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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.'"
Forcing software sales along with hardware ones?
In other news, auto dealers are now obliged to sell cars with all the gasoline they'll ever need to run, CD players must come with the complete works of modern music prepackaged (RIAA fees included), and TV sets have to carry recordings of all future programmes to be aired.
Score: i, Imaginary
http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/
Sure its a product. It's a physical product. The absurdity that the configuration of a few bits on the hard drive magically changes the thing from "not a product" to "product" boggles the mind. Its just not quite as out-of-the-boxish.
At the very least, they should give the user a choice, thereby no longer linking the hardware to that one specific piece of software. Consider one of those online confur-o-matic things. The base PC models should come with a cheaper/free OS like linux, and (as much as I hate and disagree with the phrasing) users could choose to "upgrade" to windows.
A DVD player without a DVD is not a product, because it doesn't work...
A DVD player without a TV is not a product, because it doesn't work...
A toy without batteries is not a product, because it doesn't work...
While you need to go to a store to buy batteries and DVD for your non-products,
for an OS, you may not even need to go to the store. You could download one of many free Linux (or BSD or other) OS's many of which do not even need to be installed to function.
Perhaps batteries are not the best comparison.
So? His statement is still false.
Even if you make the assumption that the OS is a required part of the computer, there's still no reason they should only bundle Windows. They offer a variety of case designs to choose from. nVidia or ATI graphics cards to choose from. AMD or Intel processors to choose from. So why no choice on operating system?
Maybe not
A large part of the reason why Windows is so popular, is that most companies that sell prebuilt, ready to use PCs come with Windows installed, and don't offer any other choices. This is the situation that the French law was created to attempt to change, as it distorts the OS market in favour of Microsoft. It could well be too late to change this, but if companies like HP continue to offer no other choice, then it will never change. You could argue that it is Microsoft who should be sued for forcing exclusivity with their discounts, but in my opinion, something needs to be done to end this market distortion, and this opinion has nothing to do with any pesonal opinion about Microsoft I might hold, the same thing holds true in other markets. This is exactly what the anti-monopoly laws are designed to prevent.
However, if this lawsuit does go through and HP loses (here's hoping) then every computer manufacturer that hopes to do business in France will have to care. This will mean either MS lessens its bulk licensing requirements, or everyone will face an increased PC cost. Either way its a win and a good precedent.
Also, if this winds up going before the whole EU, which I wouldn't be surprised, I can't see them ruling for HP and MS based on previous antitrust rulings.
Clones are people two.
BIOS is a tank of gas. Windows is a 3-year gas card to one brand of gas station.
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First is the presumption that a computer (shipped) without an OS is useless... I can pop in a Knoppix disk and do most of the things that people use their computers for without installing any OS -- banking, messaging, skype, word processing, photo editing, etc., etc.,
... His statement is false.
- second is that that that Windows is the only OS that anybody would ever want.
- third is the implicit claim of the (many) astro-turfers that this suit is meant to prevent HP from selling computers with MS-Windows.... From TFA:
Nothing wrong with consumers buying an HP computer with Windows, as long as that's what they want (which will be the case for many -- but not all -- consumers).
It's more like if every major hospital in the country forced children born there to be baptized as Roman Cathoic -- and required that the parents pay a tithe to the Roman Catholic Church for the 'privilege'.Now, yes, you can turn around and have the child declared Baptist, Lutheran, Jewish or Muslim, etc., but you still won't get back the $75 that went to the RC church.... and, for some people, just having the taint of the RC church on their children is almost as bad as being declared pagan. -- and, for some people, explaining to your parents back home why their grandchild's Birth Certificate says Roman Catholic is going to be, uhm, delicate.
Of course you also have the option of having your child born at home, but some people really like the convenience and safety of a large hospital.
[I'm RC, myself, so I can (I hope) get away with this analogy.]
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.