Dell's Linux, IT Re-Invention

jcatcw writes "An IDG analysis of Dell's attempts to reinvent itself concludes that there are some positive results, but there are problems with the company's supply-chain management and support. One area analysts want to see more improvement: the company's Linux business. 'Jeremy Cole, owner of Proven Scaling, a small consulting firm with offices in the US and UK ... is satisfied with Dell equipment, but said the company needs to show more support for open-source applications and the Linux OS. "It's clear that Dell cares about Linux, in that all their server-class hardware is well-supported by the Linux kernel and they have many people dedicated to making sure that's the case. However, it's not good enough just to boot," Cole said.'"

Comments

Re:Meh.

[ISoldat53]

Interestingly, that used to be the Dell model.

Re:Meh.

[Nushio]

It still is. I got a call from Dell a while ago asking if I had received my Palmrest (mouse buttons were buggy after a year of (ab)use).

It got kinda annoying considering that I got the palmrest about 2 weeks ago, and it was 8am and I was still asleep :P

Re:Consistency

[marcello_dl]

What you need to do is contact your Dell Small Business account rep (I'm assuming you have one) and talk to him about Open Business Licensing. All you need to do is purchase 5 MS licenses in one chunk (it can be Office, Project, Visio, XP, Vista, 2003, SQL Server, whatever, but it must be 5 licenses in one order) and you can get Open Business licenses.

What happens after that is that you are given an authorization number and an agreement number (for each license or block of like licenses, say you purchase 3 copies of Office Standard) and you go to eopen.microsoft.com (Live account required :/ ) and login, plugin all your info and BAM! you are given keys for Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007.

OT: From the biased perspective of a linux user, I am sad for the human resouce waste of the whole procedure. You make a kernel recompile look like fun. :)