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Microsoft Sued Over Vista-To-XP Downgrade Fees
Krojack writes with this excerpt from Computerworld:
"Los Angeles resident Emma Alvarado charged Microsoft with multiple violations of Washington state's unfair business practices and consumer protection laws over its policy of barring computer makers from continuing to offer XP on new PCs after Vista's early-2007 launch. Alvarado is seeking compensatory damages and wants the case declared a class-action suit. ... Irked at having to pay a fee for downgrading a new Lenovo notebook to XP, Alvarado said that Microsoft had used its position as the dominant operating system maker to 'require consumers to purchase computers pre-installed with the Vista operating system and to pay additional sums to "downgrade" to the Windows XP operating system.'"
and call it even.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
is not a downgrade is a upgrade.
You want another one of their products and it's somehow your RIGHT to have it for free ?
It came with a version of windows on it, if you don't like it, buy another version.
She had paid the "Microsoft tax" already, on the purchase of the PC.
Why should she have to pay another "Tax" to [downgrade to] something that works???
A pox on Microsoft...
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
The suit has been canceled after Emma Alvarado was abducted by a mysterious, well-organized, group of mosquitoes. When asked for a comment on the strange occurrence, Bill Gates is said to have laughed awkwardly while pressing his fingertips together. More on this as it develops.
I often hear people bitching about Microsoft's operating systems and the problems with doing business with Microsoft and its Partners. Why don't people just get a computer with a non-Microsoft operating system. Linux, Apple, Plan 9, BSD; there are plenty to choose from.
This would be like suing ford or gm for not continuing to keep last years engines for sale in new cars... this is just silly.
--- no sig to see here... move along.
I mean it's never free to upgrade. Vista -->XP, of course MS needs to charge for an upgrade of that magnitude!
There's a big question about whether the courts can punish a manufacturer for what businesses in the retail chain sell.
I'd like to see MS taken down several notches, but unless there's some smoking gun, I would expect it.
Put identity in the browser.
...when MS is sued over Vista R & D by the shareholders.
If Microsoft were letting OEMs sell either version of Windows for vaguely similar prices, it'd be okay. The issue is that they're effectively giving away Vista, while charging for XP. Now companies often can give things away as loss leaders, but monopolists are more constrained in whether they can undertake that sort of activity.
This case is somewhat unusual because most of the lawsuits regarding dumping are e.g. giving away IE to kill Netscape, not giving away one of your products to try to kill one of your own other products. But it's possible that Washington state business law (vs. federal anti-trust law) has something that reaches that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And their history of anti-competitive behavior, I'm not sure this is the right case. Now if the case was making hardware makers decouple the hardware and software costs, that might be different. If MS could raise the price of XP in a competitive environment, even if they're competing against their own products, more power to them. The only element that's not right is the one that's been wrong for a long time. MS using it's monopoly position to run the OEM's and leverage their market position to freeze out competition. This case doesn't really get at that. Sounds more like someone whining they can't get XP.
But today there are a lot of good operating system choices. MS isn't the only game in town...as far as you can get past the OEM issue...not even the best game in town. If you could buy a retail copy of Windows from someone like Dell, and that cost was essentially the same as the price quoted on a new PC or laptop, then the market can really decide what the best OS for the money really is. When you don't have a choice, you don't have a market.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
From the article: "They have been forced to pay substantially more to acquire the Windows XP operating system than they would have to pay in a competitive marketplace," the complaint read. A competitive marketplace? Seriously? This person could have purchased something else. She could have bought a computer with Linux. What did people expect? A "competitive marketplace for Windows XP?" Companies take products off the market or replace successful versions with newer, "better" versions. Microsoft wanted to quit selling and supporting XP. Was Vista "better" than XP? Most people would say "no," but that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft can still shoot itself in the foot and sell something else.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but it sounds as if $59.25 to get a completely different commercial OS, XP, isn't an egregious fee when you purchased the crummy consumer version of the newer OS, Vista. On the other hand, had I bought a more expensive version of Vista for my business (which I have not done), I would expect that Microsoft would throw in XP for free, maybe so I could run some legacy software for my business that was not completely tested or compatible with Vista.
This makes about as much sense as someone buying a coach ticket on an airline complaining about not getting free drinks like First Class. The alcohol really isn't the issue, even though it may seem that way.
Make love, not reality television.
Microsoft deserves every last bit of it. make it stick, make it hurt.
I'd like to see computers sold at a price and have the OS as an option. Car makers deal with optional engine types and other optional features. Why can't computer OEMs.
Actually, where I work we paid 3x for Windows to run Linux on a machine. 1 for Vista, 2 to change that option to XP, and 3 we have a site license for XP.
Granted some of this was due to stupidity of people here, but the shear fact that we even had to pay beyond our site license for Windows to run Linux makes the phase "Microsoft tax" more than just a saying.
Microsoft isn't charging extra. The OEM's are charging extra for Windows XP Downgrade which Microsoft allows users and OEM's to install FOR FREE. OEM's have migrated to Vista and don't want to maintain deployment sets, support documentation and drivers for both operating systems so they're charging this extra XP tariff.
As a small OEM, I give my clients the option to go with either Windows XP or Windows Vista, as we sell relatively similar base models so it's easy for us to maintain concurrent deployment sets for both operating systems. This extra charge isn't Microsoft's fault.
The issue is that in order to buy XP, people were forced to buy Vista as well. That practice is called Tied Selling and it is illegal in many states.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Anybody upset that they can't buy a MacBook with an older version of OS X?
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
Currently, Lenovo charges the same price for Vista Business and Vista Business downgraded to XP Pro. I order this option all the time. They also offer the same price for Vista Ultimate vs. Vista Ultimate downgraded to XP Pro.
While I'm not crazy about this setup, you must remember that you are effectively buying two license. At any time, you have the right to upgrade to Vista for free. Yes, you shouldn't have to buy the Vista license, but Lenovo at least is not charging business customers anything extra at the moment.
