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Best Buy Is Selling Ubuntu
Posted by
kdawson
on Wednesday July 09, @08:02AM
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)
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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)
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)
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)
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.
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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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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.
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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."
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Now sell computers without the Windows tax... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Finally (Score:5, Funny)
A linux distro I can pirate.
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Canonical will mail you a copy for free... (Score:5, 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:is it legal to sell it? (Score:5, Informative)
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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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Re:Not going to fly... (Score:5, Insightful)
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