Submitted by Dell’s love affair with Linux is a clandestine affair these days, conducted in secret, away from disapproving eyes. But now the pair have been spotted in China. When Michael Dell first saw the web-footed beauty, he fell head over heels. Six years ago Dell pledged a series of strategic investments in Linux companies, including Eazel and Red Hat. The romance attracted the disapproval of Microsoft however, and barely lasted weeks. Very quietly, Dell dumped the bird.
even when the writer tries to put a funny spin on the story, its a sad day when its possible to push linux in China and not inside one of the “oh so loved” western country’s with our mighty freedom and free markeds.
its a sad day when its possible to push linux in China and not inside one of the “oh so loved” western country’s with our mighty freedom and free markets.
Freedom in this instance is more about freedom to monopolize and control markets than the freedom to choose. Having lived in the U.S.A all my life, I have come to realize that the freedom is really limited in terms of consumer control. It is easy to forget that the large multinational companies actually dictate which products they will push to market. You really have a choice based on what are the larger, dominant company products.
Edited 2007-01-09 23:22
Yea that was pretty much his point, thanks for repeating it
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even when the writer tries to put a funny spin on the story, its a sad day when its possible to push linux in China and not inside one of the “oh so loved” western country’s with our mighty freedom and free markeds.
That may have been the case once upon a time … but not now. The DOJ consent decree prevents MS from strongarming OEMs or provide preferential pricing for one OEM versus another. If Dell isn’t shipping Linux in the U.S., it’s because there isn’t a market. China doesn’t have longtime legacy dependencies on Windows; hence, there will probably be more demand for Linux, since consumers don’t have to carry an interop albatross around their necks.
the there’s no market argument has been made before, but i for one don’t put it past microsoft to do some strongarming one way or another.
the there’s no market argument has been made before, but i for one don’t put it past microsoft to do some strongarming one way or another.
Given that the DOJ oversees all of Microsoft’s contracts with OEMs, that simply isn’t credible.
does that only apply to US. OEM?
I don’t known about this, would you mind providing some more infomation, a link perhaps.
I’m danish, what happens in the US is not always something i follow
If there was no real demand for a cheap linux desktop, what would Dell have to lose by publicizing that Linux is indeed available preloaded in three cheap desktop computers and doing so for a whole year in a prominent way?
I doubt that it would be such a financial disaster to do a bit of “market testing”, if it were not for the fact that there is no real free market for desktop computers in the US among the big OEMs.
I don’t think you can get a dell with linux in china. Anyone can make their own PC with linux in the US and try to sell it. Do what Apple is doing and bypass the OEM’s.
You obviously did not read the article, as it clearly shows a Dell PC for sale in China preloaded with Red Flag Linux.
Thanks for playing. Does anyone here read the articles before commenting or is that too much to ask? You know, informed discussion and all of that.
you’re right. i look totally stupid.
don’t think you can get a dell with linux in china. Anyone can make their own PC with linux in the US and try to sell it.
That’s not the issue. The issue is that a PC maker cannot promote Linux and still sell Windows PC at a competitive price. In other words, OEMs are forced to choose between selling Windows machines and Linux ones. They can’t realistically do both.
This is the *real* way in which MS abuses it’s near-monopoly position, and this is what it should have prosecuted upon, not some browser nonsense.
Amen. Sadly, the US government is corrupt and only panders to big business, not the people *who* actually vote them in. Australia, nor other ‘developed’ nations are no better imho…
Dave
It’s odd this “free-market” phrase. People seem to support the idea, perhaps because it has the word “free” in it, but then they seem to argue for regulation, which seems at odds with what the politicians at least, mean by “free-markets”.
Anit-trust law is a form of regulation, so it seems what is needed is not a free market – we have that, it’s so free, from government regulation, that it allows a single company to dominate it – rather what we need is a “fair market”.
Microsoft’s position was that PC builders should “meet demand but not create demand” for Linux PCs.
So here we have, in “the land of the free”, one company dictating to virtually all the big PC sellers what the customer shall and shall not be able to buy. I don’t see how any free-marketeer can think that’s good.
At least Communist China is enjoying some market freedom.
See http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16904&comment_id=200506
The DOJ consent decree prevents MS from strongarming OEMs or provide preferential pricing for one OEM versus another. If Dell isn’t shipping Linux in the U.S., it’s because there isn’t a market.
You are assuming that Microsoft is obeying both the letter and the intent of the law. I’m not.
Also I just don’t believe that there is no market for PCs with either no OS or preinstalled GNU/Linux. There is a big market for motherboards and cases. When I (like many others) want a new PC, I buy the parts and put it together. It follows that there is a market for the assembled parts.
>Also I just don’t believe that there is no market for >PCs with either no OS or preinstalled GNU/Linux.