-Dan
If you are going to buy pre-made computers with an operating system, what do you expect? The market for computers without an operating system is zero, so nobody sells them that way. You can, however, put your own together for often somewhat less than the cost of the pre-made computer.
Then you get to choose how to put an operating system on it. Usually, for most people, it is very expensive to do this because you end up paying full retail price for the operating system. Whereas the pre-made computer folks are selling you a finished product with an operating system they paid $50 for instead of $200 like you can.
However, if you have a site license, are paying for MSDN, Action Pack, Empower or any one of a myriad of other programs, you pay zero for the operating system on your nice put-together computer.
Now how many people can actually do this? Oh, maybe 1%. Do you think you are going to get anywhere selling a product that only 1% of the people in the US can actually use?
If they'd simply pulled the plug on XP totally, and said, "that's it, we aren't going to sell XP any more, because it's old and we don't want to be lumbered with the after-sales support forever", then that might be a legitimate manufacturer's decision.
But they didn't do that, because they didn't want to lose the netbook market. So they said that netbook manufacturers could continue to buy, install, and sell-on XP, but laptop manufacturers couldn't. When you say to a company, "We have a product, we're selling it to other people, but we refuse to sell it to you to work with your products, because we now want you to buy a different product from us", then that starts to get dodgy.
It's a bit like if a car-seat manufacturer has two ranges of car seats, their older smaller range and their new wider deluxe range. They want manufacturers to build the wider seats into all new luxury cars that can take them, but if they discontinue the older range, they'll lose the section of the market that supplies cars where the newer seats don't physically fit. So they continue to sell both ranges, but tell manufacturers that they are "banned" from selling the older seats fitted to the larger cars, even if those same cars have been sold fitted with those same seats in the past. That level of interference is getting into "illegal restraint of trade" territory.
The question is, how much control should a dominant component manufacturer have over how their products are used? Should they be allowed to micromanage what people do with their products with these sorts of restrictions and conditions? If a product has already been certified for XP, should they be allowed to then tell a manufacturer that they can still buy copies of XP, but they're are no longer allowed to preinstall them on those particular machines because new MS policy is that those particular customers should be buying something else? Even if this upsets both the suppliers and the customers?
Now to me, it sounds like MS are probably legally in the wrong here (as they have been so many times before when it comes to OEM contracts). And they probably know that they're in the wrong, but figure that the stakes here are so high that they'd rather break the law and worry about the consequences later ... after all, none of their suppliers are going to want to sue them for fear of unofficial retaliation.
So this customer has decided, look, this is complete s**t - I should be able to buy the current software that I want on the machine that I want, without my supplier saying that they aren't allowed to do that because of some arbitrary rule imposed illegally on them by MS. So she figures, (a) it's unlawful and unfair, (b) someone should do something about it, (c) the laptop manufacturers won't, (d) she has the receipts that prove that this illegal behaviour by MS has cost her money, and (e) if it's illegal, and she's provably been damaged by it, then she's in a position to take a stand and sue, and maybe have the court ruling force MS to stop breaking the law (as she sees it).
Eric Baird
There are hundreds of companies that sell PCs with Linux pre-installed. It's hard to feel sorry for you if you're dumb enough to buy Windows when you actually want to run Linux.
Also, why the fuck would you downgrade Vista to XP if you're just going to format and install Linux anyway? How is that in any way Microsoft's fault?
Hey, the mantra of the traditional conservative is state's rights. It certainly is of mine, and here, Washington, despite its more liberal bent, is perfectly entitled to be more liberal, than say, Texas. If you want to do business in that state, then, hey, you gotta play by their rules. The desire of the businessman for national consistency is not an excuse to trump the rights of the residents of the various sovereign states who are signatories to the treaty that is the Constitution.
This is my sig.
No, it's not like that at all.
Closer would be buying a First Class ticket, then being charged extra to move back into the almost empty coach section.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Well, she wanted Windows but she got Windows.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"myriad other" NOT "myriad of other"
The word "myriad" is not used in the same way collective nouns are.
I hate printers.
I often hear people bitching about Microsoft's operating systems and the problems with doing business with Microsoft and its Partners. Why don't people just get a computer with a non-Microsoft operating system. Linux, Apple, Plan 9, BSD; there are plenty to choose from.
People buy MS Windows, preinstalled, because that's all they know. Because most PC have Windows preinstalled they don't realize they have other choices.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It wouldn't hurt to offer a wiped hard-drive as a purchase option. Even if 1% of people would use it, it would cost extremely little to implement, and it would definitely not hurt other sales.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
From Wikipedia:
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
My take on the situation is that this person is stupid. For one, there's nothing wrong with what's going on. There are plenty of analogies above that make similar points regarding car stereos and engines.
If you don't like what is offered, then don't pay for it.
Simple answer for Microsoft next time: Tell everyone "fuck you" and not offer the older at all with the exception of the volume market and business market. This is all some stupid, frivolous lawsuit like this is going to accomplish.
Go find one for me. Of all the OSes you listed only Apple is easy to find, and that's on overpriced hardware.
Apple's hardware prices have been comparable to Windows PCs for years.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I just bought a car and want a different engine in my car. Why should I have to pay for the two engines when I'm only going to use one?
You can sell the engine you don't want and someone can install and use it in another car. Try to install Dell's OEM version of Vista in another PC and there's a good chance it will not work.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It's time for someone at your work to get a lecture about the difference between a consumer PC and a business PC. HP & Dell offer business desktop machines and servers without Windows.
Had they bought the machine SANS OS or with FreeDos or Linux they could have avoided forking out the coin for the extra windows license. (about $168 bucks these days)
Theoretically, they have to refund the cost of Vista,
That's what I was wondering about... we see stories around these parts from time to time about users trying to get a refund for the price of their bundled windows. On the rare occasion they manage it, it's a pittance, like $38 or some insulting amount. (they get back the "wholesale" cost, not the "retail" cost) Now MS has no obligation to return the retail cost, but then Dell needs to foot the remainder that they took as markup, and I don't think they ever have. So that model doesn't work.
