Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 12th May 2008 17:40 UTC
Last week, we reported on a peculiar price difference in Australia between the Linux and Windows versions of the Asus Eee PC 900, the new model in the Eee line. The Windows model was 50 USD cheaper than the Linux model - the Linux model did have a bigger hard drive, but interestingly, the version with the smaller hard drive was not available as a Linux machine. This gave rise to speculation that Microsoft had been putting pressure on Asus to favour Windows XP over Linux. It appears Microsoft's assault in this segment of the market goes deeper than just Asus and the Eee alone.
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Member since:
2005-07-13
Price discrimination also might be used as a predatory pricing tactic -- setting prices below cost to certain customers -- to harm competition at the supplier's level.
1. Where do you see that MS is setting prices below cost,
2. And that it is for certain customers only?
1. We don't know the internal costs of XP however they sell the current OEM for over $100 AUD. (nearer 150 I think) so if $32USD is not less then cost then there profit margins are HUGE. (Note you can only support profit margins like that if you have a monopoly)
2. The conditions of the license to limit for certain customers, customers buying ULPC's with less than 1GB Ram etc.
So as far as I can tell it matches on both counts.