Is the Dell/Microsoft Alliance Fracturing? 390
An anonymous reader asks: "Dell has historically been the most loyal of all Microsoft's partners. Even today, it is very difficult to avoid paying the Microsoft tax on most of Dell's desktops and notebooks. Recently, two things have made the news where Dell is not toeing the Microsoft line. First, was the announcement that Dell is trialling shipping desktop and notebook PCs in the UK with Firefox as the default browser, instead of IE (announcement confirmed here). Today we have news that Dell is not going to support HD-DVD, despite reported incentives that recently induced HP to do so. So, what are some theories as to why Dell has lately been less of a friend to Microsoft, and what does this mean for the future? Does it mean that it might soon become possible to order Dell's full line of personal systems with Linux installed, or no OS/FreeDOS to save the Microsoft tax?"
Microsoft Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
They're no different... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to see here.
Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, it might soon be possible.
It's all about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Theories? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Dell has a smart management team. They realise that they are a market leader in hardware, and the balance of power is shifting.
Microsoft can't afford to upset Dell. It would be unfortunate for MS if the income stream from Dell dried up, and disastrous if Dell boxes started going out with non-MS software routinely given priority.
Dell, on the other hand, increasingly has viable alternatives to offer and probably an increasing number of customers asking about them, particularly on the Windows vs. $OTHER_OS front. And of course, they can more effectively compete against other workstation and particularly server vendors if they aren't paying the Microsoft tax, and they have more legal shielding than ever against reprisals by MS.
Today, Microsoft is getting a very bad name in some areas, particularly among the techies who probably buy 99% of the Dell servers and a heavy majority of the workstations and support contracts. At a time like that, if you'll forgive the horrible cliches, it pays to know which side your bread's buttered, and not to have all your eggs in one basket.
Re:They're no different... (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of hoopla over nothing, (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me a cynic, but only on
It's a nice thought, but this is little more than daydreaming.
Re:Shifting power and influence (Score:4, Insightful)
Living up to their name I see.
Mods should read the articles (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, this is because Dell is in on the advisory staff that came up with the Blu-ray spec. They have never said "No we are going to sell it", they have only taken the safe road in saying they will stick with their design until the market says otherwise. This probably won't take long since you won't be paying for the patent license at $30 a unit like you will with the Blu-ray product. Not to mention, media will end up costing less for the Microsoft product based upon the same premise.
Yes, Microsoft is trying to get in quick with the incentives, but that is only because they don't have quite the advantage of having Sony on their side. Sony/Dell/and company are going to end up losing out in the long-run for the excessive patent fees. Pair that with Sony being the biggest single contributor to our RIAA pains, and you don't have a great deal of support for the company.
I'm not saying Microsoft is great, just saying they'll be less likely to sue folks for utilizing methods to backup/copy their discs.
Re:ROFL (Score:2, Insightful)
Misnomer. (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not a "tax". Unlike a government (backed by armed force), I can buy a computer from many sources, up to building one from parts.* I have always been able to do this, even when Microsoft was in full swing. The main thing that drove the need for the OS wasn't the hardware but (remind me if you have heard this) "It's the apps, stupid!". Also unlike a "tax". I can "opt out" by simply not buying.
The "MS tax" argument basically is made by those who want the world to conform to their desires while ignore any form of reality, including economic. It's cute (like M$ cute), but the majority are more inclined to put it down as the rantings of the minority.
Extremely unlikely (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you buy a burner for? (Score:4, Insightful)
So why do so many people have DVD burners now when CD burners are so cheap? The players cost more, so does the media.
While not quite the same order of magnitude as the difference between DVD and CD storage, Blu-Ray simply offers more storage space than HD-DVD and that makes it much more practical to use as a third-tied backup for things like 400GB drives. That's why I plan to get a Blu-Ray burner soon after they come out. Even if the media and the drives are more expensive, being able to use half the number of discs and half the time (especialy half the time) to do the same backup is a huge draw for computer users.
