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?"
Re:Microsoft Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Soon everyone will have A.I.D.s... (Score:3, Interesting)
What are the odds?
XBox 360 is the reason (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Soon everyone will have A.I.D.s... (Score:3, Interesting)
85 to 1.
Now's not yet the time. Apple needs to get their own machines on the market, and get comfortable buildign and selling them before they can repeat the clone situation. They didn't handle direct competition very well last time, so they need to be able to get everything running like a well-oiled machine before they license the OS. I do think it will eventually happen...just not yet.
Dell is, if anything, just going with the market and seeing what happens. As someone else has said here, if they think they can get more market traction by distancing themselves a little bit, then they will. I don't think this confluence of events is necessarily symbolic of much, except that Dell may be preparing for a change in the market by hedging their bets a little.
But I certainly think that when Vista (or whatever it is) comes out, Dell will be all up in that bandwagon with everyone else.
HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
To OS or not to OS (Score:2, Interesting)
So if Dell has to package an OS with their system, what will it be?
1) Windows: The status quo. Plug it in and it works (albeit not for long if it's not patched and updated). Extra cost for Dell? Probably a couple bucks per computer, which they gladly pass onto the consumer. Incentives? Coupons/Benefits from Microsoft for $??? total gain.
2) Enterprise type *nix: Dell would probably look at a major commercial player such as Red Hat or SUSE as their distro of choice. SUSE and Red Hat both have standard technical support already in place (for a fee - buying their Enterprise OS). This technical support is very important to Dell because they don't want to have to deal with Q&A about the OS of choice. It's not their field of expertise. However, I could see a deal between Dell and one of them to provide a desktop version of the OS with technical support. In addition, the business models of Red Hat and SUSE are similar to that of the closed system world, which is one less (major) adjustment Dell would have to make to their own system. The catch? There would be a *nix tax as well. Which puts us back at square one (with the exception of one less [troll] evil corporation in the mix [/troll].
3) Free *nix/BSD: Which one to choose? There's so many distros out there. Most of them don't have the status quo technical support available. Instead they have mailing-lists and Wikis. Do the majority of computer users know what those things are or are able to use them (especially if X won't load for some reason!). The majority of users need the technical support over the phone that most of us dread.
Until there's a solution made for the technical support that joe-schmoe user needs is made available for *nix distros, I don't see Windows being replaced as the default OS on consumer grade PCs.
Re:The Inquirer gets it wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They're no different... (Score:3, Interesting)
Your right. Sorry about that.
User-friendlyness not only depends on the interface but also how fool-proof is the software. It is a difficult ballance between keeping people who don't know what their doing away, while allowing those who do to work. In some ways, I think Microsoft has managed to do this (at least they provide a link allowing users to look at the files), but I think that there is still more to be desired. My own personal suggestion would be to make a user that only has certain privilidges like mounting and apt-get'ing (if you are using Debian or something similar). If you installed GNU/Linux for a friend, offer them some technical support, and don't tell them about root. Let them figure it out for themselves. When they do, they will probably be smart enough not to delete the files.
Re:XBox 360 is the reason (Score:4, Interesting)
Firefox preinstalled in EU - At MSFT's request... (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Jobs already killed off Mac clones before (Score:2, Interesting)
What this told Apple, I assume, is that it wasn't limited hardware choice or a lack of diversity in marketing that was limiting the growth of the Mac's market share. That meant that some other factor was -- maybe the range or quality of applications, the quality of the OS, or one of the other problem areas for Apple.
The correct action was to disallow the clones. They also lowered their prices a little, and the effect was that the unofficial clones slowly went away. The market share kept shrinking. (And the margin on any computer shrank, much to everyone's delight.)
I think Apple's gone a little too far in the other direction, though. They're releasing a lot of software, and that probably discourages the independent software vendor market. Final Cut Pro, Shake (whatever it's called now), iWork, iLife.... all great software, but they basically lock out other vendors. They're trying to do for themselves what Microsoft did with Excel (killing Lotus) and Word (killing Word Perfect) and Visio (ending Visio's independence).
(Also, I think it was Scully who ended the clone wars.)
