Dell to Offer More Linux PCs 282
head_dunce writes "According to this article, Mark Shuttleworth from the Ubuntu camp says Dell is seeing a demand for the Linux-based PC and, "There are additional offerings in the pipeline." I'm starting to see flashbacks of the days when Microsoft partnered up with IBM to gain control of the desktop market. Will other Linux flavors find their way to the likes of Lenovo or HP, etc, or will Ubuntu claim the desktop market working with other PC manufacturers?"
Advantage lost (Score:3, Interesting)
That massive discount Microsoft gives them over smaller OEMs is Dell's biggest competitive advantage. Now they'll have to compete more directly with local whitebox builders.
They don't have much choice though. The local box builders have already switched to Ubuntu as their OS of choice. Dell has to match them or be swamped.
Re:Advantage lost (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://www.redsevenlinux.com/ [redsevenlinux.com]
Re:Advantage lost (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Advantage lost (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not aware of any?
Can you please elaborate?
Re:Advantage lost (Score:5, Informative)
Can you please elaborate?
Look in your local newspaper.
There'll be a dozen shopfront computer stores advertising pre-built computer systems. They build them in their backrooms and sell them to local families and businesses. Those guys pay wholesale prices of about AU$160.00 for Vista home premium, AU$320.00 for Office 2007 Standard and AU$50.00 for Norton Antivirus.
They can retail a Sempron/Ubuntu home or small office system for less than it costs them in wholesale MS/Antivirus licenses.
That's what Dell (and the second tier vendors) are scared of. If they drop the ball now, and let these little guys get a big enough foothold in the home/SME market, they could be in trouble.
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10 years ago, there were lots of such small businesses - but they can't compete with Dell on price and never really could. The thing is, when most of your customers aren't terribly Internet savvy and/or don't feel comfortable with mail order, that doesn't much matter. You're only competing with other, similar stores with similar overheads in your area.
TBH, I'd welcome a return to there being a number of small high-street computer retailers in almost any town - granted, many were app
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But it doesn't necessarily mean anything. It is quite possible not a pro-Linux move, just a lower-the-total-cost move.
AFAIK, in the UE there's generally a law implemented in many member countries, saying you must sell retail PC's with a "working" OS on them. So some retailers
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It may be different in Australia...
The storefront builders are as defunct as the dodo here.
They are not to be found in the phone book. They are not advertising in the metro news or the local shopping papers. They have long since disappeared from the bulletin boards at the neighborhood mini-marts.
The shift to the laptop may have been the fi
One teensy problem. (Score:2)
The shopfront guys HAVE to move to Linux to become price competitive with a big-name Windows system.
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In the Minneapolis area there are still a number of boutique system builders. Walk in, pick out a motherboard, case, processor, memory, etc., and either take it home or watch them build it for you.
This is good on several levels. First, these people actually know what they are doing, and are capable of doing diagnostics and repairs. Second, a system you get from them is not bogged down with craplets and shovelware. Third is the whole immediate gratifica
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Actually, I would say a much larger advantage is that they have a good name. Businesses want to buy PC's that will work and that come ready to set up quickly. If you buy from Dell (or HP) you know that will be the case. Buy from others and you never know.
Their brand is their advantage, not the few bucks per machine discount they can get from Microsoft. That helps profits, but its not what keeps them in business.
Re:Advantage lost (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "others" you mean a name randomly chosen from the Yellow Pages, yes. But if it's a local vendor who you can talk to and check his references, it becomes a much safer proposition, and a lot less hassle than dealing with an enormous company that makes you press a dozen buttons on your phone before you can speak to anyone, who is never the same person who you talked with before and so you have to explain your problem over and over again.
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While Dell does have their problems, getting a hold of support and account reps is not one of them for Small Business purchases.
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Re:Advantage lost (Score:5, Insightful)
That massive discount Microsoft gives them over smaller OEMs is Dell's biggest competitive advantage. Now they'll have to compete more directly with local whitebox builders.
They don't have much choice though. The local box builders have already switched to Ubuntu as their OS of choice. Dell has to match them or be swamped.
And there was me thinking that Dell's biggest competitive advantages were its huge purchasing power on all components, not just operating systems, and its brand-name recognition.
