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Best Buy Is Selling Ubuntu
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Jul 09, 2008 07:02 AM
from the but-wait-you-also-get dept.
from the but-wait-you-also-get dept.
SirLurksAlot writes "It appears that Best Buy is now selling Ubuntu, both through its Web site and in its brick-and-mortar locations. Going by the release on the product page, Ubuntu has actually been available for the low, low price of $19.99 since May 6th of this year. It is being packaged as the 'Complete Edition.' While they don't specify on the site what version is being offered, a quick call to a local store revealed it to be Hardy Heron, the latest Long Term Support version. How did this development fly under the radar for over two months without anybody noticing?"
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It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
because verily nobody is stupid enough to buy something they can download legally! Right? Right!? I mean come on, people don't even buy stuff they can download illegally anymore ...
True, except things like this have a habit of gaining legitimacy in the "mainstream" when you're allowed to pay for them. Unfortunately, $20 isn't enough. People will think it's a 2nd rate product since the cost is so much lower than Windows.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, i know a lot of fairly competent people that have been effected by the marketing strategy of the BSA and RIAA.They now think that anything free is somehow illegal or filled with viruses. For many the entire concept of giving away ones work is completely foreign to them.
Its also nice to have a nice shiny permanent CD ROM instead of a less then permanent CDR.
This also helps people that would not have a clue how to download and burn something.
Does any support come with this?
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
Given this hypothetical person who has no clue on how to download and burn something... Do you really think he's magically gonna have a clue on how to install Ubuntu?????
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. Insert disk and reboot. Guess on Answering questions and click buttons..
Or just insert disk and boot.. No install. No questions.
Get stuck.. call for support.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
You speak of the wrong demographic.
User story: Alice has been trying to get Bob, her department head, interested in developing curricula with FOSS tools. Because she knows her students cannot afford to buy the products that Microsoft gives to her school for essentially no cost. A Best Buy copy of Ubuntu fits her strategy since it is professionally packaged by a big box store. She is deliberately buying the packaging, knowing that the contents are free. She will use it as a prop at meetings that discuss FOSS adoption.
User story: Chris wants his parents to move on from the Windows 98 machine his father bought the year that he retired. He has built up a good looking, plain vanilla DFI white box system that runs Ubuntu, to give them on their 45th anniversary. He buys an Ubuntu disk from Best Buy to add to the package since he knows his parents will be worried if they don't have the ever-important "back up disks" for their new computer. He could burn a copy himself, of course, but he'd rather spend $20 than take the time to compose and print a good looking disk label.
User story: well, you get the idea. Sometimes the packaging alone is worth the cost of the item.
Plus, with this move Best Buy has just managed to penetrate a market segment that is otherwise totally oblivious to its existence. Whether by design or by serendipity, Best Buy has just gotten its name out in front of all the geeks who read Slashdot. Good move, Best Buy! I know I will be popping into one of your stores the next time an opportunity to do so comes along, just to see what you are all about.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
The friend or the monkey?
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Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, i know a lot of fairly competent people that have been effected by the marketing strategy of the BSA and RIAA.They now think that anything free is somehow illegal or filled with viruses. For many the entire concept of giving away ones work is completely foreign to them.
I believe one of the failures of opensource or free software in general is the fact that programmer nerds completely ignore the fact that marketing is necessary. You can still pull off a successful marketing campaign with effectively zero dollars. This is what non-profits that operate on donations do to stay in operation. Similar concepts can be applied to free software, but everyone likes to think of marketing as an evil corporate-only tool. It is a tool available to everyone and even an individual with zero budget can still have an effective marketing strategy.
For the people that still don't get it that means if you want this year to be the year of the linux desktop, you need to understand a few things. One of those things is that the target market for the "linux desktop" are computer users of all ages who don't care about free software principles or even much about software cost. In fact there are tons of ways in which this target market differs. They may not even use 99% of the internet except email, yahoo, and youtube. They may be slow learners. But as you zero on in a more specific target market that is smaller, you will find more effective strategies at marketing towards that group. If you go broad and target everyone, you may have very few effective strategies because a larger group has fewer common traits to zero in on.
