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No Demand for Linux in the UK?
eldavojohn writes "If you're a Linux user in the UK looking for a Linux box, you're not going to get it from Acer. The computer maker has started releasing Linux installed machines in Singapore but cited 'no demand' as a reason for not releasing the same computer with Linux installed in the UK. From the ZDNet article: 'Before the launch of the Acer Aspire in Singapore, there had been no suggestion that any major manufacturer other than Dell was even considering releasing Ubuntu-based products. However, Acer president Gianfranco Lanci did tell Financial Times Deutschland that "the whole [PC] industry is disappointed with Windows Vista". Lanci claimed that Microsoft's new operating system had not boosted PC sales, due to concerns over its stability and overall maturity.'"
hardware vendors are squeezed for profit margin. selling windows preinstalled adds a bit of margin. Perhaps the studies they may or may not have conducted to determine market demand indicated that people who wanted linux also wanted a lower price tag for the hardware. Perhaps this expectation was inflexible, meaning that unit margin on a given PC would go down if they were to sell without MS. Or if they didn't conduct that study, maybe this is one of their fears that keeps them from offering linux product.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
I remember there was a story a few months back about a guy who rejected the Windows license agreement on his new computer. He got his money back for the copy of Windows (without even having to return the OEM CD), and then proceeded to install Linux on it. So people who want Linux could just opt for that route... Maybe then Acer will notice "demand" for Linux!
My sig is permanently on strike.
I'll have to agree with this comment. Why should Linux users even be concerned with getting their machine with a pre-loaded OS, especially when they may switch over to a new distro weeks/months later?
Linux systems are sold at about the same price as windows systems.Why pay for linux when I can get it for free? Buying a windows system I get more functionality BOTH WINDOWS AND LINUX for about the same price!
I run Linux and I'm in the UK. The problem isn't that there is no market (Windows is hated here as much as it is in the US), it's just that there's no marketing for it. If there was an active attempt at marketing Linux as an OS that will allow you to do projects and not have shit crash and such it would "sell" like hotcakes.
A tech show at 5am on a Sunday morning mentioning Linux in passing every few weeks does not make a market but no one else even seems to know of Linux.
I like muppets.
Why would the PC industry think that Vista would boost PC sales? XP is a mature OS. It works. PC's are powerful enough for most people to do most things they need them to do. Why would anybody think that people would have any interest in running out to buy a new PC running Vista? That kinda' seems like a non-starter to me.
People do that with Apple, largely because people have come to fetishize Apple products. PC's are PC's now. They're appliances. There's no reason to run out and buy the latest and greatest, because the latest and greatest don't really offer anything new, and PC's just aren't all that interesting any more.
I don't respond to AC's.
I've used Linux for a long time, and always built computers for myself and other people.
For a long time I would not dream of paying for an assembled one.
I needed a new one recently though, and realised I just could not be bothered.
It's quite a lot of research to make sure all the parts you buy will work together, be of good quality, and be Linux compatible. I also realised that paying someone else to do it for me works out cheaper than my own time would cost.
Also I have warranty and all that jazz.
Can you find a brand of laptop where the same Google searches don't turn up the same results of customers that feel ripped off because theirs happened to be one of the ones that failed?
All laptop brands have a (hopefully) small percentage that fail. Searching google will turn up people complaining about this. In my opinion, it's more important how the company responds to the issue.
Exactly!
In my experience in science departments at universities in the UK, linux is very widely used. I would say that around 90% of people working in compuational 'hard' science use some variety of linux almost exclusively. Whether this actually translates into a demand for new machines with linux pre-installed is another matter -- people are often happy to take a windows machine and dual boot it...
Maybe if people were aware they could buy new machines with linux on them there would be a demand?
Acer is not a leader... they are a follower. By no demand, they mean no other company is really pushing it, or doing exceptionally well at it, so we won't bother.
Can't blame them for not wanting to provide another product that will only appeal to a very small percentage of customers.
Lets say that 10% of the market wants Linux...
There will be certain minimum fixed costs in staff training for pre- and post- sales support support, localising manuals and packaging, having the committee meeting about exactly how much you're gonna gouge uk buyers this time, etc. which you will need to shift a certain number of boxes to justify.
10% of the market in the UK is far fewer boxen than 10% of the market in the USA (not sure what market Signapore is covering but it could be large) - so a viable proposition in the USA might not be viable in the UK.
Secondly - the Linux market may be more tech savvy and less inclined to buy from a big player such as Dell or Acer. Not every PC supplier forces you to buy Windows.
Thirdly, lots of us would like to dump windows but know that sooner or later we're going to need it (if only inside a VM). By far the cheapest (legal) way to get Windows is to get it bundled with a machine - a "full" version costs 3x as much (and bear in mind that, in the UK, we're already being reamed for Windows at £1 = $1). It doesn't make a lot of sense not to get Windows with a new machine (especially if the supplier's deal with MS means that MS gets paid either way).
It make even be that the UK is more MS-centric than other areas, because Apple priced themselves out of the market - most importantly education - for most of the 80s and 90s (the 'ol $1=£1 trick again). The other alternative platforms (there were some good ones, but that's not important right now) occupied Apple's ecological niche, but eventually failed for one reason or another. Hence, govenment, education and big business are used to assuming a MS monoculture.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
IQ higher then double figures
Oh, the iorny.
Much as I would like to believe that it's a lack of demand for Acer computers rather than Linux, I suspect it has more to do with the fact that buying it with Windows pre-installed basically amounts to getting a virtually free copy of Windows, which as a monopoly OS is always nice to have. Linux, on the other hand, is almost universally a free-as-in-beer download.
Better to buy a computer with Windows and then decide you want Linux, than buy a computer with Linux and decide that you need Windows.
Umm.. but isn't it being offered on this same hardware in Singapore ?
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