Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Slide the CD gently underneath the $TASTYBEVERAGE that's sitting next to you.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.