I think large multinationals and government may start demanding an open document format for future compatibility reasons"
The odd government may, but multinationals will continue to use MS software unless there is a 100% reliable mechanism for converting all documents. Less that 100% means that (a) they will have to continue using MS software with some of their legacy data, and (b) they will be faced with maintaining two formats, which is costly. They will therefore stick with MS because it is cheaper and easier.
"If MS falls into line then the monopoly is already heavily crippled."
Not if "falling into line" means perfect imports, but feature-crippled exports. Microsoft's core corporate market thus gets the ability to handle any OpenOffice documents they may be sent, while remaining locked in to Office formats for their own data. Net change: zero.
"The lock in to VBA-backend databases is more of an issue but I think you exaggerate the usage of this."
I am not exaggerating anything. Custom MS Office development is extremely common in business settings, and not only for in-house stuff. There is a substantial third-party industry whose products are written in VBA for sectors such as company admin, medicine, law, accountancy, video and car hire, and a host of others. It is not only an extremely cheap and easy way to develop software, but also one that is amenable to significant end-user customisation without needing to learn programming, and that makes it a popular application platform for businesses of all sizes.
"A business could still mandate all normal word documents are saved in an open document format but allow MS office VBA applications."
Why would they bother to do that if they are locked into Office by VBA, macros , etc.? They'll still have to pay MS for Office licenses, so where is the _business case_ for such a policy?
"Microsofts strength has always been seeing another companies new idea, cloning the technology and adding it into the windows portfolio."
Microsoft's strength has been their ability to take ideas that others have developed, and implement them in a way that fits in with their corporate goals, which are basically to ensure that Microsoft customers remain Microsoft customers. And this is what they will do with OpenDocument if they are forced to adopt it: all they need to do is make it both a bit inconvenient to use, and feature-poor when compared to their own formats to ensure that most users won't bother with it.
"As you are probably aware some governments *are* now telling microsoft that they might switch to a different office suite unless MS support an open document format in MS office"
But none have actually switched yet, so MS are far from being in a position where anyone substantial can force them to do anything. And they're fighting this on several fronts: they are seeking ratification from standards bodies for their new Office XML format, and
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Everyone is running IBM architecture still today and Apple was screwed precisely because IBM missed a beat, it's design was reverse engineered and IBM's monopoly was broken by cheaper clones. Windows was popular because it was out before OS2 and ran on all the crappy hardware.
.NET whilst the development tools are fairly crap, the platform has the advantage that they could fix some of the crappy bits of Java.
Microsofts entry into the server market was obviously an attack on Unix and they have gained much ground helped by the ever faster x86 architecture and cheaper wintel pricing at the low end of the market. Obviously this happened after there OS was re-written from scratch by VMS developers. I'm not sure how many systems are converted from unix to NT but unix systems are eventually decomissioned and replaced by either NT or Linux system which is only going to happen faster now IBM is pouring man-hours into Linux.
A lot depends on if Microsoft can keep the target moving fast enough. I think with the OS this is hard as I haven't seen much innovation coming from osX that they can steal, possibly document sharing and collaborative working in Office 2009 might keep them ahead of the game for a bit longer. And then of course there is
I'm not sure you could say a move to opensource would form a completely new monopoly (by your logic at least) since IBM has been looking for a way to regain control of the x86 market for some time. First by co-developing an x86 Unix with Caldera/SCO and then as they saw the market swinging away from unix by contributing very similar high end x86 code into Linux and sucking up to the open source community. Still, i'm not complaining.
"Everyone is running IBM architecture still today and Apple was screwed precisely because IBM missed a beat, it's design was reverse engineered and IBM's monopoly was broken by cheaper clones."
.NET whilst the development tools are fairly crap, the platform has the advantage that they could fix some of the crappy bits of Java."
.NET dev. tools being particularly crappy when compared with what else is out there. However, I do agree that they fixed some of Java's design flaws, thereby forcing Java to respond with similar capabilities. Hopefully, both platforms will continue to be heavily supported, as the existence of each is driving improvements in the other.
The point here is that they _were_ clones of IBM's system, i.e. they were simply riding on the coat tails of a monopoly, making essentially identical machines to said monpololy. And it wasn't simply Apple that got screwed: CP/M, Oasys, and a bunch of other successful operating systems were simply swept aside to be replaced by what was initially an inferior operating system. This is why I keep saying that what we are living under now is the _same monopoly_ that IBM established: it is irrelevant who makes the computers themselves, because they are simply continuing a legacy that the old IBM monopoly established: they still have ROMs with reverse-engineered code in them that emulates stuff in the original IBM PC and AT; they have CPUs in that are capable of running that ancient instruction set; and they use an operating system containing bits that can trace their roots back to that first IBM PC DOS.
"Microsofts entry into the server market was obviously an attack on Unix and they have gained much ground helped by the ever faster x86 architecture and cheaper wintel pricing at the low end of the market."
Microsoft's initial entry into the server market was with XENIX, a UNIX for X86 systems that the original SCO (i.e. the one that is now Tarantella) wrote for them. There were also a number of other X86 UNIX implementations that came before Windows/NT, and like other UNIXes, were mostly used as multi-user systems running text mode applications on arrays of dumb terminals. Windows/NT was a very different beast to that, and targeted a completely different market, i.e. those with networks of PCs who wanted a centralised repository of shared file and print services. The only cross-over point was the now mostly defunct UNIX workstation market, which NT did target; however, one could easily argue that it was ever more powerful and cheap graphics cards driven by the PC gaming market that really sounded the death-knell of these incredibly expensive machines, not anything Microsoft did.
" lot depends on if Microsoft can keep the target moving fast enough. I think with the OS this is hard as I haven't seen much innovation coming from osX that they can steal, possibly document sharing and collaborative working in Office 2009 might keep them ahead of the game for a bit longer."
Innovation and newness are largely irrelevant when you earn money from 90% of the computers being sold anyway. Vista will be the first major overhaul of their core OS since XP was launched in 2001, yet the much more regularly updated Linux and OS X systems are still unable to make much of a dent in Microsoft's desktop dominance. They therefore do not need to stay ahead of anyone to succeed, because people are still buying what is now is now a rather old product in computing terms, and one that has garnered an immense amount of bad publicity from massive and often extremely damaging virus and worm outbreaks.
"And then of course there is
I've not noticed the
"I'm not sure you could say a move to opensource would form a completely new monopoly"
I wasn't really thinking about open source, but rather companies such as Google, who (if they did displace the existing "children of IBM" monopoly) would be doing so via a technology that was not even a consideration when the existing monopolies became entrenched. For that sort of
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Dell offers Open Source machines, and has for over a year. Go to Dell.com, choose home and home office segment, then point at Desktops at the top of the page, and choose Open Source Desktops. This will get you to this page:s px/e510_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.a