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How Open Source is Faring in Retail

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the man-on-the-street dept.

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."

4 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. MS punishing for FOSS? by PFI_Optix · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've worked for both a retail outlet and two small OEMs, one of which is a Microsoft gold OEM partner, or whatever that program is now.

    At all three places we talked openly to MS reps about offering Linux to keep prices down. At one of the OEMs we went from all MS to about 20% Linux in the space of a year. Not once did any of that hurt our relationship with them. This sounds like a bunch of FUD to me.

    --
    120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
  2. From a slightly different angle... by mccalli · · Score: 4, Informative
    I misinterpreted the title at first, and thought it might mean Linux in the retail industry. I'll pass this anecdote on anyway though.

    In the UK, the PC World chain is the main purveyor of PCs at retail. It, err...well. How shall we put this? It doesn't have the greatest reputation for knowledgeable staff and customer service. Alternative names I've heard for it are PC Woe and The Purple Temple Of Sadness (which is the best term I've heard for the place).

    As you'd expect, it pushes cheap* PCs and whilst the odd Mac sits at the back somewhere, it's pretty much a Windows-only place, happily pushing Microsoft Anything and Norton at people.

    It came as a surprise then, when I needed to grab a router right that moment and so went in, to find internal stock lists and part numbers getting checked using OpenOffice spreadsheets. Interested, I had a word with the guy doing the check and he said OpenOffice was used throughout the store.

    I'm not certain as to whether he meant just that store or the entire chain, but it was interesting to see OpenOffice having taken over a shop so strongly identified with WinTel and Microsoft-only solutions.

    Cheers,
    Ian
    *Not that I have anything against cheap PCs - all depends on people's needs really.

  3. Re:Exactly by aj50 · · Score: 5, Informative
    That depends. If you got windows with your pc like almost all home users do, then yes.

    OEM operating system licences live and die with each pc - they are not transferable

    http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/licensing/howt ouse.mspx

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  4. Re:That is a shocker by yo_tuco · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Yes, you can do that, yes, it is legal, and no, MS is not stopping people from doing so."

    Maybe now you can after this poor dude, David Zamos, tried to sell his copy, and faced the wrath of Microsoft's lawyers. But David fought back. An amazing and sad story, IMHO, how big corps expect us pee-on consumers' to just roll over.