Re:They're no different... (Score:2, Interesting)
you need a license to drive you car, don't you? not servicing it, just driving it. your computer is a lot more complicated, and potentially a lot more dangerous than a car. why is it that surprising that you should at LEAST have a basic knowledge of wtf it is you're doing?
people usually reply with "but i don't have a choice! everything is on the computer!". yes you do have a choice, you CAN type your papers on a typewritter, you CAN get the newspaper for your news, you CAN go to the library for your information. you CHOOSE not to because it's more convenient to just look it up on the internet.
a computer is a tool. if you don't understand your tool, don't fuck with it or don't use it.
No OS installed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Theories? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is exactly the reason. What you need to realise is that half of M$ income is comming from the M$ Office package. What would happen to this if Dell would, for example, decide to preinstall OpenOffice.org 2.0 on all the new customer machines as a value add? Why wouldn't they? I think the next five years will see a dramatic changes in the power distribution thanks to this one bargaining chip.
Re:Firefox preinstalled in EU - At MSFT's request. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that I disagree with the rest of your post but Firefox (Mozilla actually) helped drive me away from Windows. Halo effect I guess.
as a linux user - why should I give dell money? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They're no different... (Score:2, Interesting)
I felt I had accomplished something
Re:Do you really want to? (Score:3, Interesting)
(Based on more than 85,000 desktop computers purchased new between 2001 and 2005, according to responses to our 2005 Annual Questionnaire. Data were standardized to eliminate differences linked to age and use. Differences of 4 or more points are meaningful.)
However, curiously, for *laptops*, Dell ranks 6th, after Sony, IBM, Toshiba, Apple, and HP (in that order) at around 17-18%. (Sony is at around 16%.) It's interesting to me that Dells repair rate is pretty close to the same for laptops and desktops, but in the laptop category that's just not as good. When did laptops in general become more reliable than desktops? (That certainly hasn't been my anecdotal experience.)
It's also interesting that the reliability numbers for Apple laptops doesn't seem to measure up to their desktops. They appear to have the biggest reliability gap between desktops and laptops. (11% vs 16-17%)
(Based on more than 49,000 laptop computers purchased between 2001 and 2005, according to responses to our 2005 Annual Questionnaire. Data were standardized to eliminate differences linked to age and use. Differences of 3 or more points are meaningful.)
Microsoft tax is probably negative. (Score:5, Interesting)
This amounted to a pretty big subsidy for the Windows versions of computers; and if you add up all the software companies doing this game, I bet it vastly exceeds the cost of windows.
Until the crippleware subsidy industry gets as big for Linux, I expect you'll always see the OEMs prefer Windows.
Re:Courting Apple? (Score:3, Interesting)
The bottom line would be a partnership between Dell and Apple, which if successful may mean that Dell could lower their support for Windows when Vista is released; which by all accounts appears to be bloatware. Might even force Microsoft to continue shipping XP for longer as a result.
Could this be the real reason why Microsoft have stopped all support for IE on the MAC?
Re:The Inquirer gets it wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Ship Windows with IE as much as you like, just set the default browser to Firefox. ?
Who else? (Score:2, Interesting)
Again, I'm not trying to argue, but I've just not heard of any better 'support' from other manufacturers.
Most likely a strategic move surrounding Vista (Score:2, Interesting)
However, until the final changes of Microsoft's Licensing for Vista and Versions are in place it's still just rumors at this point.
Maybe its a sales trick (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Having Sony on your Side... (Score:2, Interesting)
But they didn't, because they are Sony, so it failed everywhere except Japan. European and American buyers are not in the least enthusiastic about a recording system which refuses to record things, irrespective of how small it is or how long it runs on a set of batteries. Perhaps the Japanese were content to listen to recordings of themselves doing some Karaoke or whatever, but Europeans and Americans expected to be able to transfer music _that they legitimately owned_ on to it, and couldn't. So they didn't buy it, despite some concerted attempts to market it in many countries.
NB: there is a lesson in Mini-Disk that manufacturers have apparently still not learned, i.e. that people will not spend money on new technology which is better than what they already have in some ways, but prevents them from doing other things that their older gear permitted. As long as any DRM schemes are effectively invisible to Joe Public, then they'll be accepted without question, because most people won't ever know they're there. The word will however get around pretty quickly the moment anything breaks the expected "put thing in slot, listen to cool sound or dig great video" formula that they already have from today's gear: degraded video or sound quality, messages about unauthorised equipment, time-shifted shows that erase themselves after a certain time, and other such measures will result in the new DRM-encumbered stuff being seen as "crap", just like Mini-Disk was.