From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jun 6 4:36:16 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from edwin.mounet.com (edwin.mounet.com [216.145.76.8]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 652AE37B406 for ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 04:36:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from hornback@wireco.net) Received: (qmail 9545 invoked by uid 0); 6 Jun 2001 11:34:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO tomcat) (216.145.67.35) by mounet.com with SMTP; 6 Jun 2001 11:34:45 -0000 From: "Andrew C. Hornback" To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" , Subject: RE: Laptop without Windows Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 07:35:23 -0400 Message-ID: <000901c0ee7c$c63cc280$0e00000a@tomcat> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 In-Reply-To: <000701c0ee46$fcd65440$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Ted > Mittelstaedt > Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 1:10 AM > To: Jason Francis; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: RE: Laptop without Windows > > Not if they charge for support. There's nothing preventing Dell from > putting together a small group of support techs and having them bill out > at $100 an hour for "alternative OS support". There's many, many people > that would happily pay that, and such a consulting group would certainly > turn a small profit for Dell as well as help increase the sale of their > hardware. If they did that... they'd have to... *gasp* hire folks that know what they're doing. After driving to an interview in Nashville (where the newest Dell plant is), I was told flat out that they wouldn't hire me because I knew too much. *shakes his head and takes the chip off his shoulder* > As the original poster said, this is all about consumer demands, > and nothing > about what Microsoft is demanding. Look at how Microsoft is releasing > Microsoft Office for MacOS X - it's because whatever their faults, the Mac > users are at least smart enough to start screaming at vendors who don't > support them. I think that also has something to do with the fact that Microsoft owns a good sized stake in Apple... Hmm... > The problem with most of the Linux and FreeBSD > users is that > if the manufacturer (Dell, Compaq, etc.) doesen't clearly offer support, > instead of complaining to the company about it, the users go off and hit > up support forums and the like, or bash through it themselves. That's because your average FreeBSD user is going to have the knowledge required to either work through it themselves or be able to find a resource to solve the problem. Gotta remember, with the widespread sale of PCs these days, even the average Joe or Jane on the street has one... and that average person is computer illiterate. Kind of interesting how the more computer literate folks are, the further their preferred OS diverges from the Microsoft offerings... *grins* > If 20% of Dell users are purchasing Dell laptops then throwing > away Windows > and running BSD on them, how is Dell supposed to know about this if the > users > don't speak up?!?! Good point... --- Andy To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message