Retailers (like Dell etc or call them OEMs) should be required to be the ones to handle the return, not MS. MS shouldn't even be involved. Dell should refund them the cost of the license, and then Dell should go to MS to get THEIR compensation. But are they paying per license, or do they have a bulk sublicensing agreement? I bet the latter, in which case they couldn't ask MS for a penny back. No wonder they don't want to try this. That turns the $250 refund less $38 from MS, into just a $250 loss.
The whole thing's a scam, and I don't blame MS. I blame the OEMs and their greed.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't these users *opt* to downgrade knowing there would be an additional charge?
Not to mention that the charge is from Dell or HP or whatever OEM, and not Microsoft, but the customer opted for it.
I'm sure there's a poor car analogy for this, but I don't even need one to point out how dumb this appears on the surface. Maybe there's just something I'm not seeing?
-David
First of all, I can see that the m$ trolls are out in force trying to press everyone's hot buttons.
It's more than a little obvious how wrong this is. As has been pointed out already, the cost of the MS Vista OS is already rolled into the cost of the computer (aka, ms tax). If MS Vista is not the OS you want, you should not have to pay to have the MS OS that you DO want. Especially since it's still available, ie XP. The cost of the OS has already been applied to the product. The fact that the retailer was stupid enough to pre-install Vista knowing how much people have spurned it is evidence of their own short-sighted ignorance. They should have to eat that extra cost of labor to remove Vista and install XP. And if MS is forcing them to bundle, then this suit is even more justified.
Further, the original intent is to purchase a new computer, not a new OS. MS is trying to force people to switch to Vista and this is just another attempt. The customer should choose which OS (if any) they would like installed.
If I'm going to buy a new computer and the only way the computer can be purchased is with win-D'ohs already installed, I will not buy it unless they discount the cost of the OS, the labor to install the OS, and the cost of all the paper work they must do to satisfy MS's requirements. Otherwise I buy a computer somewhere else.
The car analogy that was used is not appropriate. When someone wants to buy a new car, they go looking for the most recent production-year cars. If they'd rather have an older model, they can easily get last years models by buying a used car. They aren't being forced to buy the recent production year. And by the way, they don't have to pay full price for the older car. Maybe nobody should have to pay full price for an old OS.
This worn-out OS bundling strategy proves once more just how worried MS is. Now they're just desperate.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
I'm glad someone is standing up to them. I just purchased a new laptop and I had to pay to have my rights stomped on (see Vista broadcast flag implementation). I just installed Ubuntu and I'm happy here. I only use Vista to play a couple of games Ubuntu can't run.
Ah, YOU are THAT guy. Every thread has THAT guy, and you're it. You know, THAT guy. The guy who does THAT on every thread. If you're ever posting on a thread and you notice that THAT guy hasn't posted on the thread yet, that means that you are quite possibly THAT guy.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
1) for Vista may be unavoidable, if your preferred hardware is always bundled with Windows. Here there is some truth to "Microsoft tax".
2) is just plain stupid if you want to put Linux on. Just take the cheapest option and then reformat.
3) is a company decision that could be reversed, in favor of something else. Here the only thing that can force you is that Linux or other alternatives don't support your software. Which would be a real advantage of Windows (disregarding for the moment that more Linux market share would lead to more software for Linux).
C - the footgun of programming languages
I don't understand. If you have a site license, shouldn't you also have media that accepts the license? Then as long as there are drivers for XP, it doesn't matter what OS comes on the hardware. Is it because of a warranty issue with the OEM or something that you're paying for the downgrade?
I can't profess to understand the intricacies of Windows licensing, my place doesn't have enough machines to make bulk licensing worth my time. So maybe there's something I just didn't realize.
Also, I'm not clear on what you're saying about running linux. You're not paying extra to MS to run linux, right? Just paying for Red Hat licenses or something?
When you order a computer with the Vista to XP downgrade from a major manufacture, only XP is ever installed. There never is a Vista install performed.
As a Staples retail employee I can tell you that that would not "cost extremely little to implement." There would definitely have to be a charge, to offset the time an employee would have to be away from the sales floor while wiping a computer hard drive.
Also, we make very little (if any) profit on the computers we sell. Often times we sell a computer for lower than we purchased it (at a loss to us). We do this because the profit is gained from the protection plans, services, and peripherals (e.g. laptop bags and software).
And it would "hurt other sales" when that employee isn't there to offer protection plans to customers making purchases.
It'd be more likely that those who would gain from buying a clean computer are the same ones who would just buy or build their own custom computers.
Also, as a side note, I'll bet that most of the customers who decide to buy an OS-free computer are the same ones who will bring that computer in a week later for EasyTech because they botched the install. This isn't to say that there aren't some who would benefit--just that the average user isn't one of them.
It IS your right to choose. And when Lenovo tells you that they're selling a machine with Vista on it, and you choose to buy it, you're making your decision. I know it may sound crazy, but if you don't want a PC with Vista, you shouldn't buy a PC with Vista.
I'd be a bit more sympathetic if they didn't tell her it came with Vista, but that doesn't seem very likely. All of the machines on lenovo.com make it very clear which operating system they have installed. And when you buy a machine in a store, there's almost always a sticker on the box listing the OS, amount of memory, hard drive storage, etc.. She knew what they were selling, and she chose to buy it.
The problem for this woman unfortunately is an old problem that Linux users have had to deal with for years, namely the issue of who decides what operating system, if *any*, is to be preinstalled on PC/laptop. In the case of people who just want to run Linux, Microsoft had a history of setting up deals with OEMs that charged OEMs a Windows tax on every computer they sold regardless of whether or not it had windows installed. For that reason among others, OEMs were (and some still are) reluctant to sell a customer a PC without an operating system or with a Linux distro installed as it would be an additional cost to the OEM.
