Pre-installed Linux is what Dell customers want

Dell have apparently always claimed that there is "no customer demand" for Linux to be pre-installed on their machines.

It'll be hard for them to claim that now:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/19/2212213 

Comments

  1. SalVal20 February 2007 at 18:36

    Not sure Dell will put too much store in an online poll - they are far too easily manipulated by special interest groups. For example, the group-thinkers at /., who are also the sort of people who write about "M$" and "Windoze" and then wonder why people don't take them seriously... still an entertaining forum, though.

    The trouble with online opinion polls is that they are far too easy to corrupt - look at the time (1994?) when the BBC allowed online voting for the Sports Personality of the Year, and a prank campaign led to Justin Fashanu being the run-away leader until he was disqualified. Or this year's NHL All-Star fan vote, which nearly saw a mediocre grinder named as one of the top players in the game.

    That's not to say that Dell shouldn't be looking at offering Linux... question is, which distro? How many sales would they get vs increased tech support issues? There seems a lot of risk for potentially not much reward.

    ReplyDelete
  2. jonesieboy20 February 2007 at 18:50

    I totally agree about the shortcomings of on-line polls. This one was set up by Dell though! One has to assume that they intended to do something with the results of this exercise - why bother otherwise?

    Which distro? Well that's a question! I think the suggestion on the site is for Ubuntu, OpenSuse and one other. Kubuntu is my distro of choice :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. SalVal20 February 2007 at 21:33

    Why bother? So their PR people can say "Look! We're speaking to our customers!" Whether they'll act on any of it is another matter entirely...

    And the distro choices are the main problem with Linux - there are just too many forks. It's just too confusing for most people, who would far rather have Windows, "just like I have at work" - the Linux fans are still nothing more than a very vocal minority. Sadly, unless the forks start to be replaced by re-unifications, I don't see Windows being hugely threatened any time soon, which is a shame - a competitive marketplace between Windows, MacOS, and maybe no more than two or three Linuces would be a far more interesting dynamic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. jonesieboy20 February 2007 at 22:34

    Can't disagree with you... I see Ubuntu and Suse pulling away from the pack though, which should be a good thing as far as simplifying things for the average punter is concerned.

    The sad thing is that people just don't realise that there is a free alternative to Windows AND all the software that you have to pay for on top of it - an alternative that will do everything that 90% of computer users want to do.

    It feels sometimes as thought Windows and proprietary software are a tax on those lacking the inquisitiveness and technical ability to discover and use Linux.

    ReplyDelete

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