I also don’t believe. All the developing country like China or India , people even keen on getting PC without OS，although they may install an illegal Windows later.
PC with no OS will definitely have a big market.
Tell Dell you need the Linux/FreeBSD , try to call them for the support , they will try to support you. And help desk will ask you for the Distro you use.
I believe Dell are doing preparation, therefore, Linux/FreeBSD etc users , please visit Dell website and and chat with their help desk , let them know there is a demand of non-Windows support , let them know which driver does not supported.
Instead of going for the community support, try to chat with Dell Help Desk . Although you may get the response that “we are not trained to support”, do not stop , let them know there is a demand of non-Windows OS.
Pretty much since Deng proclaimed “to get rich is glorious”, China abandoned communism. It’s now a one-party state dedicated to crony capitalism, a somewhat more brutal version of the paternalistic system they have in Singapore (also a one-party authoritarian capitalist state). Maybe fascist is the right word since Mussolini defined fascism as a union between corporations and the state.
quoting the register, but Orlowski? You may as well quote the Onion as if it were straight news.
Dell’s “secret” relationship with Linux:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/alliances/en/linux?c…
http://linux.dell.com/
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html
Dell quit selling consumer Linux boxes because there wasn’t enough market, but that hardly means they’ve gone underground with respect to Linux.
Thanks for making the very same argument that the article claims Microsoft asked Dell to make. You know, “cater to any existing market”, but don’t help create a new one.
The articles at the register show how hard it was for a Register journalist to buy a Linux box from Dell. Not only was it hard to find, but the journalist would have had to pay more and it came without the nice 19″ free LCD monitor.
Read the tale of the journalist, with IM conversation included, and explain to me the rationale for Dell’s position, other than acknowledging that Dell caved in to Microsoft’s demand that it dropped Linux as a desktop platform.
By the way, the links you posted do not support what you think they support. Configure a computer with a 19″ monitor and a decent amount of RAM from those links, go back to Dell’s home page and realize that you can get a cheaper system with a free 19″ monitor. In other words, you are currently penalized for not buying a machine preloaded with Windows.
Edited 2007-01-10 00:43
“The articles at the register show how hard it was for a Register journalist to buy a Linux box from Dell. Not only that they actually had to pay more and it came without the nice 19″ free LCD monitor.”
Well, that has all actually changed now. Go to Dell’s website, and under the selection menu choose ‘Open-Source Desktops’. They are now in the same place as everything else. That article looks to be from someone who has not bothered to look at Dell’s website. They are not hard to get, and yes, you DO get the monitor and such as well. The Register is right up there with slashdot IMO.
It isn’t as easy to find or as prominent as it seems because most people will click on the bottom image for desktop and from there choose among the listed choices, rather than go back to the top menu and search for “open-source” desktops.
It also means that your future Linux system will not be preloaded like windows would be which is a no-no for many consumers.
But, yes, it’s a start and a little more visible than it used to be. Thanks for pointing it out so I have to wade through less crap if I decide to buy from Dell in the future.
“Well, that has all actually changed now. Go to Dell’s website, and under the selection menu choose ‘Open-Source Desktops’. They are now in the same place as everything else. That article looks to be from someone who has not bothered to look at Dell’s website. They are not hard to get, and yes, you DO get the monitor and such as well. The Register is right up there with slashdot IMO.”
I managed to find this, buried about 4 links deep on their site – the machines come with no OS preloaded, a FreeDOS installation disk included that you have to install yourself, and the disclaimer that says you are without support from them. Not exactly the best way to produce a linux desktop system! Plus, there’s only 3 system choices, while you look at the options for a Windows pre-installed system, you have a lot more options to choose from.
I don’t expect Dell to support every flavor of Linux, but for crying out loud, Michael, pick one, sell it as an optional replacement to Windows across your entire product line, and devote some resources to supporting it. You don’t even have to do the OS support yourself! Choose Ubuntu, and contract with Canonical for the OS support!
They won’t do this though because of Microsoft’s monopolistic OEM contracts.
Dave
Thanks for making the very same argument that the article claims Microsoft asked Dell to make. You know, “cater to any existing market”, but don’t help create a new one.
Actually, Dell did try to create that new market. Didn’t happen. They decided to stop losing money on it.
By the way, the links you posted do not support what you think they support.
Actually they do. They support the assertion that Dell has an open and aboveboard position on Linux despite the register’s claims. I never asserted that they pointed you at how to configure a desktop for Linux from Dell.
“””Actually, Dell did try to create that new market. Didn’t happen. They decided to stop losing money on it.”””
Cloudy,
Now, you know that the situation is more complicated than that.