I guess I was wrong. Who knew that Dell was paying the same price for CPUs, RAM, hard drives, etc that outfits run out of the owners' garages were paying?
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Re:Advantage lost (Score:5, Insightful)
Dell might be able to get 10 percent on hardware?
If you think that the difference between the price that Dell pays for the average piece of hardware and the price that a one-man operation would pay for the same hardware is 10 percent then you're nuts.
Dell undoubtably buys directly from manufacturers. When it buys Intel CPUs, it buys them directly from Intel. When it buys Belkin accessories, it buys them directly from Belkin. When Dell buys, there's no middleman.
When a one-man operation buys Intel CPUs or Belkin accessories then it buys them from a distributor. There might be one, two or maybe even three such middlemen between it and Intel or Belkin. Each middleman takes a cut, which drives the price that the one-man operation pays for the products higher and higher. How much is that cut? Well, 10 percent per distributor would be a fair figure.
(If you want to get a fairer idea of distribution costs, take the cost per 1,000 units that is typically quoted regarding CPUs and compare that to the typical single unit street price. Allow a small (maybe 5-10 percent) profit for the vendor and you'll see that the distribution chain takes a fair chunk along the way.)
And all that's before you talk about how much of each product is bought by Dell. There's a big difference between maybe buying 5 CPUs a week through the channel and buying almost 200,000 a week directly from the manufacturer.
In 2006, Dell accounted for 16.1 percent of the 59 million PCs shipped worldwide. Last year, Dell shipped 950 million PCs.
Are you really telling me that you think that, with that sort of buying power, you don't think that Dell gets deals that give it a more than 10 percent hardware cost price advantage?
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that's some weird math
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The number should be 9.5 million. All the other numbers are correct though.
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Dell got a big discount on Ubuntu (Score:3, Informative)
Now: 80% discount on $0 is ....
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Wouldn't customers stay with them because of their superior support and reliability, and don't forget the "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" guy.
Seriously, even if Ubuntu becomes the Evil Overlord Operating System in fifteen years time that Windows is today I'd still be happy because it proves that the EOOS can be taken down, or at least challenged.
I never liked the argument that one OS allows for easy development because all an OS is is a collection of semi-automatically run applic
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I'm a local box builder, and I wish I could switch to Ubuntu as my OS of choice for new machines, but then I wouldn't do any business. I hate to say it, but people come in, and ask for Windows right off the bat. A lot of people don't even know about Linux. The other day we had a get together, and someone jumped in when I said I don't have Windows boxes i
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No vendor likes to compete on price alone. Every vendor would like to have some kind of product differentiation in the market place to set himself apart. One of the most important product differentiation a PC maker could have would be to tout "my PCs use the safer browser FireFox!" in the ads. The claim may or may not be true. The claim could be contested by other ve
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The year of change (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose it was really inevitable in the long run, but I am happy to see the walls finally cracking.
Re:The year of change (Score:5, Insightful)
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The big OEMs are in bed with M$, I work for one of the biggest, not naming names...
Their fear is the little guy that "loathes" M$ and wants to take M$ down,
little guy IT has no MBA's to feed, no massive megalithic monster to maintain with
giant building
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I was thinking the same thing.
After years of "Linux ready for the desktop" stories on slashdot, does this mean it finally is ready?
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Now it's actually positioned to move on to the lay person's desktop.
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I'm guessing you're either a linux or mac fan. I have 2 copies of Vista running, one on my laptop and one on my desktop. Both work flawlessly. I have not experienced any problems with IE. I've used both the 64 bit and 32 bit versions of IE without any problem. The only issue I've run into is that there isn't a 64 bit version of Flash, so I'm forced to use the 32 bit version of IE until Adobe release an update. This isn't really a Vista issue.
Can you back up your claim with specific numbers and details of pr
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Well I had my first experience of Vista last night, setting up a 2GHz Celeron laptop a friend had just bought which came with Home basic.
Whilst everything worked OK and actually looked pretty good I was hugely unimpressed with how slow it was. Opening an application like firefox took 20-30 seconds and logging a user in or out seemed to take forever. Also, even though vista came pre installed it went through innumerable setup routines when first booted (including at least 2 reboots) such that I could h
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well, yeah... he can... but except playing most modern games on it. so yeah... don't blow that balloon too much. Your post just shows how incompetent you are. My Vista 64bit running on 2GB RAM is working JUST FINE. I wonder when the FUD ever stops, I mean /.ers are supposed to be tech lovers but it seems that all they have is FUD and hate.
