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Dell Customer Gets Windows Refund
scottv67 writes "Dell today gave freelance programmer and sysadmin Dave Mitchell, of Sheffield, UK, a refund of 47 pounds ($89) for the unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 bundled with his new Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, Mitchell says. Dell also refunded the tax, for a total of £55.23 ($105)."
I'm no fan of EULAs or any software licensing (not even the GPL) because I feel they don't really give you much room to negotiate a contract to your terms. But there comes a time in every transaction that you have to gauge your time versus what you get in return for your time. In this case, the US$100 this guy received was probably worth it for him to spend a few hours going through this process, but is it worth US$100 for most people? Laptops do seem to run better under *nix today than just a few years ago, so I will finally accept that a laptop can be a decent workstation for open source OSes. But I also see that for many people who use the PC, even if they eventually put another OS on it, Windows works fine, and even if they never run it, the path to try to return their copy is costlier than just eating it with the rare chance that you MIGHT need to run it.
Sure, there is a small percentage of "geeks" who will never run Windows, but for the great majority of *nix users, I'm not sure if this is the case -- even the average slashdot geek. Personally, my laptops that I use require Windows because they're production PCs -- AutoCAD, RIP print drivers (don't even try these under anything but Windows), scheduling/project management software, etc. For me, if I did run *nix, the 3-4 hours it would cost me to get a $100 refund would exceed the refund's return. What are most techs worth today?
I'm glad Dell did it, and I wish they did offer laptops free of operating systems. I'm not aware of the exact details of Microsoft's license agreement with Dell, but to me it seems as though they've both agree to a figure that makes a sense in a market perspective: the software is just expensive enough to make everyone money, and just cheap enough to make it useless to try to work around buying a copy. Also, Dell likely is able to produce less expensive hardware since they can now sell laptops that work out-of-the-box, rather than dealing with the support issues of helping users run their hardware on dozens of different operating systems. It is a double-win for both manufacturers, and not enough of a loss for the average user.
I'm never shocked when a geek complains about the Microsoft licensing scheme, even though I agree that more choice is better. When I break down the cost of a workstation for an average business client for a year, the US$210 or whatever Microsoft "tax" is barely 1% versus the costs of the applications and maintenance they need to run that workstation for a year. That's right, 1% -- many of my business clients spend upwards of US$10,000+ a year per user on software licenses, maintenance, and hardware. And they still need Windows for it, so if you price in Windows across the board (those who need it and those who don't want it). I'm sure that percentage of overall cost falls even lower -- making it seem to me that trying to get a refund doesn't show a big return on investment overall.
In this user's case, it may have been (I wouldn't have gone through the hoops, I'd buy an OEM laptop from another manufacturer such as Averatec), but I don't see that being true for most cases.
And good for Dell for taking care of him with a minimum of fuss.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I tried getting a Windows refund out of Dell a few months ago for my then-new laptop. I never succeeded really, but they did give me a $30 refund basically just to go away, and told me to keep the Windows software. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.
I just recently bought a laptop for my wife and I had to go through hell getting all the pre-installed crap out of it. It had adware and spyware preloaded by the factory. It even had a 10GB hard drive partition with backup copies of everything that should have been on the restore cds / dvds that should have come with the laptop. I would have much rather paid less for the laptop, added windows onto the price and arrived in mostly the same place. We didn't want a laptop that we hadn't tried out in person before buying it, which around here limited us to Best Buy, Circuit City, and Office Max / Depot. Nobody had "clean" systems.... grumble....
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Considering that the consumption tax on Windows is a ludicrous 17.5% (8.23 / 47.00), I wouldn't be surprised to see the government stepping in and forcing people to pay for Windows just to keep that revenue stream flowing!
Problem is, you don't know what the refund amounts to before you press 'NO' at the EULA agree prompt. For $20, I'd like a nice Windows XP copy. For $50, I might not. It depends. But there's no way of knowing!
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
This will suck for MS. I already have my own personal copy of XP Professional I'd like to install on a fresh lappy, and I wish they were sold without added software and an OS. This will kill most of MS's profits, since people will just say "I already own XP, why can't I just put it on another computer?" THEN people will start to see how convoluted the MS EULA really is. They won't switch to Unix like some people would hope, but there will be more "pirates" that install the same OS on different computer's they own. Of course I don't read the EULA like most people and it probably allows you to install a copy of XP on computers that you own.
Uh...obligatory "DOWN WITH MICRO$OFT!" comment.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
How can they? The whole point is that he's not a Windows user, and was claiming a refund as he had no intention of using it.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
'Windows users' couldn't request their money back if they were using Windows already. The jist of the article is that by refusing to agree to the EULA they're saying they don't want to use Windows, or at least one that came with their PC. But there has indeed been many instances of this before - there was a mass march of some kind a few years ago, the end result being that most EULAs were modified to make the computer and operating system one package. A lot of the old Windows Refund stories involved conversations with managers who couldn't seem to comprehend that the EULA gave the user the right to reject windows, as a separate component from the machine. God knows what Dell's Indian call centre made of this guy.
Doesn't work that way in (most of) Europe. Consumer protection laws in most European countries require sellers to offer products unbundled when they are clearly distinct products. Since a computer can be used without Windows, and can be bought without from other vendors, and since Windows is available separately this is a pretty clear cut case. Trying to twist the pricing also wouldn't work all the time equivalent products are available unbundled to indicate the real values of the products.
I think this is the last of Dells worries legal wise.
A couple of months back my father ordered a Dell PC with Windows XP pre installed, yet we didn't recieve an XP CD or any licence number as we should of done with a Windows licence. Yet a week later a man from Dell (with a very thick indian accent I could hardly follow to add to the fun) rang up trying to sell a "recovery pack" since "if stuff goes wrong it'll cost you less than to rebuy windows".
Is this even legal? I'm pretty sure it's not but may as well ask Slashdot before I look at legal advice on getting what was rightfully payed for.
Side note : I e-mailed Dell inquiring and recieved no reply (it's been a month, doubt I'll get one).
I like muppets.
(ObWarning: I work for Dell as a Gold Hardware Support Technician in Twin Falls Idaho.)
Email me your father's service tag, I'll be happy to look into it directly.
mark (underscore) cantrell (at) dell (dot) com
There's no reason if you ordered Windows that you shouldn't get a CoA and Windows XP CD -- UNLESS you ordered a machine with "image support", then those CDs are stored as ISOs on a partition on your drive, you just have to click the right button and the Dell software will burn you a WinXP CD and a Drivers CD.
Either way, you should have DEFINATELY gotten a COA label on the machine itself. Send me your tag, and I'll either fix it Friday when I get into the office, or I'll get ahold of someone (Dell Customer Care, which is in the same building as me, possibly) who can.
more like $1.85
my password really is 'stinkypants'