How Open Source is Faring in Retail

SilentBob4 writes to tell us MadPenguin is running the first of two articles taking a look at the 'world of retail as Tux is experiencing it'. From the article: "Of the stores we visited, only Linspire Linux was sold pre-installed on computers in-store. Those FOSS boxes were often among the store's best volume sellers, primarily because they were the cheapest, according to store staff. The staff believed, based on conversations with frequent customers, that most customers were buying the boxes to install Windows on them. But that is not surprising to us, because, as we discuss in section two, brick-and-mortar "computer" stores are still part of the Microsoft distribution chain. The fact that there were some open source products at all in these stores is actually surprising, as Microsoft guards its distribution chain jealously, and punishes those business partners who stray into carrying FOSS products."

Comments

morans

[vettemph]

>>>best volume sellers, primarily because they were the cheapest... most customers were buying the boxes to install Windows on them.

1) It is sad that "Linux means cheaper" to these people. Linux is for powerful workstations, It happens to be shared freely and openly because that is desirable to those who need/want it. So what if it scales down to your POS PC.

2) Linux users upgrade the stuff that matters. (not the outside box)
      If I bought a new box everytime I wanted all the electronics upgraded in my PC I would need my own personal land fill.

3) Why the hell would anyone install windows on anything? morans!
    I could understand ditching Linspire for Ubuntu or Fedora Core, but windows?? :)

^m0d up

[Anonymous Coward]

ppor dead last racist? How is to make sure the they're gone Mac