Ironically enough, in the case of this woman, she *wants* to do business with Microsoft she just doesn't want have to pay the *Vista* Tax in order to get XP preinstalled, which seems reasonable to me, as the OEMs already have a license for XP and the manufacturing set up to do XP preinstalls without additional cost to the OEM. As a Linux user I wouldn't want to pay any kind of Windows Tax, but I do believe she has a case and a reasonable expectation of winning this lawsuit.
She should be including companies like Dell and Gateway that sold machines with 1GB of RAM, and came with Windows Vista Home Premium (1GB of RAM system requirement) installed on it.
Why the FUCK did they sell machines that couldn't do anything but turn on?
And what about the middleman retailers that sold them?
Windows Vista was a fraudulent, should-be-criminal mess that was started by Microsoft, spread by manufacturers, and perpetuated by retailers. They should ALL be held accountable.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that it would cost Dell more to offer a "blank hard drive" option, since with that option Dell would actually have to spend less time on those machines (not having to install an OEM copy of Windows).
I want both XP and Linux so I can play games in Windows and do the rest of my stuff in Linux. That's why.
Are you sure you really have a site license? Most of the Microsoft agreements stipulate that you buy an OEM or retail license, and then you're covered for either upgrades OR downgrades, plus a variety of CALs. So yeah, paying extra for an XP downgrade was kinda dumb, they were probably covered. But I suspect that initial OS license had to be covered.
When I purchased my Lenovo ThinkPad 51 weeks ago, I sadly opted for Vista Home Premium because it looked like my work was ready to deploy Vista. Looking back, I wish I had paid the extra $18 to get XP Professional. With the sole exception of improved networking features, Vista has been a horrible experience. My decision had nothing to do with money.
signature pending slashdot approval
If they are making people pay more for Linux, then I can see that being an anti-trust issue.
But if they are charging more for an older version that they'd prefer you not use - then that's just their marketing decision. Vote with your pocket book, and buy your PC elsewhere if you don't like it (or buy a Mac even).
Emma Alvarado charged Microsoft with multiple violations of Washington state's unfair business practices?
If Microsoft is guilty of violating "unfair business practices", then doesn't that mean that Microsoft is guilty of using fair business practices that conflict with Washington state's policy of unfair business practices?
... and then they built the supercollider.
shortly after Vista debuted. I knew I didn't want Vista just yet -- if ever. But I also knew that you could legally backrev your Windows licenses (along with Office, etc.) to an earlier version. So I bought them with Vista pre-installed, formatted the HD of one of them, installed XP, etc., created an image of it, and deployed that image to the rest. Now I had my XP lab just as I wanted it, and I had Vista bought and paid for in the off chance Vista became desirable some day. You might think that's a lot of trouble to go through, but it was no more trouble than any other lab I've deployed -- I always wipe the factory install and deploy my own custom-built image. BTW, the lab is still running XP.
I am not left-handed, either!
True.
I worked in a small PC assembly shop briefly before. There was no support for Windows whatsoever. (OEM licenses are supposed to be supported by their PC manufacturers.) When customers had problems, the shop simply pushed the blame to Microsoft or viruses, and charged them $30 for labor charge to reinstall Windows. One staff even rebuked rudely, "Do you know how easy it is to corrupt Windows? Only 1 file!"
There were other examples ... basically, we were giving as little customer service as possible, just enough not to end up in the small claims court.
I left after a few weeks.
The market for computers without an operating system is zero
Rubbish.
Even in the consumer/home market a small portion of users want bare machines - and vendors do sell them that way. Try www.pioneercomputers.com.au who will sell you just about any of their models of laptop, desktop or server with Windows, Linux, dual-boot, or no OS (try the build your own option with almost any model). Most small vendors will sell you a generic unbranded or "house-brand" PC with no OS. I can easily find many vendors who sell desktop PCs without an OS.
And as for servers, where Linux holds a significant portion of the user market, it is common to buy hardware without an OS. We do it all the time at work, because we put Ubuntu on almost all our servers now.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Thank you. I was all set to defend the GP for knowing how not to use the word "myriad." I set out to find proof refuting your Wikipedia citation, and instead learned that I've been an ill-informed snob where this word is concerned for years. Seriously -- thanks.
I am not left-handed, either!
Unfortunately, that's not an option for laptops.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
As a Staples retail employee I can tell you that that would not "cost extremely little to implement." There would definitely have to be a charge, to offset the time an employee would have to be away from the sales floor while wiping a computer hard drive.
Uh, are you wiping the hard drive by using a tiny magnet and flipping all the bits by hand? Typically, you just go out and find your favorite drive wiper, spend five minutes getting it started and then walk away for a few hours.
the market for computers without an operating system is zero, so nobody sells them that way
Not true... we have a site license with microsoft for Windows XP and Vista. If a manufacturer *requires*
us to pay them as well, we've bought it twice.
Also, we buy lots of Dells with their DRAC cards (remote console, power, and other independent monitoring/control) just
because we want a server with that feature, but we never need an operating system to go with it. (even if we did, we have site licenses for redhat linux, Microsoft windows variants, Sun solaris x86, etc... we'd be pissing money away if we accepted a bundled OS.)
This certainly differs from the average household user, but many of those household users already OWN a license to Windows XP. They need not buy another one, but I'd recommend it just to have someone else go through the pain of initially installing it onto modern hardware.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that it would cost Dell more to offer a "blank hard drive" option, since with that option Dell would actually have to spend less time on those machines (not having to install an OEM copy of Windows).
Not hard-pressed at all. Without an operating system, they can't install all of the crapware. And if they can't install the crapware, they don't get kick-backs from the crapware companies for putting the advertising on all the computers they sell.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I just cannot believe this went un-remarked upon. For shame...