I honestly think linux is a better alternative for businesses rather than a home desktop user. Think about it: if a business switches to a linux desktop the business will finance the training involved in getting users trained as well as distributing (installing) the system for each employee. With a home user you have to do both of those things for them. Therefore an easier way to get awareness is to slip in from the business-use side (don't forget businesses like to pay $ for support) and once a significant number of fortune 500 companies are using linux as a desktop and successfully showing some benefits, you will get your tipping point. Other businesses will likely copy the successful linux deployment. More workers will get trained. More people will get hands on experience with a "linux desktop". That translates into more people ripe and ready to use linux at home.
Finally free software nerds and companies that want to sell support contracts but keep the software free are doing an amazingly bad job of it. Here's what they do: "we give you the free software and we'll charge you support annually!" So in the consumer's mind they are paying for support for a product that they are getting for free. Meanwhile look at cell phone service providers: "we give you this phone worth $300 for free if you sign a 2 year contract!" In the consumer's mind now they're getting a discount on a product up front and all they have to do is stick with the plan for 2 years. They're still giving the product for free but they're selling millions of service contracts! Markup or put a (fake) value on the software in terms of dollars and rephrase the "selling" line. In fact stop calling your software "free" software because most people don't understand what your definition of "free" means (nor do they care). Call it "open" software but don't define open. Come up with a fancy chart and pricing scheme comparing the up-front cost of vista to the annual support cost of "open software". So for example if you want to charge $20 annually per an individual home user, and vista premium costs $120 retail. You say "If you switch today, for $120, you can buy 6 years of support with open software and at the end of that we'll give you the next version of the OS (worth $100) for free!"
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree 100%. What needs to happen, IMO, if Ubuntu wants to gain any credibility with the mainstream is that a company needs to package it, sell it for a higher price, and include a tech support service line much like MS's. Advertise it as having 2-3 years of technical support but don't make mention that what you're actually paying for is the tech support itself. Seriously, in a business atmosphere you're paying for the tech support more than you're paying for the product.
Besides, according to all the Linites around here, it's 100x's more stable than Windows, the naming convention of the programs isn't confusing at all, the file system makes perfect sense, and hardware support is a thing of the past. So, this should be money in the bank, right?
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you people do to your computers?
Use them.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
because verily nobody is stupid enough to buy something they can download legally! Right? Right!? I mean come on, people don't even buy stuff they can download illegally anymore ...
They're not just selling Ubuntu. They're selling Ubuntu with support. The support is what people are paying for.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
It might also ask you if you've restarted your computer, or tried booting into Safe Mode.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
If they were already running Ubuntu or another modern operating system I would agree with you but that's not the case. The target market is people running Win98/Me/Vista. The 98/me folks can't get the piece of crap to burn a CD while the suckers who bought vista can't get networking to work right.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
Shareware shows that sometimes you can get people to pay more for free software than for pay software.
What do you mean? Shareware is not free software by any definition of free.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
Who buys stuff they don't need?
You mean like a singing rubber fish to hand on the wall?
http://www.howstuffworks.com/singing-fish.htm [howstuffworks.com]
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
Never.
And I'll never let you down or run-around and hurt you.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
Who buys stuff they don't need?
A wise man once said: "It's amazing the things people would rather have than money."
=Smidge=
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
That's about right. If you're looking for Ubuntu, you don't typically go buy it – and if you come across it at Best Buy, you're not going to know what it is. Who buys stuff they don't need?
The same people who paid money for a 'pet rock'.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
Who buys stuff they don't need?
I heard somewhere, that a man will buy 1$ item for 2$ if he needs it...And a woman will buy 2$ item for 1$ even if she does not need it.
So, all we need to do is, attach a price tag of 39.95$ to Ubuntu, place it near lipstick section and put a big banner of '50% discount sale' above it :)
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
But there's a page on Ubuntu's site where you can fill in a quick form and they'll send you as many copies as you like - for free.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
Then why would they have an entire site dedicated to it?
