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Microsoft to Sell PCs, Starting in India

Posted by Zonk on from the no-red-rings-on-these-i-hope dept.

kripkenstein writes "According to an Ars Technica report Microsoft will begin selling complete PCs, for the first time in the company's history. The program is aimed at customers in India. 'Dubbed the IQ PC, the machines will cost RS21,000 (about $525), are manufactured in partnership with Zenith, and will sport AMD Athlon CPUs. ... In some ways, the move to sell hardware is a natural extension of Microsoft's low-cost Windows initiative ... It may also be a response to projects like Intel's Classmate PC and the OLPC XO.' The Ars Technica summary is careful to state that they seriously doubt this will lead to Microsoft selling PCs in the US, yet the question must be asked: After Microsoft mice and keyboards, then the XBOX and Zune, Microsoft is increasingly becoming a hardware vendor. Is it only a question of time before Microsoft starts to compete directly with the likes of Dell and HP?"

8 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. oh but of course by bmecoli · · Score: 5, Funny

    I mean the best place to sell PCs would be the place where all the tech support is, right?

    1. Re:oh but of course by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 5, Funny

      You would think so, but it turns out the Indian customers' tech support line will be answered by some underpaid guy in New York who speaks broken Hindi with a Brooklyn accent.

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  2. Good for them... by chris098 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This really is just an extension of Microsoft's business model. From the article:

    Aimed primarily at students...

    If they can get students hooked to MS products when they're young, especially in these developing countries where the alternative may be Linux, then it's likely these students will continue using Microsoft later on in life, because they're familiar with it. It's a clever move, and really, I'm surprised it took Microsoft so long to start doing this.

    1. Re:Good for them... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny

      This really is just an extension of Microsoft's business model.

      Yeah, but shouldn't they change their name from Microsoft to Microhard ?

      Um... wait... nevermind.

  3. All the more reason for Dell to sell Linux by slazzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Time for hardware vendors to start selling more PCs preloaded with Linux. Why sell Windows when Microsoft is your competition?

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    1. Re:All the more reason for Dell to sell Linux by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously. It's not a good idea for MS to mess with their distribution channel. With Dell starting to see Ubuntu, it's not a good idea to give the vendors and more reason to push Linux on their customers.

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      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  4. All directions at once by glas_gow · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft is simultaneously going in all directions, which is identical to going nowhere fast.

  5. Re:Emulating Sun and Apple by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 5, Informative

    They did. It did ok overseas, not so well in the U.S.

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