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
love the analogies b/c they get the thought process going... if you buy a ticket for coach for $500.00 dollars you SHOULD DEMAND a free beer/glass of wine with your flight. ya that's right, DEMAND! I always thought it was extra too since those poor airline companies barely make it.....LMFAO My buddy flew to Japan and on Japan airlines the drinks are EXPECTED and FREE b/c you just paid hundreds for the ticket!!! So time to start demanding more free booze from the overcharging airlines. Least it's something other then the crappy food served to us. So 1st class gets free beer, doesn't mean coach passengers aren't ALSO paying TOO MUCH for the ticket too! DEMAND MORE BEER! Don't pay like a queer! Next time they ask if you'd like a beverage say YES, a nice BUDWEISER or CANADIAN would be fine and when they say 5 dollars FREAK OUT and ask to speak with their supervisor! :P
actually being nicer gets you more but still, if they refuse then buy 2, drink one, dump the other down the back of the chair!
No, the market for computers without an OS is most assuredly NOT zero. What's complete bullshit is that the computer is not somehow qualified to have a volume-licensed Windows installed on it. That is what's bullshit.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
She bought "a new Lenovo notebook" and not a desktop machine. You cannot put together your own laptop at home and then choose the operating system.
It amazes me how easily people in the U.S. accept abuse. "... businesses in the retail chain" sell what Microsoft gives them to sell. Microsoft has a virtual monopoly. Microsoft is able to force abusive practices.
Microsoft DELIBERATELY released a KNOWN-BAD operating system. Why? To make more money.
Read the story on Slashdot about the email sent by top Microsoft executives. They KNEW Vista was troublesome.
And, they've done it before: Windows ME and DOS 4.0 are only two examples.
Microsoft 'Vista Capable' Settlement Cost Could Be Over $8 Billion
HP's Fury At Vista Capable Downgrade
Confidential Microsoft Emails Posted Online
The summary, and many here are using the wring word! The correct word when going from Vista to Xp is *UPGRADE*.
why would you still want an archaic operating system anyway, unless of course you have low end hardware and/or amateur knowledge.
Some dumb people still like Windows. Weird, eh?
Trolling is a art,
From Wikipedia:
In English, the term "myriad" is most commonly used to refer to a large number of an unspecified size. In this way "myriad" can be used as either a noun or an adjective. Thus both "there are myriad people outside" and "there is a myriad of people outside" are correct.
(my own emphasis added)
I was just wondering if you had a point, considering that even by your pasted wiki info, the parent poster's usage of "or any one of a myriad of other programs" was accurate. Perhaps you should double-check your snark before embarrassing yourself next time?
--
Posted as AC, without karma bonus, cheerfully awaiting the "offtopic" mods.
You cannot put together your own laptop at home and then choose the operating system.
I've done it a few times. Maybe YOU can't, but I can.
The market for computers without an operating system is zero, so nobody sells them that way.
Dell's N series comes with no OS. OK, sure, you get a DOSish CD with it but the hard disk is clean.
Not sure if they still sell them but we bought several at work for Linux & OpenBSD machines.
Trolling is a art,
Microsoft DELIBERATELY released a KNOWN-BAD operating system. Why? To make more money.
Anybody want to buy a peanut factory?
Do you have any hard figure on how much OEMs get paid for the crapware?
Dell lets you opt out of most of the crapware, anyway... at least they do when you buy through their Small Business site instead of the Home & Home Office site (which everyone should, because Dell's Small Business computers often cost like $300 less for the same configurations).
Don't judge the victims, they don't know any better. It's amazing what a billion dollars a month in advertising will do to people. "Get the facts" and other smear attacks on competition do their damage. OEM and Vendor lock help to reinforce this. With every vendor robotically chanting, "We recommend Microsoft Windows" and never providing a fair price for any other OS, people believe what they have heard from everywhere else. With the FUD, many people are afraid a LiveCD will ruin their computer and think free software advocates are wreckless subversives, terrorists of the desktop even. This is how M$ has survived the last 10 years, despite the absolute panic free software caused in their upper ranks.
It's all over now. No amount of lying can cover for Vista. Enough of the wrong words have gone into the right ears. M$ is out of money. OEMs have been burnt and see Windows7 as more of the same. Retailers are so dead, M$ is thinking about starting their own stores - oh please do! The revolt is on and M$ does not stand a chance.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You are forgetting that PC makers have to pay microsoft for windows whether their PC actually includes windows or NOT.
Those are the terms to be able to sell windows on PC, if you don't like them as a maker, you are free to get windows from another vendor. Oh, wait, there is no such entity ? tough luck ... guess you're stuck with what is called the microsoft tax.
There, fixed that for ya...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
You see, Wikipedia fails. The article is saying that the following are both correct:
"There are myriad people"
"There is myriad people"
While syntactically correct, both statements really do diverge from the typical use of the word myriad; it usually refers to a large number of objects, whose number greatly exceeds the numbers that we usually see people in. Furthermore, there are far more suitable collective nouns for referring to large groups of people, which makes the use of myriad in this context seem unconventional at best.
E.g.,
"There are myriad ways in which the word myriad can be used, but only a few of them are correct."
The fact that I've been modded down and that Wikipedia gets it wrong is a fantastic illustration of where the internet fails; the collective vomit that Wikipedia often degenerates into is no substitute for expertise in a given field.
The only time that myriad can be followed by the word "of" is when it is used in plural. E.g.,
"The myriads of linguistic amateurs on Slashdot".
I would encourage you (and the mods presumably) to look this up in a reputable English dictionary
I hate printers.
Car analogy.
You go to a car dealer, ask to buy the latest Toyota Landcruiser 2008 model, and then ask them to downgrade it back to the 2006 model by replacing the engine and removing the GPS computer. And you expect the car dealer to cover the cost of this.
