Dell Refuses to Sell Ubuntu to Business

An anonymous reader writes "I had a surreal experience with Dell today. My boss asked me to order a new computer for our small, non-profit business. Wanting to support Dell in their decision to sell computers with Ubuntu installed, I decided to order one. First, I talked to a small business representative, who informed me that I could not order one of the Ubuntu-based computers through the small business department. I had to go through the "home and home office" department. I called the Home office department. I asked the representative if I could buy one of the ubuntu computers for my company. She said (and I quote), "these Dell computers are designed for personal use only, as long as you use it for personal use, you can purchase one." So I lied and said I would.... Next, I tried to buy it on our business credit card. They would have none of that. She told me that I had to buy it through a personal card. Now, as a non-profit, our business does not pay sales tax (10% in Tennessee). Had I bought it with my own card, I would have had to pay tax (~$90), which my company would not have reimbursed me for. So.....no Dell today."

Comments

So...

[cs02rm0]

...take your business, literally, elsewhere?

Re:So...

[ronadams]

Except if you're looking for FOSS OS laptop, where do you take it? Even most custom build places push Windows to every system. This is a real disappointment. Is Dell trying to avoid supporting these machines in a corporate environment? That's half-assed support, and Dell should be held accountable for it. Either stand behind your product, with the disclaimer that Linux-based may not work for everyone, or don't sell the damn things at all.

Employee Gift

[lathama]

Why not purchase as an employee gift. I would not buy from Dell myself but if I did that is what I would do.

"Its Mary's 30th year with the organization, we want to do something special for her."

Re:Dell is speaking out of both sides of it's mout

[SatanicPuppy]

That would be why they offer redhat support and SuSE support as well.

The full list of supported linux can be found here. Just because one guy wants to buy one machine that doesn't come with Ubuntu, everyone is up in arms. Dell never claimed that they were going to offer it on every machine. They're damn careful what they offer for business machines in general, and you can always get a business class machine with no OS.

Buncha fricking sheep. Dell's making a good effort on linux.

Re:Seems unlikely

[guruevi]

Well, we're talking about the US here. Yes, there are antitrust laws but nobody even cares to enforce them especially when it comes to Microsoft. Remember the antitrust lawsuits in the US? Microsoft came off with not even a wag of the finger.

Yes they are pulling these stunts every single day. Go to any medium-to-enterprise sized business that has more than one SQL Server. Ah, you thought they really paid that 35000 license per server? Well, yes, unless they agree not to use Linux or MySQL.

Not What He Wants

[cbreaker]

1) The build the cost of OSX into the price of the machine.
2) Apple PC's use the same hard drives as Dell, IBM, HP, and home built computers
3) Businesses that standardize on Windows don't want Apple PC's. They don't want to dual boot user workstations, and they don't want to deal with the extra complexity. They also don't want to pay those prices for the name Apple, like consumers do. The Apple notebooks aren't as overpriced as the Mac Pro, but they aren't an inexpensive option.
4) Dell's business support is pretty good.
5) He wants to buy a machine, with a free OS, without the big fuss. A Mac + BootCamp + Ubuntu + unsupported = Not What He Wants.

Macintoshes aren't always the solution. Get over it.

Why dell does this

[goombah99]

I think the reason dell does this is fairly obvious. Small business sales at dell have different service policies than home sales. For example they get US tech support rather than tech support outsourced to India. They have different on-site repair policies. The computer selection is different too. And of course they probably have greater risks in case of negligence with businesses. So they presumably want to dry run the linux model in the consumer market before investing in the infrastructure to support it in business. e.g. easier to temporarily hire an outsource crew that can do Linux support than to retrain your US staff.

Now as for why not accept the business credit card on the consumer web site. Well that has nothing to do with this being a linux machine. That's just their policy in general. I'm sure they'd love to make an exception for linux machines, except that the market is so tiny why bother to have policy exceptions. People would exploit them and pretty soon you'd have businesses buying the $399 consumer entry-level dells rather than the business class machines then turning around and getting angry when they get outsourced tech support.