Linux might be great and all, but nothing will be successful if it's built on spite. ...Now spice on the other hand, expands your conscienceness. (Only a true sci-fi fan will get me.)
Thing is.. There are too many stories just like this kicking around just about any forum to ignore. Microsoft always seem to release software that is beyond the ability of most of the hardware at the time of release. They did it with their PDA stuff, they did it with XP I would imagine, and they definitly did it with Vista.
Those who have had good experiences are either lucky that the combination of hardware they have is better supported and powerful enough, or they specifically combed forums and article
Re:The year of change (Score:5, Funny)
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The only issue I've run into is that there isn't a 64 bit version of Flash, so I'm forced to use the 32 bit version of IE until Adobe release an update. This isn't really a Vista issue.
In much the same way that it's not a Linux issue that there's no native Photoshop, Outlook and various other apps which Windows users frequently raise as the problem preventing them migrating. The Vista updates will seep through in time, no doubt. The 'Microsoft Tax' of pre-installed Vista will see the install base grow
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Let me get this straight, you think that just because you didn't have any problems with IE based on 2 installations of Vista, the GP must be spouting FUD? Is it that you think that your Vista experience verifies that Vista/IE would work flawlessly on the almost infinite number of different possible hardware and software configurations, or don't you think that these factors would make a difference?
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If that's not enough, you can read the TechWorld [techworld.com] article he links to.
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- Xen
- VMware
- kvm
- bochs
- qemu
- WINE (well, not an emulator, but hey...)
(and probably some more)
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There is no such thing as innovation stranglehold.
I'm not saying Microsoft will go away, but cross-platform compatibility will become the rule, not the exception. It will be easy to choose whichever platform you like, without worrying about not being able to run half your applications. Freedom will be a realistic choice.
Cross platform compatibility of what? As I see it Ap
Not surprising... (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux wins the low-cost computing game (Score:5, Interesting)
The new $200 Asus EEE PC [wikipedia.org] could provide a big boost for Linux if it takes off. The price point makes it extremely attractive as a transportible second computer, and it could find some big markets in schools and universities.
Dell and Ubuntu (or other hardware manufacturers) could start a similar revolution in the desktop market with a very low cost and low specification machine. Especially if it is also compact and stylish.
Re:Linux wins the low-cost computing game (Score:5, Interesting)
More specifically, the $200 Asus EEE and things like Intel's Mobile Internet Device may bring in a new era of computer use. (The iPhone can be seen as part of that trend, btw - a small, mobile internet-capable machine; also the Nokia Tablet.) The goal should be an affordable (sub-$300) device with an attractive design, that people can use for email, social networking, web browsing, etc. It could take off among college students, for example. In fact this may be the exact goal of Intel's MID partnership with Ubuntu.
Re:Linux wins the low-cost computing game (Score:5, Funny)
Uhhh.. fuck off with your spin. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Linux is variety (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux is variety (Score:5, Interesting)
I trust Mark. The guy transpires good faith. He's wasn't solely after money like Gates. He was the man with the vision (how long till we have nerd-cults dedicated to him?).
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Give me back my shrine!
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Yeah, but I'm sure there's a downside too..
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Mandriva (Score:2, Interesting)
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Oh, and to copy your trollish stance, I hope Ubuntu gets the deal
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1.They already had one with HP. They could not break into business accounts and it was limited to congigs that were of no interest to the average business. It was also not available in the most rabidly Microsoftic countries like the UK (yep, do we like it or not, but in UK Bill rules the market, if he did not Antonio Bliar would not have tried to start his election campaigns in MSFT building in Reading for the last two elections). I had a number of shouting matches with HP resellers on the subject only to s
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Ubuntu is basically Debian Sid, but rebranded with Ubuntu artwork. Essentially, you're running Debian Sid if you use Ubuntu. (Interesting fact: Shuttleworth used to be a Debian developer/maintainer)
Personally, I use the stable version of Debian on servers and other places where security/stability is paramount. But I use the testing version
Linspire. (Score:2)
preconfigure (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so fed up of messing up xorg.conf and having to reconfigure it every time I reboot just to get video...