Sorry, but even if the XP downgrade itself should be free, there's still the time and labour of some geek technician in the computer shop to wipe the drive and reinstall the other O/S. It's just a sad fact of life that some people want everything for nothing, and an even sadder fact that they feel it necessary to sue if they can't get their own way. Something akin to a 3 year old stamping her foot ... petulant, that's the word I was looking for ;-)
As a Staples retail employee I can tell you that that would not "cost extremely little to implement." There would definitely have to be a charge, to offset the time an employee would have to be away from the sales floor while wiping a computer hard drive.
Uh, are you wiping the hard drive by using a tiny magnet and flipping all the bits by hand? Typically, you just go out and find your favorite drive wiper, spend five minutes getting it started and then walk away for a few hours.
Well even five minutes would cost ~$10 to do it. And don't forget the computer has to be removed from its box and put back neatly, which adds more time to the operation.
Microsoft are within their right to no longer sell XP if they wish
Yes they are. But they're not doing that. They're forcing their new product, knowing it's crap, and then offer XP.
Update for Windows XP (KB959252)
Install this update to resolve an issue in which you receive a 0x0000008e Stop error after you install security update KB954211 (MS08-061).
2/6/2009
That's not my definition of "archaic", sorry.
If you are going to buy pre-made computers with an operating system, what do you expect? The market for computers without an operating system is zero, so nobody sells them that way. You can, however, put your own together for often somewhat less than the cost of the pre-made computer.
You can't even buy a computer WITHOUT an operating system even if you want, how to prove that the market is zero if the option is missing?
We are paying Microsoft Tax - even if we don't use their operating system. And if we do, we may pay it twice because their licensing terms screws us.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
From Wikipedia:
From the Oxford Dictionary http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/myriad?view=uk :
/mirid/ literary
myriad
â noun 1 (also myriads) an indefinitely great number. 2 (in classical times) a unit of ten thousand.
â adjective innumerable.
â" ORIGIN Greek murias, from murioi â10,000â(TM).
I'd trust the Oxford over Wikipedia on this one.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
If they're selling your product then yes, in a lot of cases, they should punish the company because MS doesn't just sell something to retailers and then disappear. They have input on how their product is sold and probably certain requirements that retailers must abide by. This is supposedly to keep things fair so retailer A doesn't get upset by retailer B and his better deals for your product.
Sure the retailer sold the product but almost certainly under MS' terms so MS is the one at fault.
(my own emphasis added)
I was just wondering if you had a point, considering that even by your pasted wiki info, the parent poster's usage of "or any one of a myriad of other programs" was accurate. Perhaps you should double-check your snark before embarrassing yourself next time?
--
Posted as AC, without karma bonus, cheerfully awaiting the "offtopic" mods.
I was just wondering if you could check who he was replying to. Seriously, if you're not going to browse at 0 or -1, don't assume a post is replying to what appears to be its direct parent if it isn't.
Windows is the property of Microsoft and they can choose to sell anyone license whenever they want. If you don't like it, switch to OSX or Linux.
Winning a lawsuit against MS in Seattle for selling XP at a premium would be like finding Exxon guilty of price-gouging in Texas. That is not going to happen. Had she filed in California, her chances of winning would have gone up tremendously.
Wow. I'm pwned. My bad.
In addition, I was wrong about the usage of the word "myriad" in the first place. Corrected twice, and I should really double-check my "jump to conclusions" mat.
Thanks for pointing out my stupidity (insert sheepish grin here).
If you are going to buy pre-made computers with an operating system, what do you expect? The market for computers without an operating system is zero, so nobody sells them that way.
That's not even close to reality.
Any major company with a Microsoft site license has no need of a computer preinstalled with a Microsoft O/S. The first thing they will do with the equipment is wipe out whatever is there and install the offically approved corporate version.
The most vocal and most numerous of the Microsofties here say that the first thing one needs to do with a crapware infested preinstall is wipe it out and install from different media or from a pirated version.
Of the two work machines I have, there have been 6 microsoft license fees. 2 preinstalls (both wiped), 1 Microsoft Windows 2000 (enterprise site license), 2 Microsoft Windows XP (enterprise site license, 1 presumably an upgrade for the older box) and 2 Microsoft Vista (enterprise site license, unused as the company has not deployed Microsoft Vista). Neither of those machines run Microsoft Windows in any version today, thank God.
In Manila, you can walk into any commercial computer store and be offered a menu of choices that runs something like Microsoft Windows or Linux preinstalled and no O/S installed (Free DOS) at about a 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3 ratio.
To say that there is *no* market for computers without a preinstalled O/S is disengenuous at best. Unless maybe you're suggesting that people in a 3rd world country are more tech-savvy than people in the United States. Are you?
Microsoft has built a business around selling people the same thing, over and over and over again regardless of whether it is being used or not. If that's OK with you, more power to you. Count me out please.
The fact that I've been modded down and that Wikipedia gets it wrong is a fantastic illustration of where the internet fails; the collective vomit that Wikipedia often degenerates into is no substitute for expertise in a given field.
The latter is certainly true. Wikipedia is an extraordinarily poor source of data. The fact that you got modded down though is not so much pointing to failure of the internet so much as the fact that there are a fair number of rabid Wikipedians who infest this site.
I think you're being too nice. Wikipedia is crap.
If you're researching something, read something else first and only look at Wikipedia if you get desperate. When you do, assume it's wrong. Occasionally you may be surprised and find something valid there, but don't hold your breath, it doesn't happen very often.
The market for computers without an operating system is zero, so nobody sells them that way.
Curiously, I bought one that way just a few weeks ago. It was offered with Vista-SomethingOrOther preinstalled, but the shop also sells it without Vista and knocks euro100 off the price (I opted for them installing a second 1TB disk instead of the discount).
Then you get to choose how to put an operating system on it.
Simplicity itself. It took about 1 hour for a largely unattended install from CD of Ubuntu 8.10 64bit (plus formatting time for the disks). This included getting updates over the network (we have a fast link). Ubuntu recognized and supported every bit of hardware, including the dual monitors on the graphics card.
