Pre-Installed Linux Tops Dell Customer Requests 509
dhart writes "Within only a few days of Dell opening a new customer feedback website, they discovered that the feature most requested (by an almost 2-to-1 margin!) is an option on all new Dell PCs: pre-installed Linux. (And the number 3 request is pre-installed Open Office.) I believe they'll have a harder time now with the tired old mantra 'There's no customer demand for Linux.'"
Their system configurator (Score:5, Informative)
the Linux side
Re:Which distro? (Score:5, Informative)
Dell ships workstations and servers with Red Hat Enterprise Linux preinstalled and re-sells the support contracts.
End-user boots up, configures their system (as they'd have to do with Windows on first boot) and logs in. The RHN updates icon tells them when patches are available (if they don't have a sysadmin to take care of all that). Easy as pie.
Margin Errors (Score:2, Informative)
Someone needs to clean up the voting an remove dups. There are some good ideas hopefully Dell will listen.
Re:Linux flavors A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc. (Score:2, Informative)
What people say and what they do (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe but as a business owner I can tell you that what people say they want and what they are actually willing to fork over money for are often very different things. Dell does $60 billion in revenue [yahoo.com] annually which means Dell needs a huge number of people to buy linux equipped machines for it to be worth the investment. To keep Wall Street happy they'll need to grow around 14% next year. (very rough growth estimate based on year over year quarterly revenue growth) That means Dell needs to find about $8.4 BILLION in new sales next year or their stock goes in the crapper. Is there enough demand for linux to be a substantial part of that growth? Maybe, but it seems unlikely [com.com]. Dell offering linux is really just them buying an option in case linux really takes off in the market. Probably worth doing but I wouldn't expect Dell to really push the issue.
Please don't get me wrong. I hope Dell hits a home run by pre-installing linux. I think it would be great for consumers. I'm just pointing out that what people say they want and what they actually buy are very often not at all the same. I'm sure Dell would be thrilled to not have to fork over giga-bucks to Microsoft but I doubt they are counting on it happening.
Re:Requests != demand (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Their system configurator (Score:4, Informative)
A quick check shows that the "No OS, RHEL $0" and "No OS, Windows $0" options are only on the US www.dell.com site. If you go via the UK www.dell.co.uk site you far more sensibly just get a single "Not included [included in price]" no-cost/no-OS option.
Re:Include a Wireless Driver That "Just Works" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux flavors A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc. (Score:5, Informative)
Believe me. If you order 500 computers, you can get any commercially available OS for a PC installed. It's called CFI or custom factory integration. Ask your salesperson about it.
The catch is that Dell will not support the OS unless it is one that is offered by Dell. Only the hardware is supported.
The difficulty is being able to support every distro of Linux. It's impossible. I say that one is picked, say Ubuntu and support that with proper drivers and support.
Re:The Indian tech support is worse. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Linux flavors A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc. (Score:3, Informative)
Canotical provides Ubuntu support on clients and servers. If you want some ridiculous cluster thing, that requires a differently structured OS anyway. I'm not seeing what the problem would be with Ubuntu on Dell - the lack of a license fee would save a noticeable amount of money.
Re:Mod parent... Well, *you* decide... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, generally the people who get hired for those kinds of jobs tend to have really good English, but I wouldn't say it's the primary language in the country. In Manila, most people can speak some level of English, but Tagalog definitely the primary language. Outside of the capital, English proficiency is much rarer, usually Tagalog or a local language is used (there's around 100 different languages spread across the various islands).
The English that is spoken tends to be a lot more polite than the English of us Westerners. Philippine culture as a whole is much more hospitable and friendly. Another thing is that it takes them a lot of effort and skill to get that competent with English, so the few that do make it tend to be way smarter than their western counterparts.
Re:Just playing the cards for better MS prices (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Great Story: (Score:2, Informative)
2) Despite no longer being officially linked with America, most Filipinos are still somewhat aware of American pop-culture, more so than the average Indian at least. I'm not sure what that has to do with providing tech support in any case.
3) Filipinos set off fireworks for July 4th, because it just happens to be the date that the Philippines became independent of the United States of America, and Filipinos like to set off fireworks for every major holiday.
4) You're right on the Thanksgiving part though. The average Filipino has probably never tasted Turkey.
Re:Their system configurator (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mod parent... Well, *you* decide... (Score:2, Informative)