I worked for Intel on the Eastfork project, over 50% of the business and technology decisions made were made by Dell. If anything Intel is Dell's puppet.
I can't speak to the Microsoft involvement other than to say that there is little money in selling Linux machines.
Dell's core concern is stability and no matter what any elitist wants to say, Microsoft is way more stable than Linux and historically Intel has been more stable than AMD. Now, AMD is getting more stable and Intel is losing its stability. But, if they start selling AMD's, AMD has no loyalty to them and won't let Dell control them like Intel does. At the same time Intel will stop letting Dell control their products because Dell would have broken their loyalties. Leaving Dell with 2 decisions to ask themselves. Do we sell Linux (which would bring miniscule revenue in comparison to their Windows revenue) just to apiece a few fan-boys and piss of Microsoft (which even if they did sell Linux would remain 99.99999999999% of their business)? And, do we sell AMD processors and piss of the company that lets us control their every move, is historically more stable and more inventive, has most of the market share, and a name the general public trusts?
I realize that I'm going to get flamed for this, but it's the truth. I'm really interested in what other people feel on the subject, but please don't just "W!ND0W5 SUCK50R5", that hurts your argument and will hurt the credibility of the other people making intelligent arguments for your case.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked for Intel on the Eastfork project, over 50% of the business and technology decisions made were made by Dell. If anything Intel is Dell's puppet.
I can't speak to the Microsoft involvement other than to say that there is little money in selling Linux machines.
Dell's core concern is stability and no matter what any elitist wants to say, Microsoft is way more stable than Linux and historically Intel has been more stable than AMD. Now, AMD is getting more stable and Intel is losing its stability. But, if they start selling AMD's, AMD has no loyalty to them and won't let Dell control them like Intel does. At the same time Intel will stop letting Dell control their products because Dell would have broken their loyalties. Leaving Dell with 2 decisions to ask themselves. Do we sell Linux (which would bring miniscule revenue in comparison to their Windows revenue) just to apiece a few fan-boys and piss of Microsoft (which even if they did sell Linux would remain 99.99999999999% of their business)? And, do we sell AMD processors and piss of the company that lets us control their every move, is historically more stable and more inventive, has most of the market share, and a name the general public trusts?
I realize that I'm going to get flamed for this, but it's the truth. I'm really interested in what other people feel on the subject, but please don't just "W!ND0W5 SUCK50R5", that hurts your argument and will hurt the credibility of the other people making intelligent arguments for your case.