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HP's Windows Bundle Trouble
narramissic writes "A French consumer group has filed 3 lawsuits against HP, saying the company's practice of selling consumer PCs with Windows pre-installed violates a French law that 'prohibits linking the functionality of a product to another product' — not to mention that consumers wind up paying for an unwanted OS. For its part, HP contends that it is not in violation of the law because the OS is integral to the PC. 'The PC without an OS is not a product because it doesn't work,' said Alain Spitzmuller, legal affairs director for HP France. 'We believe the market is for products that work.'"
That law won't let you make the buying of one product the condition for the buying of another. In this case, of course, you have to buy MS Windows (and assorted crap) in order to be able to buy the PC.
In addition to this while the EULA specifically mentions a refunding process, resellers won't honour it.
Both the ministry of commerce and the bureau in charge of the consumer protection have given advice on the matter to the effect that the OS and the PC are two distinct products and that the sale of one cannot be bound to the other. So normally any PC for sale should have its price listed as X + Y + Z where X is the machine, Y the OS and possibly Z the extra software. However since the resellers won't comply, the courts will have to sort it out.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
In (Soviet) Finland, it's illegal to bind the sales of cell phones to a certain network. It's exactly the same logic as with computers and operating systems.
It isn't really applied to computers though; when I bought my current laptop last year, I made a vague attempt at Windows refund, only to get a reply along the lines that computer+OS is a single product. I'm mainly pissed off of the fact that this probably counts for the Windows market share, even if I never accepted the EULA.
However, there is a recent exception to allow such binding for 3G phones. It's meant to accelerate the adoption of new technology, since the 3G phones are comparatively expensive. So instead of paying the full price of the phone, it's spread over a, say, 24-month service contract.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Define "operate". Yes, a PC without an OS will technically power up, but I think you'd be hard pressed to do anything with it without an OS of some sort. Have fun staring at "Please insert boot media..." all day long. Oooo, the lights will probably blink some, too, and you could spend all day going through the BIOS options. But other than that, you've got a nice paperweight without the OS.
There is a difference there. OS X and the Mac are both made by Apple. However HP doesn't make Windows. They require you to purchase it, but they don't make it. I think that's what makes this illegal (I live in the US, so obviously I don't know this law). It's the fact that it's two parties. The HP computer won't function without another company's product, but they don't give you a choice as to which company (MS, or buy a Linux distro or something else).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
This lawsuit isn't just aimed at HP. Once HP is forced to sell their machines with a choice of Windows or not, all it will take is a whisper from my lawyer to get a similarly egalitarian treatment from Dell, Gateway and any of the other Tier 1 and Tier 2 computer manufacturers.
It's one thing to recommend MS-Windows as the OS of choice. It's something else, entirely, to mandate MS-Windows.
I just shouldn't be punished by HP for not wanting to use the OS that they want to hoist on me. That's what tying is, and it's illegal.Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.