Now how many people can actually do this? Oh, maybe 1%.
Don't underestimate people, or the ease of installation of modern Linux distributions. The majority of people between 15 and 50 could probably manage quite well, and a decent fraction of those between 50 and 70. Of those aged 70+, it might be 1%, I'll grant you. To get a PC connected to internet, no further configuration would be needed after installing Ubuntu.
Since I have a home LAN with server, network printer, and a few PCs, I had to do some post-install steps - add more users & groups (easy), configure NFS (not particularly challenging) and install HPLIP, which automatically found our network HP printer/scanner/fax and set up the new PC to use them. These steps would have been necessary on any OS, and would not have been any easier.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
If you have a site license for XP, you can directly install XP on the computers. Why did you have to pay the downgrade fees?
and yet strangely someone bothered to translate anne rice into danish, and i doubt that even one percent of the danish are interested in buying those books.
let me know if this is too subtle for you.
Do you think you are going to get anywhere selling a product that only 1% of the people in the US can actually use?
I agree with the rest of your post but this is a little silly. I don't see the prosthetic limb industry going out of business by any means. Or pizza places that restrict their delivery range to a few zip codes.
Just because your customer pool is smaller doesn't mean you can't run a business. It's a different market, certainly, and you should adjust your advertising, prices, etc. accordingly, but that doesn't mean you can't run a happy profitable business selling things that some people still want.
RTFA. Lenovo didn't provide a breakdown of the fees, but Dell did: their charge was $20 for installing XP *instead of* Vista, and $130 for providing a Vista license (which the user didn't want) as well.
This is a situation where the car was built with no engine, and the work required for installing either engine is the same, and there's zero warehouse costs for the engine, and the car manufacturer wanted and asked the engine manufacturer to keep the right to install the 2006 engine, but the engine manufacturer said they were only allowed to install the 2008 engine even though it had lower fuel efficiency and significantly reduced the car's performance and maneuverability.
Apart, from ALL THE SERVERS I'VE EVER BOUGHT?
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Many site license agreements are actually "upgrade from whatever version of windows came preinstalled on the machine", so strictly speaking you have to buy a preinstalled machine...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Who really cares that M$ doing that or that stupid thing? Do not be silly moron and just do not use Windows. It's a shame for IT professional to be bound totally to one's company bad product.
I'm in IT and get along swimmingly with the 1.6GHz and 1GB RAM in my 3-year-old Inpsiron. Of course, it has Fedora ... so I'm actually using its power for work ...
Also last week I put Ubuntu on a friend's 2yo laptop and he couldn't stop talking about how much more responsive it was than the XP that used to be on it.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
The suit is, of course, silly. The right thing to is to avoid doing business with the idea monopoly. Alternatives exist. Those who are tired of seeing their basic rights chipped away by creeping lobby-law and the vending machine at the USPTO must make the effort (and it is an effort) to avoid these companies. You know who they are. Read the EULA. Is it DRMed? Does it come with a root kit? Take a serious look at FOSS and see if you can get by now and help to advance it. Your freedom to think, innovate, and prosper in a free economy depends upon this.
There exist quite a few online stores offering neatly refurbished and tested second-hand laptops. Even if such a laptop comes with Windows preinstalled, it is the previous owner who paid for the license - thus, no tax implied!
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Whatever.. I just built an inspiron 1525 on the small business site, and it cost almost $100 more than the same PC 4 months ago that I bought from the Home site. Also the only crapware I could opt out of was an ISP. You're right that sometimes you get better deals from the business page of a dealer, but it's not a rule.
So Microsoft should be forced to sell XP indefinitely and provide support for it indefinitely?
Sell computers with whatever you want installed, but require an activation key to be typed in in order to use it. Sell the activation key for an extra fee at checkout. If you don't activate, you're free to wipe your computer and use it as you wish.
Kind of like when you get a new credit card in the mail. You need to call an 800 number before you can use it.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Keep telling yourself that and you'll believe it.
I work in a place with about 450 employees and 500 various computers running. All open source. OpenOffice for the secretaries, some open source financial stuff another group maintains. All in all we have 6 IT people for the whole place starting salary at $65K. Sure, we could have 15 Windows people running around making $40 but we're better off.
No.
That's not what this is about.
If they stopped selling XP, that would be within their right.
You can still buy XP with a new laptop, thought.
It's just that you can not buy XP without also buying Vista.
That is what they shouldn't be allowed to require.
Either sell us XP or don't sell us XP. Don't sell us XP only if we also buy Vista at the same time.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
rightbias.com has a picture of my girlfriend, upper left.
I wouldn't advertise that if I were you. She looks like she's had so much plastic surgery that she's forgotten what her face looks like.
The market for computers without an operating system is zero
That is only true in the private consumer-market.
Anyone who has a site-license for their OS of choice, has no interest what so ever in having an OS license shipped with every single computer they buy.
Also, most places that have a site-license never buy DIY hardware.
If HP, Dell, etc, started offering their professional lines without any OS at a slightly reduced price, I'd bet that most site-licensees of Microsoft products would choose that option.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
...or you'll be permanently out of a job.
you had me at #!
I would encourage you (and the mods presumably) to look this up in a reputable English dictionary
From Merriam-Webster:
Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.
Some more: Cambridge
Oxford
dictionary.reference.com says:
Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mÅrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mÅrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mÅrias was used only in poetry.
They got away with murder.
Nothing has changed. Still the same monopoly, still the same criminal tactics.
Thankfully the EU is less tolerant of corporate crime.
you had me at #!
Paying twice for the same "benefit" (if running Windows can be called a benefit). Or, put another way, being forced to pay for something you can't use. (Monopoly effects.)
you had me at #!
Bwahahahahah hHAHAHAHAHA Bwahahahaha AHAHAAHAHAH Hhahahahahah HAHAHAHh LOL
you had me at #!
tell that to kyle williams...
http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/31/janus-project-pc-can-scan-300-wifi-networks-at-once/
> There are hundreds of companies that sell PCs with Linux pre-installed.