I’m the first to admit that Linux faces problems beyond “unfair competition”. We have plenty of enemies within our ranks, well meaning as they may be. The contingent condemning any desktop doing anything “like Microsoft”, and the contingent condemning any support which is not “pure”. For example, the folks who attack companies willing to support it with binary drivers.
We even attack our own. Namely the “RedHat Is The New Microsoft” folks and the “Boycott Suse” group.
To a great degree, the Linux community is its own worst enemy.
*But*, unfair competition is definitely a substantial factor.
I find it difficult to walk into a CompUSA these days. “CompUSA Radio” is now simply one big long Microsoft advertisement; They don’t even have the decency to intersperse a few seconds of music between the ads anymore. It is simply one ad after another. And every single one of the ads are for one company’s products.
Dell’s attempt at creating a new market was remarkably feeble and notably short-lived.
And the reasons for that had nothing to do with normal market forces.
Edited 2007-01-10 03:03
Actually, Dell did try to create that new market. Didn’t happen. They decided to stop losing money on it.
Cloudy,
Now, you know that the situation is more complicated than that.
The overall situation? Sure. The reason why Dell got out of the Linux desktop business. No. It’s that simple. They tried it out. They lost money at it. They gave up.
But none of that’s relevant to the point I made, which is that Dell’s hardly acting secretive about its Linux relationship, and the register article is just the usual register sensationalism.
…everybody is being incredibly whiny about this. Yes, it was a feeble attempt, and yes they could have done more and not given in to the (alleged) microsoft threats, however any little feeble attempt by mainstream computer vendors should be welcomed by the open source community. At least as a nod of the head that we exist. Come on people, get your heads out of the pessimism bucket.
it’s obvious linux is experiencing good growth here in brazil, for example check out the distro dreamlinux. last night, i went into one of the local stores with my wife and saw a whole display of kennex computers. yeah, i don’t know who the manufacturer is but i recognized the KDE desktop from about 15 feet away. and not a dell system anywhere to be found.
Why the heck is there noone (Shuttleworth, Red Hat, IBM (Lenovo)…) of the big ones who creates a cool laptop or desktop PC (as cool and stylish as apple’s stuff) or buys at least some cool products (like IBM thinkpads, sony vaios,…) and pre-installs a nicely preconfigured GNU with some blobs on it. Since they sell these pieces of hardware they could even affort to pay the GPU manufactors for devleoping linux-drivers, they could pay for out-of-the-box mp3 support, …. this can be a huge market.
Who wants to lend me 1 000 000 Dollar/Euro? I would love do that…
Edited 2007-01-10 15:23
I thought the suction of dell lips on MS ass was pretty obvious to everyone.
This issue comes up frequently, and it seems that there is a common perception that linux is being unfairly held back by the lack of availability for pre-installed systems at the consumer level.
The issue for the Tier-1’s is not so much one of installing linux on shipping systems, it’s an issue of supporting that installation. It would not be acceptable for a major vendor like Dell or HP, who value their brand reputation, to start flogging systems on the shelf at Best Buy and then direct customers to public forums for support requests, it just doesn’t work that way. The main reason people would select to purchase name brand is having a vendor standing behind and providing support; if you buy a Dell or an HP Pavillion and you have a problem with Windows, you don’t call Microsoft, in fact they don’t even want your call. That call goes to Dell or HP and they provide the front line support, hence the discount pricing they get on OEM licenses.
In addition to that, there is engineering and development that would have to be done, components would have to be tested for compatibility, existing volume agreements with component manufacturers that don’t give a flying fig about supporting linux (Broadcomm comes to mind) would likely have to be renegotiated to permit sourcing of different, more compatible products. Support personnel would have to be trained. Channel resellers would have to be trained. Marketing campaigns would have to be developed and implemented.
In the consumer PC realm, Microsoft has the resources to backend the manufacturers in much of this developmental/support/marketing/training cycle. That reduces costs. Right now there is no commercial linux vendor with the resources or capability to provide even a fractional portion of this type of support to the OEMs. Which means that the entire cost for this type of investment has to be borne by the manufacturers and has to be somehow recovered from the razor-thin margins they make today at the consumer level.
What is the market potential for linux-based consumer level PC’s? Can anyone guess? Has any market research been done? Are people asking reps at Best Buy about this new linux thing they’re hearing about? How about the fact that shiny Apple PC’s sitting on the shelves beside those Windows PC’s, that have brand recognition, vendor support and customer service standing behind them, are still only growing at an incremental level compared to those Windows PC’s at the end of the day?
Unless linux-based PC’s could sell in even relatively similar volumes to Windows PC’s, the net result is that they would cost the manufacturers more to provide. Is unproven linux in a consumer PC selling for more than a comparable Windows PC going to be a sales success because Beryl is running on the floor models?
