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Dell Indicates Windows 7 Pricing Will Be Higher
ausekilis sends us word that a Dell spokesman said, without giving numbers, that Windows 7 pricing will be higher than Vista's or XP's. "Windows 7 pricing is potentially an obstacle to Windows 7 adoption for some users, though in just about every other aspect the operating system is beating Vista, according to a Dell marketing executive. ... [Darrell] Ward continued, 'In tough economic times, I think it's naive to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a stronger swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista. ... Schools and government agencies may not be able to afford (the additional cost). Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they'd like,' Ward said.'"
Now if we could just get Dell to put a little drop down option in its OS & Productivity Suite selection to have an option for "Ubuntu & Open Office (subtract $200)" on all of their computers. And then to have it actually be $200 cheaper with the exact hardware.
Then we might be talking about "2009: The Year of the Recession and Linux on the Desktop."
My work here is dung.
Dell is obviously unhappy with the price and they are signalling (Cards. a play that reveals to one's partner a wish that he or she continue or discontinue the suit led.) to Microsoft their discontent.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
microsoft is a company sitting on 25 billion dollars. they apparently sold $3-4 billion in bonds? they are *raising* prices during some of the worst economic times that a lot of people of have seen.
it's like they have a pressing need for more than $30 billion?
for a company that needs to sell operating systems to maintain their future, it doesn't make sense.
e
See that won't happen for two reasons. One is that MS gives you better licensing when you bundle Windows with all systems from a line. However the major reason is that Dell doesn't want to put up with the shit it would generate. It would be a tech support nightmare if they did that on main stream, consumer systems. You'd get a great many people doing it because it saves money. However they'd give no thought to if their apps would work or if they were willing to spend the time learning a new OS and so on. They'd get flooded with calls about it and have all sorts of angry people.
That's why when companies do offer things like Linux or no OS options, they do so on business type machines. When they are selling to an organization with their own support, they hope you can figure out what will and will not work for you. For home users? Ya not so much. They'd buy it, try to install a game, then complain because it didn't work.
Also, based on the prices Dell pays, it'd be $100 or less per computer.
Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't hold a true monopoly. You see, Microsoft competes with itself.
Windows 7 has to compete with Vista and XP and even 2000. That's tough competition. When I need to run PC apps, XP does everything I need with the least overhead.
Note that Dell doesn't actually come out and say that. They aren't saying "MS is charging us $20 more per copy." They are hinting at it, but hedging their terms. What it smells like to me is Dell wants a better rate than they've been getting in the past, and this is one of the tactics they are using to get it.
Companies posture over pricing all the time, and sometimes publicly. If Dell can get people mad at MS for their high prices, even if the prices are no higher than they normally are, then maybe they get more leverage.
So while I have no inside knowledge of the situation, that's my bet. MS is keeping 7 prices the same, and Dell thinks they should be cut.
Sometimes if you make it more expensive, people will buy it for that reason alone. They see the higher price, and think that there must be a good reason for it to be a little bit more expensive than the alternatives.
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I already pay a higher price for XP compared to Vista. Now I'm gonna have to pay a higher price for 7 compared to Vista?
Fsck that. Seriously. Fsck. That.
2010 = Year of Ubuntu on Joe Sixpack's computer, when he discovers that he can buy a netbook for less than the cost of a single Windows 7 license.
Damn that's some mighty smelly bait. I hope no one is foolish enough to actually take it and respond seriously to it... it will just make the entire thread sick.
Being forced to run 10.2 is much like being stuck with any machine old enough to have come with 10.2 pre-installed.
You got it free because it is OLD, not because it's inherently bad.
This guy probably has a current Mac these days.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
When I need to run PC apps, XP does everything I need with the least overhead.
As long as you don't need more than 4GB of addressing space...
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they'd like
Translation: They'll buy it anyway, because MS could shit in a box and small Businesses with little to no technical support or knowledge would still feel forced to buy it because they don't know they don't have to.
Linux remains free of value to noob consumers that are already confused when the colors of their Word icons change.
There, fixed that for you.
It's only tough competition because Microsoft hasn't brought anything new to the table with their OSs in the past decade.
The trap Microsoft got themselves into was behaving if they were approaching the classic monopoly endgame. Capitalism requires constant improvement, otherwise customers will buy competitors' products, but once you own the market, there's no point continuing to improve your product. For software, improving your product is almost the ONLY significant cost, so when you want to maximise profit, you stop development.
Microsoft did that. They took their foot off the pedal and relaxed. Now that freeze on innovation is coming back to bite them.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Commodore, There are just too many variables to consider. That Mac OS dates back from 2002. Its hardware specs could even be older than 2002. Your friend (or his family) could have accidentally damaged it, poured coffee into it, or whatever...
Personally, I still have a Windows laptop that runs Windows Me. It can play youtube videos, yes (sort of), but it can't update itself -- it can't update its Internet Explorer (It hasn't been able to for a couple of years). And it can't do a number of things that most computer users would now take for granted. It's basically just a piece of crap that I reserve for family members when they come and visit.
And while I agree that your parent post should have never been modded down into -1 flamebait status, I think you're expecting too much from a machine that was just given to you for free after it stopped working properly in the first place.
Why don't you drop the $60 bucks on 10.3 disks? You can generally skip a few versions of Mac OS X, but you have gone over board. The Mac OS market isn't big enough for most companies to support that antiqued OS regardless. Bitch if you want, but that is how it is. A lot of core APIs were still forming then which exasperate things.
When open source projects start only supporting back to Mac OS 10.4, you know you have a problem. It means there aren't enough people out there. If you're brave, you can try porting FF3 to Mac OS 10.2. That is what people did with Mozilla on Mac OS 9 for a while. But it's much more fun to bitch, isn't it?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
No one has to get the latest Windows7? Oh, yes, because we hate Vista we need to buy Windows7. Nonsense. Hardware prices are going down, and so will software. And here also Linux comes into play. Desktop Linux does not need to become a reality it is just necessary to strategically invest in alternatives. Asus is a perfect example.
Okay, let me know when you find the C64 version of Flash and can watch YouTube. I was gonna help you, but like previously identified, I fell for your bait. Fuck off and die.
The biggest effect will be on Netbooks. Windows did not start making up a large portion of netbook os sales until the price for xp was lowered. With this sudden rise in prices you will see a move back to Dell's Ubuntu.
You could have adware, spyware and trialware for Linux distros... if there were a market for them.
Maybe the Linux community doesn't really want the hoi polloi using Linux.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
In most cases, you don't even need to do that with Ubuntu.
Aside from having separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions, the one Ubuntu OS image should boot on all supported hardware. It does not store hardware state, ships with a full set of drivers and auto-detects everything at startup.
This is just Dells message to Microsoft telling them they will not eat a higher wholesale cost. They are swinging the bat they have to make MS lower the licensing costs.
Good for them.
Chuck