Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 22:10:22 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Jason Francis" <bsdsup@hotmail.com>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Laptop without Windows Message-ID: <000701c0ee46$fcd65440$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <F196gStMVhEUsebmspH0000a7d1@hotmail.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Jason Francis >Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 3:50 PM >To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Laptop without Windows > > >>putting it back in M$ face) is posted on the Internet somewhere. Do some >>searching if you feel like fighting for the cause on this one. >>If enough people fought over it, maybe companies like Dell would start >>offering alternate OSes on laptops, or laptops without OSes. >> >>-Bill > >There are two major issues preventing them from doing this. >Currently there >is a price war going on and OEMs like Dell are making almost no >money on the >sale of systems. Paying higher prices for Windows licenses would >cut their >profit margins even thinner. That's true - but this will change once the court cases are settled. >Another thing is that supporting machines >running tons of different operating systems would be an absolute nightmare. > 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. 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. 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. 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?!?! Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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