I simply don’t think it’s realistic at this point to expect the Tier-1’s to start providing linux preloaded on consumer PC’s. I don’t honestly believe linux is at the level yet where it could sustain and expand that market. We all have our own reasons for selecting linux (or BSD, or OSX, etc.) but it would be a mistake of enormous proportions to assume Joe Average would feel the same way. Do I think Joe Average could probably get by with linux for his daily PC usage like email, browsing, word processing etc? Probably, but there would either be a learning curve involved for Joe Average who must be convinced of the advantage for making that investment in time and effort, or there must be an investment from the manufacturers to make that transition transparent or provide some sort of incentive to change. I don’t think Joe Average wants linux, not until it does something that he can’t do in a generic Windows PC.
I would consider a milestone victory if the Tier-1 OEMs simply focused on producing linux-compatible machines, and made judicious decisions in selecting chipsets, addons and accessories when producing those systems. Even that won’t be easily accomplished, but we’re starting to see some progress, all of the Tier 1’s have experimented with linux at some point in Europe and as with the original story here, in China. Of course, the Chinese preloaded PC’s (HP and Lenovo provide them as well) are simply because manufacturers are no longer permitted to sell a machine without an OS preinstalled, so in many cases they are being purchased and wiped to install a pirated copy of Windows. But still, we’ll take our progress any way we can if it at least forces the manufacturers to consider linux in the hardware design process.
At that point it is up to the community to spread and generate linux support, doesn’t matter where in the world. The Tier 1’s simply will not do it, and at this point the other vendors will not either. Getting linux installed on a machine with *supported* hardware from a major distro like *buntu or Suse is generally as simple as popping in the CD/DVD and turning on the power, it’s far easier than the average Windows install would be for the average user. I think we’ve already overcome a significant obstacle there, especially when I harken back to installing Red Hat 5.2, my first exposure to linux. I think linux will ultimately become a stronger proposition if it can advance to the point where it draws users rather than becoming the cheap Windows-like alternative that many seem intent on turning it into.
Just my 2c…
What I thought was interesting about this article was that dell is able to offer Linux preinstalled to Chinese consumers.
We often forget that the Americas represent the minority of the earths population, and Linux has great opportunities in other regions where much of the built in inertia found here doesn’t hold sway. So much so that in that environment even Dell is able to offer Linux preinstalled, are able to certify the hardware, offer support to its customers, and presumably do so at a profit.
As usual a tremendously well written comment by elsewhere!
I’d only like to add to this part:
I would consider a milestone victory if the Tier-1 OEMs simply focused on producing linux-compatible machines, and made judicious decisions in selecting chipsets, addons and accessories when producing those systems.
Those who have read the press release on the latest OSDL desktop architects meeting might remember that one of the bullet points listed on HP’s slides is the request for a compatability checker system, i.e. a Linux LiveCD they would boot with and which would then provide a nice summary of which components are working rigth away, which are known to work with third party drivers, which are known to have problems but usually work (might be possible to develop improvements) and which are known to definitely not work.
It wouldn’t matter for them which Linux distributor provided such a test system, but I guess it would be a bonus if one of the more likely business partners would provide one.
Yes, the big OEMs don’t want to take on support for Linux – fair enough – but *please* explain to me why there isn’t a “No OS/support” (i.e. no operating system pre-installed and absolutely no vendor OS or software support whatsoever) in the OS config option of any major OEM’s “customise and buy” pages? No, a separate “open source desktops” link is not what I’m after and no, why should OEMs include FreeDOS as some sort of mad workaround to MS’s edicts?
The only reason I can think of is that the big OEMs don’t want Joe Public to easily see what the cost of bulk OEM XP is on these PCs (because “No OS/support” will have to come with some sort of lower price of course). If you look at those “Open Source Desktops”, you *always* find that the hardware is not identical to the ones with Windows pre-loaded – this is deliberate to again obfuscate the cost of OEM Windows.
If a big OEM could do an OS-less dual core laptop for at least $50 less than the Windows version, they’d probably go onto my shortlist for my first ever laptop (I’ve held off on laptops because they’re more awkward than desktops to get Linux working perfectly and I don’t want Windows on the laptop either).
I bought my laptop from http://www.gentechpc.com, It’s an Asus z71v, though kind of old now, it serves my purpose. The only things in it that I haven’t gotten to work yet are the card reader (though there are reports that it works with SD cards, but the only card I have is a sony memory stick) and the built-in modem (which I never use). Everything else works great on Ubuntu or Debian. It uses Intel Wireless too, so no need for the crappy ndiswrapper. Yes, they do offer it without Windows, which is how I ordered mine.
I realize most folks here are discussing “desktop” Linux in regard to Dell. Their new ad campaign says that Dell Linux servers are the ideal way to migrate from UNIX to Linux.