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Dell Says Re-Imaging HDs a Burden If Word Banned
N!NJA writes "In an amicus curiae brief filed on Aug. 24, Dell asked the judge overseeing the Eastern District Court of Texas to reconsider its order blocking sales of Word, part of the original ruling in favor of Canadian software developer i4i. In the worst case, the brief argued, the injunction should be delayed by 120 days. 'The District Court's injunction of Microsoft Word will have an impact far beyond Microsoft,' Dell and HP wrote. 'Microsoft Word is ubiquitous among word processing software and is included on [redacted] computers sold by Dell.' 'If Microsoft is required to ship a revised version of Word in Dell's computers, a change would need to be made to Dell's images,' Dell wrote. 'Making such a change would require extensive time- and resource- consuming testing.' An addendum to the brief notes that it was authored in Microsoft Word, part of Office 2003."
That's par for the course when you become an OEM. Deal with it.
If they hadn't preloaded all of their images with free trials and bloatware then this wouldn't be a problem in the first place. When I have to setup one of their machines, the first thing I always do is reformat and build a new image anyway without all of the extra crap that shouldn't be there.
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
This court decision is being appealed and Dell is arguing that the injunction should be withdrawn until the legal process has been completed.
Third parties will be harmed while the patent holder isn't likely to see anyone buying their product instead of Word.
It's most likely that Dell doesn't wish to publish their sales numbers outside of the normal reporting process, which isn't at all surprising.
I actually worked at a computer manufacturer. Regardless of whether you think computer manufacturers should test their software or whether they are doing a crappy testing their product, it takes a ton of resources to get a master image out. You are testing multiple masters, not just one, based on different SKUs, etc. I admit, some of the testing we did were stupid but when you are consider MM units shipped and if a stupid error goes through you might pretty much bankrupt the company, you want to make sure you get enough testing.
As for OpenOffice, are you willing to ship out 1M+ units without good testing? Assembling your own computer is very different from shipping out 1M units all over the world + liability for computer tech support (regardless on whether you think Dell support sucks, it probably costs them $10~$20 per call; when you figure out a typical profit margin of 8% per unit, couple tech support calls will kill your margins).
With as much crap as Dell includes on it's default computers, certainly something is always in need of an update. They must have new images several times a year to keep the versions all current. One more image doesn't seem like such a big deal.
"Dear Court:
Providing a different option will be hard for us.
Please provide us relief."
Seems to me like this issue is exactly why monopolies are bad for consumers.
The last PC I helped someone fix (bloated and slow, crippled with malware) didn't even
come with system reinstall disks - they had to order and pay for them separately once the
computer arrived. Oops!
When Microsoft decides it's time to get more money and releases a new version of Office, as they have done several times in the past, does Dell charge them for having to change their image again? What about major OS service packs? They re-image for those too. It's part of their business. How is this any different from what would happen if MS released Office 2010?
If they have paid Microsoft for the right to Sell x Million copies of Office, then Microsoft has already sold x Million copies to Dell.
Does the injunction apply to resllers?
Anyway, the injunction prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing. There's no reason that would enjoin Dell from selling their stock.
It's doubtful that Dell has a pre-bought stock of CDs to sell for the preloaded software that is the subject of of their brief. They probably pay MS quarterly or monthly on the number of copies they make. That would make any copies Dell preloads onto their machines new copies sold by Microsoft.
Are you joking? Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Their sentence may have been light, but they were convicted of a criminal offense.
NO.
Microsoft was found to be a monopoly, and to have committed the CIVIL wrong of using said monopoly to improperly affect other markets.
If they had been found guilty of being a criminal organization -- you know, one that commits crimes by way of its business -- there wouldn't be a Microsoft right now, because their corporate charter would have been revoked, all their stock would have become worthless, and there'd be a big chunk out of the national debt.
I saw this article a couple times, and finally clicked it to see what's being said. Good post you've made there.
I'd like to add though, that Dell jumped on the bandwagon years ago when MS demanded exclusivity agreements in exchange for distribution rights. Even if Dell were to suffer a loss if ordered to distribute no more Word products, I couldn't feel sorry for them. Dell assisted, even if indirectly, in creating the Microsoft monopoly. A little hardship might make them reconsider pushing Linux and No-OS machines a little harder. It would be good to see such offerings on their FRONT page. It would be even better to see the end of "Dell recommends Windows Blah" on every page.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Sorry, your argument doesn't hold water.
Let's look at the same argument used by Corporate America - specifically, RIAA. The statement that file sharers are "criminals" is common. It is a determined effort to alienate filesharers from people who genuinely respect the law. That inaccurate statement is incorporated into any and every PR release made by a majority of IP holders. "Criminal" are costing Corporate America billions of dollars annualy.
I've argued and pointed out many times that file sharers may or may not be guilty of infringing on CIVIL LAW, but that does not make them "criminals".
Honesty demands that we not use the same dirty trick against Corporate America. Microsoft is not a "convicted criminal". They may be a bunch of rat bastards, but being a rat bastard is not in and of itself a criminal offense.
Please, don't put me in the position of defending Microsoft again.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
> First of all "convicted monopolist" is the most over-used phrase
> on Slashdot. Can we please come up with something new?
How about "re-convicted monopolist"?
After all Microsoft has done this multiple times and has been convicted of monopolistic bullying tactics multiple times.