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No, a reboot is required much more often than a distro upgrade. An example of this would be a kernel security upgrade.
--
BMO
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In that case you must be updating some unstable kernel all the time, since that's the only practical reason for doing a reboot, even on Ubuntu or Fedora.
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Out of the box == out of the question, but you might prefer restarting your X server while you're messing around with this stuff, as opposed to rebooting. I work from a separate virtual console usually. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, then startx usually does the trick.
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Re:preconfigure (Score:5, Informative)
Since nvidia's 9xxx series of drivers, the graphical configuration utility allows you to hotplug monitors and set up dual head without touching xorg or even restarting the X server.
it's a bit disappointing that the feature isn't there for users of other cards, but it appears X is going through some big changes and hopefully soon enough it will hit the 21st century...
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Linux has won. Easy multiple-monitor support is probably going to land in the next version of Ubuntu. Regardless, people will find something else to complain about.
Centos on former Ubuntu Dell (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a big fan of Dell home systems (their business machines are much better built), but having a major vendor support Linux is a good thing regardless. By them supporting Linux fixes can get pushed to other systems. The glitches in the Intel 3945 wireless card will be worked out. Maybe the Broadcoms start working without ndiswrapper. Heck, ATI might come around and make a proper video driver set.
I chose to buy this laptop precisely because the hardware is Linux compatible (well, except for the closed Nvidia drivers which are not too bad). If more people did this it gives an incentive for hardware manufacturers to release code and drivers for Linux. That helps everyone.
Thanks for the post! (Score:2)
Linux preinstalled is "no OS" or "Pirate Windows"? (Score:2, Insightful)
How many use it just to dodge the license cost, and just install their pirated windows copy? Any guesses? Is linux becoming the "no OS" choice available at other whitebox builders?
A common API is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as Unix/Linux people realise this and look beyond their own nose (ne: favourite flavour of GNU/Linux), they will realise that the API is the real jewel. The reason that Microsoft beat IBM at its own game with the OS2/Windows war was because it won the API war. They convinced, or scammed (depending upon your point of view) programmers to write to the Win31 API and OS/2 was killed. Providing development tools such as Visual Basic and Access which removed the whole API schema just made their task a whole lot easier.
Forget the fancy esoteric languages and "scripted" (ne: interpreted) tools, because they are not what is needed to wrestle the end user away from Windows. What is required is a common platform (display, communications, and file API's to name just a few). Sure, let the system level person choose between a Gnome or KDE desktop. Let them run either RedHat, Suse, or Ubuntu (insert flavour of the week) but provide a common interface to of them all via a simple and straight-forward API. Then provide the killer application development tools like Visual Basic and/or Access which will let newbie programmers write their killer app with no knowledge of computers or programming and then GNU/Linux may just stand a chance.
thats all well and good... (Score:2)
there are forces working against further adoption. (Score:2)
Dell's in this for the money. They wouldn't have offered linux support if they didn't think it would help them sell more hardware, get better PR, etc. That's fine. But how much demand would there be for Dell's linux boxes if HP, Lenovo, Toshiba and Acer also had linux offerings? Answer: not nearly as much. That makes me curious what sort of behind-the-scenes deals Dell cut w/ Canonical w/ regards to the latter supporting other PC manufacturers' efforts to support linux. Obviously they can't stop it e
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Re:What is it about the Linux Desktop GUI that suc (Score:2)
Just visiting any page can get you infected with IE (depending on the security updates you have and the way they are trying to exploit them, ofcourse). The majority doesn't need any interaction with the user.
BTW Apple has been changing parts and pieces of the gui every release and I think it's lost it's consistency. Also Mac OS X is an upgrade treadmill as well. With Apple you'll have to buy a new version every 1 or 2 releases.
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The only Apple major upgrade that came out six months after another release was 10.0 to 10.1, which was free for people who already had 10.0. The others were released at increasing intervals:
10.2 came out in August 2002, 11 months after 10.1.
10.3 went to retail October 2003, 14 months af
Re:What is it about the Linux Desktop GUI that suc (Score:2)
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My only concern is hardware support and since we all run the same kernel, I can buy a Ubuntu installed machine and put my preferred distro on it with no worries.