Now come at it from the media angle. Consumers are not going to buy movies because the PC supports playing that format. When they will do is buy movies when they have a dedicated device, like a DVD player, that will support them. Who is almost guaranteed to have millions on millions of said devices in homes that are not even all early adopters? Sony, with the PS3.
On Microsoft could possibly have the hubris to think they could stop or even slow what is coming, which is a slam-dunk for Sony and Blu-Ray. And they could have done it to if they had delayed the 360 release to include HD-DVD drives in more expensive bundles.
Re:They're no different... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe since they are. But calling them "idiots" is too harsh.
Reality is you don't need to be electronics expert to operate your TV, so your TV shouldn't require so. Many smart people just don't know/need all those details.
But regarding user friendliness, I'd say distributions like Ubuntu are friendly enough for basic tasks like Office / EMail / Internet work. But Windows is just a much better desktop OS, we all gotta give it that I guess.
IT'S NOT A TAX! It's a discount. (Score:5, Insightful)
But more than that I think it stupid to keep going on about this "Microsoft tax." You can buy a pretty ripping machine from Dell or Gateway or emachines (I mean Gateway) at a very, very good price. These prices are possible because of the huge volume these makers sell, and that volume is possible because everyone knows, no matter how much it may or may not suck, when they get the machine home it will be "familiar" to them and they can go to the gazillion warez and spyware repositories and install whatever crap floats their boat.
Bot more improtantly it's that volume that beckons other OEMs. Third party makers like Adobe and Epson and Norton and others offer Dell and Gateway juicy licensing deals because they know the distribution of their "demos" and their cheapass printers with the ridiculously overpriced ink and paper supplies will benefit them in the long run. So while MS gets paid by Dell, Dell gets paid by Adobe and Epson and Norton. Whether it's money that directly offsets the cost of licensing windows or the cut rate hardware that allows them to make "special deals" that help them blow out thousands of machines at a whack, in the end it's Windows that is driving down the cost of the hardware.
Until there are third party OEMs like Norton and Adobe offering well recognized linux tools that will help sell even more machines, Dell would make LESS on each system by NOT including windows. Twice the support costs (now they have to field both linux and windows calls) but LESS PROFIT. They would have to charge MORE FOR LESS, which is exactly what you see now.
It makes zero sense for Dell to sell bundled linux systems and that isn't going to change until linux has evolved into a "killer brand" in its own right. And that's not going to happen because fo Dell, it's only going to happen because someone, somewhere, develops a desktop that offers something more than windows and does so in a way that is tangible to someone who doesn't spend their life working on this stuff.
Looking forward as well... (Score:2, Insightful)
So I'll buy a Blu-Ray burner and hope the holographic thing is reality this time and comes in at an affordable price.
I do wonder how long it will be before we see a holographic movie format emerge!
Re:They're no different... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the worst my mom can do with her computer is install spyware by accident, lose her e-mail archive and *.DOC with recipes she collects.
So paint me skeptical about your conclusions there. It's easy to be so demanding if you're well versed in computing, but things look in a different way if you're just not that well informed, or can't learn well enough (like elderly users).
Tax vs Support calls. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:They're no different... (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers aren't THAT bloody complicated unless you're digging under the hood or something has broken. Plenty OF people out there happilly use THEIR computers for years without understanding anything MORE that how they launch Microsoft word AND THE interweb. If they run in to problems they call tech support.
If you've got A central heating system at home, do you think you should be expected TO be a central heating EXPERT?
Dell will do what's right for Dell... (Score:4, Insightful)
Courting Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be that is the reason for the drift away from MS, either because he wants to make friends with Steve Jobs or a backroom deal has actually already been done.
Re:The Inquirer gets it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hApple Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
If you call Apple, you can get a system WITHOUT the OS and get it cheaper. I've done it for graphic houses installations.