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com]
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Interesting)
True. Given that most Linux distro's come on DVD's or multiple CD's now, dial up users would catch hell trying it out. Though, back when I was on dial up (this was circa '98-'99) I actually remember downloading Mandrake once, and Slackware at least twice over dial up. I'd just get it from FTP sites rather than HTTP. Each night before I went to bed I'd connect and start the transfer, then stop it the next morning. It took a couple weeks of doing that before I'd get the ISO, but it did work.
Of course, these days, there IS Damn Small Linux available which I think comes in at around 150MB, and you can even install it to hard drive if you like. Still a bit download for dialup, but it could be done. Matter of fact you could probably do that download in a single day if you didn't mind leaving the thing running for 12 hours or so. Or split it between 2 nights worth of downloading and you're good.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually only 50 MB (damn small linux, that is). Just wanted to comment because it makes it even more incredible.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of a friend of mine who always criticizes the prices of things he sees in restaurants. His big thing is how cheap all the materials are in a soda fountain. Setting aside initial cost for the machine and regular maintenance costs (which he always forgets for things), no matter what he's evaluating, he always leaves off the single most important cost: the cost of paying someone else to do all this for you. His cost evaluations always seem to assume the cook and the waitress are working for free. Not to mention the accountant, and apparently he thinks the landlord loans the land to the restaurant for free too. There's also licenses and taxes and probably a dozen other costs I don't even know about. And the business owner isn't apparently entitled to earn a little money, either.
If you can get these things for free, and are willing to do the work yourself, then fine, do so and don't pay Best Buy to do it for you. Best Buy, OTOH, shouldn't be expected to do it for you for free when it costs them money to do it.
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Funny)
5. [pure personal intuition] Nowadays, mouth-to-mouth is still the best way to spread Ubuntu, or any Linux distro, and hey, the initial mouths know where to get it, and that won't be Best Buy. And that relates to your comment.
Emphasis is mine.
Either this guy is only telling women about Ubuntu, or I'm glad he didn't tell me about Ubuntu!
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Re:It flew under the radar (Score:5, Interesting)
5. [pure personal intuition] Nowadays, mouth-to-mouth is still the best way to spread Ubuntu, or any Linux distro, and hey, the initial mouths know where to get it, and that won't be Best Buy. And that relates to your comment.
Emphasis is mine.
Either this guy is only telling women about Ubuntu, or I'm glad he didn't tell me about Ubuntu!
I would guess that fgaliegue is a native Spanish speaker. "Word-of-mouth" is "boca a boca" in Spanish, literally "mouth to mouth".
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I like the customer reviews... (Score:5, Funny)
'Cons: Doesn't come in Ultimate and Premier editions'
Ha ha.
Re:I like the customer reviews... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not surprised the same guy paid the geek squad $150 to install it for him.
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Re:I like the customer reviews... (Score:5, Funny)
'Cons: Doesn't come in Ultimate and Premier editions'
Ha ha.
Not only that, he paid $150 to have Geek Squad install it, and he did all this after paying to upgrade to Vista Ultimate, and he did this because he didn't want to spend tons of money on Microsoft Office when Ubuntu comes with its own free office suite, apparently oblivious to the fact that the same free office suite is also available for Windows, which he already paid for.
Brilliant.
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Not going to fly... (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to buy Linux... specifically SuSE 5.x an 6.x editions. I didn't have high speed internet at the time, so it was cheaper to buy the CDs and download any new patches/software via dialup. At the time Linux was both a hobby diversion and the only alternative I could see to putting an OS on my computer since Windows 95/98 was rather expensive to buy.
While I think BestBuy should be congratulated for putting Ubuntu in stores, even if they are charging $20 for it (wayyyy cheap compared to Windows Vista or XP). I predict it will not go well for them, however, mostly because high speed internet is so widespread and as usual people will buy it and bring it back when they can't run The Sims or whatever Windows game they run.
Re:Not going to fly... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Great news! (Score:5, Interesting)
.
Why not have them get Ubuntu for $20 at Best Buy? The fact that you can buy it at a brick and mortar store increases it's apparent validity as an operating system, and it has open office and firefox right out of the box, so the functionality they're used to is still there.
