OpenOffice.org Tries to Woo Dell

Rob writes "OpenOffice.org project members have written to Dell (pdf), hoping to persuade the company to adopt OpenOffice in response to customer demand. John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org marketing project lead, writes 'Let's have a conversation about how we could build an OpenOffice.org supplied by Dell product to give your customers what they are asking for.' Demand for open source products on Dell's IdeaStorm web site prompted the letter. A somewhat obvious question is raised: why isn't OpenOffice already available by default on new PC's and Workstations?"

Comments

A somewhat obvious answer:

[hhlost]

OOo is free, and therefore Dell gets no cut.

Re:A somewhat obvious answer:

[synoniem]

To be more accurate: OOo is free, and therefore Dell gets nothing but the support calls and even offshore they want to be paid.

Re:A somewhat obvious answer:

[babbling]

That's actually not true. If Dell were to add an option on their website saying "OpenOffice $25", they would be allowed to charge the $25 to bundle OpenOffice with a Dell computer.

Nothing in the GPL forbids Dell or anyone else for charging money for the software, so Dell wouldn't just "take a cut", they can set the price they like and take 100% of it rather than having to give some of it to Microsoft.

Re:A somewhat obvious answer:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, and $25 is way more expensive than MS Office, right?

MS Office is "free" with a Small Business Desktop from Dell, haven't you heard?

The sad reality seems to be that Dell thrives at Microsoft's pleasure and they'd be dumb to muck that up. To bad the DOJ had no teeth.

Re:Why?

[mungtor]

MS Office isn't installed on a new PC by default either. Even at an OEM type discount, it isn't free.

OpenOffice is freely available to anyone with an internet connection, and Dell simply doesn't see the business case for distributing and supporting it. Even if they tried to distribute with a support disclaimer there would still be a lot of calls to support about it. Also, Dell would have to distribute CDs with the source code since OpenOffice is GPL'd, etc, etc. None of it is a show-stopper, but why go through all the hassle with no reward? Distributing free software that they don't want to support (or don't think they can sell support on) doesn't make sense for Dell.

Yeah, it would be nice, but warm feelings and the respect of the /. community doesn't keep the lights on.

Re:Why?

[AKAImBatman]

could it be because everyone uses Office and it's proprietary formats?

Yet they offer the incompatible (and amusingly named) Microsoft Works package. If they can offer Microsoft Works by default, why can't they offer OpenOffice as an option?

I believe that is the point the author is trying to make.

Re:Why?

[aputerguy]

It's obvious -- Dell makes more money *selling* MS Office then *giving* away OpenOffice.

Even when the customer doesn't buy MS Office up front, you can be sure that MS pays Dell for every "60-day trial" version which comes installed on most PCs nowadays. Even if MS didn't unfairly retaliate, giving away OO would take away from subscribers buying or upgrading to paid MS Office so Dell would inevitably get less of a commission back from MS.

On the other hand adding a preloaded OO is unlikely to shift share to Dell so not much upside -- particularly, since the relatively small minority of users who consider this as a factor could easily download it themselves.

Plus supporting OO would add support costs.

So, while I would love personally to see more OO, I don't see the business case from Dell's perspective