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.'"

Comments

More specifically,

[Fred_A]

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.

Re:Isn't that what got IBM into hot water?

[MBCook]

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).