Another point: Why not buy a copy of Ubuntu yourself to drive up support for Linux? If sales analysts see that X number of Ubuntu boxes were sold from Best Buys than it's likely we'll see more and more vendor support for linux coming out.
Best Buy review (Score:5, Interesting)
Customer Rating: 5.0
Worth every penny and then some 07/08/2008
By StarReviewer from Moronville, KY Read all my reviews
Pros: Cheap, includes office software, robust
Cons: Doesn't come in Ultimate and Premier editions
"I could go on and on, but Ubuntu Linux is the way to go. I have been using Windows XP for at least 3 years and when Vista was released, I went and upgraded to Vista Ultimate.
Even though Vista Ultimate has some really good features, I had to purchase Office software separately. Total cost of software: ~$1000.00!
That is when I said enough is enough I need to look for a new Operating System. A friend of mine pointed me to Best Buy's site and send me a link to Ubuntu. I purchased the OS and also Installation by Geek Squad for only $150.00. Even though I paid $170, I can tell you the included software was worth it. It includes office productivity software similar to Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Not only that, updates are free. Which means when they come out with a new version of Ubuntu, I don't have to pay more money - which I gladly will if I had to!
I would highly recommend this product. My only question is why doesn't it come in different flavors? I would be willing to pay for features like Media Center and stuff like that.
--Grateful computer user."
Value added? (Score:4, Insightful)
What I think would be smart is if they added a really good printed manual and/or Ubuntu book with it. I read through the description and couldn't find anything about extra material, but again, I think what they are doing is ok, but for a non-expert, a really nice install guide / intro to Ubuntu would make it look more tempting than say, just downloading an .iso file and burning your own disks.
Bottled Water (Score:4, Insightful)
Now sell computers without the Windows tax... (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
A linux distro I can pirate.
Canonical will mail you a copy for free... (Score:5, Informative)
Cool Ubuntu (Linux) Story (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of something that happened this very week at work. Local Windows Admin came by my desk and asked me for a copy of Linux, he's never tried it, wants to start learning it and playing around. I give him a copy of my Ubuntu CD and he's off an running.
He comes to me the next day disappointed. He continues to explain, "This sucks... I installed on my laptop with zero problems. First thing to tackle was an AIM client.. but it was already installed. So then I decided I need VNC for work, but it was already installed to, along with a terminal services client. Finally, I realized I needed a VPN client.. DAMMIT! It was there too! I heard all these stories about tinkering around and getting stuff to work.. I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT! "
He then asks me if I have another version of "Unix" that is more difficult.
Linux has come a loooooong way since I was playing with 1.0.xx kernels on Slackware.
Re:is it legal to sell it? (Score:4, Informative)
Or am I missing something?
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Re:is it legal to sell it? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:is it legal to sell it? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
wtf? I thought you weren't allowed to actually "sell" Ubuntu for money? (Besides, of course, ordering the cd from Ubuntu for like $1)
Break out the beer folks, this one's gotta be good.
Absolutely nothing in the GPL states that you couldn't sell it (as long as you include the source code). So keep your beer and actually read the terms you are talking about next time.
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Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
- idiot! why would I buy anything I can download for free
- doh! they'll return it when they realise that Windows SW does not work
- how can you sell something when it is given away freely?
They can sell it for as much as they want as long as they preserve the license - they are only selling the CD manufacturing and packaging as a service.
Ans I think this has all been a little unsupportive.
Frankly I support any and all efforts to make Linux more widespread, and a great many people will feel happier with a pressed CD instead of a cheapo burnt one. Yes we can download it, but we are NOT the target audience here.
And, to be honest, I'm just happy enough that it is now considered possible to sell it in best buy - that would of been unthinkable a few years ago.
If this caters for a new audience, or gets even a few thousand more people using it - then fair play to them.
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Re:Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-techies are in general scared of downloading programs from the internet.
In my experience if software is available in a package with a reasonable price tag people feel better about using it. It may be worth $20 to someone to not have to download and burn the software, the package may also contain information on how to find support.
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