Is that hundreds of "real" companies that will still be there when you
are ready to buy your next upgrade? Or is this hundreds of fly-by-night
little cottage operators that may not even be there next month and are
not likely to be trusted by many Linux or Windows users?
One guy in a strip mall that won't be there next year really doesn't count here.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I keep hearing this argument that OEM's get loads of money for all the crapware they load on to new machines, but I never see any real figures to back this up.
I personally find it hard to believe they get more than half the cost of OEM Windows back, so can anyone provide real figures for what they get from installing all the trial software?
More like hypergolic flamebait.
No, actually you were originally right. Then what happened was someone edited the Wikipedia article for a joke, the other "reputable" sources copied the Wikipedia article without fact checking, then Wikipedia cited the reputable sources which copied Wikipedia, then it became true. All hail the power of Wikipedia.
As a Staples retail employee I can tell you that that would not "cost extremely little to implement." There would definitely have to be a charge, to offset the time an employee would have to be away from the sales floor while wiping a computer hard drive.
1. I don't know if the GP was referring to brick-and-mortar big box stores like Staples. I wouldn't think it would sell terribly well there, for one thing. But Dell or something, certainly.
2. You know, they do sell hard drives that already come like that. Probably even in the same aisle of the store.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
It's pretty common among local brick-and-mortar places where I live too (Minneapolis, ftr). They won't put them on the floor of course, but typically all you have to do is ask. For my own part, I'm a Linux desktop distributor, and although I don't sell machines with Windows preinstalled, I'll certainly sell it bare with a Windows CD (or, needless to say, without) if asked.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Buy a damn soldering iron, you lazy shit. I do it.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Not at big box stores, of course, because they know which side their bread is buttered on. Go to a local shop and ask for one. It's not as hard as you might think.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Who cares. Her vag is TIGHT.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
There are companies who offer laptops with no OS. Like Novatech in England.
Yes you can. It just sucks for you that you're not as tech-savvy as I am.
Wiki "whitebooks."
I'd just like to add that comment was a joke, in case it was a little to subtle.
Well good for you, but aside from costs there is no reason not to use windows.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
It's not Microsoft's fault if people don't know how to use their computers. You may or may not notice how its called "Vista" not "XP Vista" there is a good reason for this.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I think you mean hyperbolic, which is somewhat hypocritical comming from a twitter hating AC. It's amazing how you people waste your lives taunting twitter. There are five sock puppet repplies above and almost every twitter post draws the same kind of shit. Day or night, you people are obsessed, sick and depraved. Please find help for your condition and learn to enjoy your lives doing productive things.
When faced with this situation I purchased a MAC. MAC = 1 Microsoft = 0
You'll notice that I did use the word "often" when describing the $300 price difference. You're absolutely right that it's not a rule, but (in my experience) it's fairly reliable in the long run. YMMV.
And for reference, when I bought a laptop from Dell Small Business last week, I was able to opt out of the "productivity" software (Office or Works), antivirus, and ISPs. I don't think there's anything else you would want to opt out of, except maybe the Dell-branded media and recovery stuff they install.
The problem is that the user is FORCED to pay for a downgrade from the _default_ operating system. By default, to compete on price, you are given Vista Home edition. The user is not offered a downgrade to WinXP Home edition but is forced to upgrade to a higher version than they need just so they can downgrade to WinXP Pro.
Microsoft "officially" did away with WinXP Home so that a free downgrade was not possible.
Actually, as an entrepreneur, I'd be glad to fight for a market of 30 million people -- assuming I had a good product or service those people want.
People in 3rd world countries, I believe, are very savvy computer users. As a US citizen I believe the 1st world roots of the market give 3rd and 2nd worlders strong incentive tp reap the financial benefits of understanding computers. In the us, for example, I commonly see computers replaced simply because "I don't know, it just wasn't that fast anymore and I wanted a new one.".
This is actually to techies' advantage as it means lots of free computers.
What kind of support does Microsoft currently provide?
1. I realized there were other options after I posted. I've worked there too long, and sometimes forget that there's other ways to get computers. :P
2. They're actually a couple of aisles down. But seriously, there's a problem with that: The computers already come with hard drives. So, we'd have to do even more work to take out the hard drive, open a new one, switch the drives, etc. It'd take more time than a format (in which we would set it up and may be able to walk away). Actually, we already do the drive swapping... It's just considered a computer part install; the customer still has to purchase the hard drive (variable price) and pay for the service ($50).
We can't "use our favorite" anything. Only what we're provided. It's inefficient, but protects the company.
And five minutes is a poor estimate. Another poster mentioned set-up, which is probably two or three minutes on its own. There would also be paperwork to be done, and a 5-10 minute explanation what we're doing (to protect the company from idiot customers). The software we would have to have specially made (see first paragraph), will predictably be slow and a real pain in the ass. This is also hoping you don't get called to the floor while setting it up.
"So Microsoft should be forced to sell XP indefinitely and provide support for it indefinitely?"
How about, they can cease support once they open the code?
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
Ubuntu... Ubuntu... Ubuntu...
...to pay your $699 licensing fee you cock smoking twitter!
Isn't it all about cost and productivity?
What do you think GP's company saves in Windows costs, Office costs, etc every year. Many many thousands of dollars. Not to mention the money saved in not buying AV scanners, spyware crap, etc.
Still, you're a good troll.
Wait wait you really think you cannot buy XP anymore....... Ok then how did I just buy 3 versions of it last month for new builds then?
Microsoft is profitting NOTHING from this the OEM's are! Dell recently tripled the price to "Downgrade" to XP. I didn't see the price of XP licenses jump, did you? It is the price the OEM is incurring from users who didn't take the time of day to see what the new OS was about.
This person has no case.......
The only people who I see that have a case are those who are actually buying Vista before March 1st. That is another day another story though....