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

I'm with HP/MS on this one.

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

I guess there's a good chance I'll get modded down for the heinous crime of coming out in favour of Microsoft here, but why should HP be sued for not selling a computer without an OS? It's like suing a company for selling a pen that comes with a cartridge. Sure, the pen could be sold without one and the buyer could get them separately, possibly even cheaper, but the fact is that the majority want to buy a pen and use it as-is. The same goes for computers.

I think HP should sell PCs that come with other OSes (or even no OS at all) - simply because I think there is a market worth taking there. However I don't think it's for any government or "consumer group" to try and force this on a company.

To look at it another way, there are plenty of PC manufacturers that solely sell PCs with DVD writers, monitors, keyboards and/or mice. Just like an OS, none of those things are *needed* in the strictest sense, yet nobody seems to be up in arms (or rather up in lawsuits) about that.

While I've greatly enjoyed watching the anti-trust decisions go against Microsoft in the EU in recent years, it seems that those legitimate victories for consumer rights are now being turned into a witch-hunt by various organisations in Europe who see the anti-MS sentiment as a means to get their hands into Microsoft's very deep pockets.