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Dell Ships Gaming Systems Sans Bloat
An anonymous reader writes "Dell has followed up and put their money where their mouth is after HardOCP panned them last year for selling 'gaming systems' that you could not even install some popular 3D games on due to the bloatware on the system. You can now get clean installs on some XPS Dell systems. Dell is running a 'You Spoke, We Listened,' header on their site." From the article: "It seems that Dell has taken our criticism (and our readers as well) to heart and has made the much sought after move to offer select XPS systems with "limited" pre-installed software. We phoned a Dell sales representative late Monday, and he confirmed that the installation is completely clean, except for the included anti-virus program. As explained to us by Dell, There is no AOL installation, no "media jukebox", and no ISP offers to weigh the supplied operating system down."
And how much more do the systems cost to get Dell to not include that crapware?
This guy's the limit!
My number one grip with buying a prebuilt system versus building my own (cost aside) is that they come with so much crap on them. When i bought my gateway laptop, it took in between 3 and 5 minutes to boot up when it was new. After i cleaned all the misc crap off of it that i'll never use, it took about 45 seconds or less. I vote that pc manufacturers give you the very basic installation and then give you a DVD that has everything else on it. You stick it in and it gives you a nice menued list of things you may want to install.
A person who just spent 1500 bucks on a new laptop isn't going to be wowed when their new laptop is taking longer to boot than their old one...
Of course they are going to say they listened to the public, but it probably came from Mr dell having a grey alien over his shoulder now whispering things about customer satisfaction and doing the right thing.
Remember, they were shoving this crap down our necks for years then all of a sudden just mere weeks after buying Alienware we see this...
liqbase
With these gamer systems, Dell's margin's are high enough tha they don't need this subsidy; but for the most part, noone in their right mind (even Dell) would be paying Redmond taxes if someone else weren't paying them to do so.
That's the real reason Windows can never get serious about combatting spyware -- OEM support for windows depends entirely on the ability to hide deceptive spyware on the systems.
Isn't all that pre-installed crap the reason that computers are as cheap as they are? I say they should go ahead and shovel it on; I'm going to do a fresh install anyway.
"Why don't they just ..... blah ....?" we ask ourselves constantly. In some cases, there are contracts with hardware suppliers, advertisers, marketing teams, delivery and supply chains, retail outlets, and other behind-the-scenes business partners that must be, at the very least, scanned carefully by Dell's legal staff. More often than not, a renegotiation is necessary to change business practices that may impact those contracted partners. This takes time. And when the negotiations stall, there's no option but to wait it out.
So Dell is going the right thing, and the response here is almost universally negative. Not about the fact that they're doing the right thing by their customers, but that they even had to because they did the wrong thing first. Well I'll tell you what. It's rare that a business "has it right" out of the gate and never looks back. Google is one of those rare companies that has mostly pulled this off. Few businesses do it. They must learn from the market, and shape and mold their business model to maximize profit. Profits are maximized by providing the most people with what they want to buy at a price they'll pay. When the sentiments or demographic composition of that group changes, the company must adjust. Dell has become very successful while bundling garbage on their machines. Clearly the lost revenue from boycotting Slashdotters was made up for by whatever business arrangements they had with AOL and what not. As much as it may pain you to hear it, Slashdot readers make up a tiny minority of the nation's consumer population, and the portion we do make up is a weird niche that is largely disliked by mainstream retailers and traditional businesses.
So, frankly, there's been no reason to pander to the nitpicky anal retentive whims of a bunch of dorks. Until now.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Okay, where's my AMD X2 Processor? .
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I'm waiting...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If the USPS is delivering mail at highway speeds then I think a 20% increase in fuel usage is the least of their problems.
That's not so weird. He has you to pick, purchase, assemble the system and provide support. You should account for your billable hours and when the system is done and your friend is happy with his new computer only then can you calculate the cost to "him".
I think you will find that by the time he's playing games you probably sucked up the difference in price, and then some, with your labor.
At my office we get a set of 15-20 Dell laptops twice a year (we're a school). I open one box, uninstall all of the crapware, install all of the software the students will need, including putting our own anti-virus on them. Run sysprep, and then image that laptop. The rest of the laptops are then hooked up to a dedicated switch and the image multicasted out to them. Each laptop is then powered up, given a unique name and put in the domain.
One thing to look into if you are pushing that many systems through, Dell offers a service where they will load a custom image on new systems for you. They will only do it if your volume is high enough, and your's probably is. You simply setup an image, send it to them and all new systems come pre-loaded to your configuration.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
OEM support for windows depends entirely on the ability to hide deceptive spyware on the systems
Clearly this is an area where Linux to match or exceed Windows in order to capture the desktop.
The scary part is that I am not quite sure if I was kidding or not.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.