And if you are a Mac user, you know damn well that the so-called 'shovelware' is iLife that you're talking about is included FREE for new systems. All software on a Mac can be easily removed by dragging the application to the trash.
Re:Theories? (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition, as the SEC filings [nasdaq.com] suggest, the rate of GROWTH for consumer PC's hasn't exactly excited anyone, inside or outside the company. This is reflected in the product shift to Consumer Electronics and Printers sales.
One thing to keep in mind is that Dell is probably MOST reponsive to the demands / needs of its enterprise customer base, at lease in the short to medium term. Especially since they drive a large share of profit growth, and these customers are probably the ones MOST sensitive to avoiding the MS tax. A few dollars per unit add up when you purchase THOUSANDS at a time, right?
*** DISCLAIMER ***
I'm an employee of Dell, though these opinions are my own, and this does not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opionions of my employer, blah, blah, blah
*** DISCLAIMER ***
Re:IT'S A TAX! (Score:3, Insightful)
And why is this? Could it be due to the fact that manufacturers are reluctant to expend vast amounts of time and effort supporting a huge number of incompatible distros whose total number of desktop users put together is dwarfed by people still using Windows-95, who those same manufacturers have also stopped supporting?
"It's what we call a vicious circle".
No, it's what's called an insignificant and hopelessly fragmented market. OS X has a similar market share to the sum of desktop Linux, but it is far better supported by hardware and software manufacturers. This would not be the case if there were hundreds of different variants, each incompatible with all the others in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways, with different desktops and window managers, different versions of core libraries, update cycles that are not synchronised with those of any of the other variants, etc., etc. If you want manufacturers to support Linux, then give them a fixed target to aim at, not hundreds of annoyingly different little targets flitting around like starlings in a hurricane.
"Microsoft also uses unethical and possibly illegal deals with OEMs as one of it's many methods of what I and various anti-trust lawyers consider are illegal practices to ensure they maintain their monopoly."
1. The legality or otherwise of deals they made with OEMs has no bearing on anything, because said OEMs would not have been coerced into such deals if there was not a significant consumer demand for Windows. Big companies don't get pushed into positions that aren't favourable to them without having a very good reason for it. In Microsoft's case, it was the fact that consumers were overwhelmingly demanding Windows at a time when it still had several commercial competitors (OS/2, GEM, etc.) that they could also have bundled, but _chose_ to sign exclusive deals with MS instead.
2. Microsoft were convicted of leveraging _an existing monopoly_ in desktop operating systems to obtain monopolies in other sectors. Note the term "existing monopoly", because it is very important. Where did that "existing monopoly" come from? You can't claim it was from DOS, because MS had been trying to push Windows for years to DOS users without any notable success. The turning point came with Windows 3.X, which people started buying in large numbers because it was a compelling product that _they wanted to use_.
"There have in fact been several high profile anti-trust cases that Microsoft have basically lost."
See above. They lost because they illegally used _an existing monopoly_ to establish new ones. They still had to gain that existing monopoly in the first place, and they could not have done so if they were selling something people didn't want.
"It's just that none of the proposals to open up the software market to fair competition and stop the Microsofts monopoly abuses have been successful."
And they won't be, because (a) the law moves far too slowly for a rapidly changing ecosystem like computing, and (b) when legislation gets mixed up with high tech. markets, the end result is almost inevitably worse than if they'd simply left things alone. The current "hand content producers everything they demand, and treat consumers like criminals" trend by Western governments is an excellent example of this.
NB: a lot of Microsoft's success can be traced back to the general incompetence of the competition. Some examples:
1) Apple pissed away a large market share because "professional management" kicked out the original company founders, and then ran things as if there was no difference between selling computers and soda (there is an important one: computers cost a lot more than soda, so people aren't anything like as willing to buy one just to see what it's like).
2. Netscape's founder shot his mouth off about how the browser was the new pla