Wal-Mart is famous/notorious for its relentless focus on price. Now it’s decided to have a little fun with the PC business. The world’s biggest retailer is flogging a new desktop computer for $199. The 800 MHz VIA C3 processor is never going to win prizes for performance – but for price/performance at the budget end of the market, it’s very hard to beat. The PC comes with 128MB SDRAM on a VIA Apollo PLE133 chipset-based mobo, supplying integrated graphics and networking.
Walmart.com Flogs $199 Linux OS PCs
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The Wal-Martians were the ones to finally make Linux-on-the-end-user-desktop a reality?
It seems clear that Microsoft will be under pressure to lower its OS / Office price point. With Corel and Linux snapping at Microsoft’s’ heel it seems that we will be entering a new era of competition. A good thing all around!
I just wish a company like Redhat will also partner with Walmat. But I suppose targeting the business desktop makes sense.
>>With Corel and Linux snapping at Microsoft’s’ heel it seems that we will be entering a new era of competition<<
Seriously how is linux snapping at Microsofts heel? Linux not doing anything. I doubt MS really cars about this bit of the market. They know there is not much money to be made from people who can barly aford a computer. And those who buy this as a cheap entry computer for their child, or as a secondary one, will someday buy a more powerful machine that comes with windows pre-installed. Also the majority of these computers will experiance a format and be loaded with windows when they get home from a cd people have around or from a friend. Linux may be MS’s biggest threat (potentialy) but they currently are no threat (in reality).
I am curious though to go check one of these computers out though. Course may never find them, dang new super wall mart you will probable find the computers in the produce isle.
I just wish a company like Redhat will also partner with Walmat. But I suppose targeting the business desktop makes sense.
They were selling some of these (Microtel, but not this model) with Mandrake. Methinks what’d make this really a home-run would be Mandrake, Mozilla, and OpenOffice.org.
I still have some reservations about LindowsOS. The whole “run as root all the time” thing is a bit disconcerting. Maybe they could take the OSX approach of being able to do most things, but really serious stuff requires the root password (OSX uses sudo?).
But the computer, itself, is quite tempting. Although they’re only selling them online at this point, the thought of being able to cruise down to Wally World in the middle of the night and pick up a new toy for a couple of bills is neat.
Exactly. Ms only cares about the server side and (maybe) embedded side of Linux. They have absolutely no fear in the “desktop linux”. Because there is not such thing. The vast majority of the people who use Linux on their desktops do not want to buy OSes anyway (only a few exceptions, few people might buy SuSE, RH or Mandrake). For this kind of users, Ms does not care about anyway.
Are these boxes built with standard components? That is, if I bought one on the cheap, could I wipe Linux and slap Win2K on there (albeit illegally)?
Today I went to my neighborhood 7/11 for a beer and guess what I saw on the shelf? Three boxes of Mandrake Linux 8.2.
Sorry Linus….it was hot outside and the beer was cold!
“The vast majority of the people who use Linux on their desktops do not want to buy OSes anyway”
But the sad truth is that the vast majority of the people who use Windows on their desktops doesn’t want and didn’t buy the OS either.
If people start to use something else on their desktops, it will weaken Microsoft’s domination even if nobody made money from it. And some day, Microsoft will have to care if they don’t want to loose too many of their business and OEM deals.
I thought Lycoris looked slightly better, but I guess we’ll know what the best easy to use Linux desktop is once Xandros comes out to play!
Does anybody know if their exist a company in europe that sells machines at a price similar to Wallmarts?
Exactly.
haha, funny you ask this!
I just received this as a spam email, and while their prices are in english pounds, still, they are pretty good for UK, especially for the configuration they offer:
http://www.expresspc.co.uk/
Put there Lycoris (if you are a complete newbie), or Red Hat 8 when it is released (if you are more a power user) and you are all set.
Its nice to see machines in the under $500 price range. The Vic 20, Commodore 64, Amiga 500, etc… opened the door to computing for lots of people who otherwise never would have. These are great starter systems; though I wish they had a children’s programming environment on them; the BASIC on those under $500 PCs created a whole generation of power users.
Its a pity Microtel is using Lindows as their choice of Linux but maybe to keep the $99 a year rolling in they are going to provide some support.
>>Does anybody know if their exist a company in europe that sells machines at a price similar to Wallmarts?<<
Wal-Mart does own a chaain of stores in the UK… but here where I am living I have never seen a PC sell for less than €700 from most of the cheap electronic shops, but then again I am living in the Netherlands and some things don’t come cheap here (electronics usually are pretty well priced before btw)!
Too bad Be Inc. couldn’t have landed a deal like this with Wal-Mart, it just seems that they missed an opportunity of a lifetime so to speak. It would have been great for the BeOS community!
Now how does this affect the anti-trust case with Microsoft, it would be evidence that consumer PCs do ship with other OSes installed!
Moscow prices
Look at http://www.forcecomp.ru
Cel 433 (533) / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 66 Mhz FSB
Mendochino 131 (135)
P III 733 (766) Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 128 Kb cache 149 (154)
P III 800 (850) Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 128 Kb cache
Socket 370 155 (156)
P III 900 (950) Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 100 MHz FSB
Coppermine 158 (168)
P III 1000 (1100) Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 128 Kb cache 165 (170)
P III 1000 (1100) Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 100 MHz FSB
Tualatin 169 (170)
P III 1200 (1300) Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 256 Kb cache
Socket 370 NEW 172 (181)
P III 1400 Cel / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 256 Kb cache 199
P III 733EB (800EB) / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 256 Kb cache 203 (216)
P III 866EB (933EB) / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 133 MHz FSB
Coppermine 218 (228)
P III 1000EB / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 256 Kb cache
Socket 370 230
P III 1133EB (1200EB) / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 256 Kb cache
Tualatin 231 (233)
P III 1266EB (1400EB) / 64 MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 8 MB AGP 3D / ATX 512 Kb cache 333 (425)
P4 1700 Cel / MSI-6533GL SiS650 / 64MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 64 MB AGP / ATX 400 MHz FSB
Willamette NEW 212
P4 1800 Cel / MSI-6533GL SiS650 / 64MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 64 MB AGP / ATX 128 Kb cache
Socket 478 NEW 234
P4 1400E (1500E) / MSI-6533GL SiS650 / 64MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66 / 64 MB AGP / ATX 128 Kb cache 245 (249)
P4 1600E (1700E) / MSI-6533L SiS650 / 64MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 64 MB AGP / ATX 400 MHz FSB
Willamette 257 (267)
P4 1800E (1900E) / MSI-6533GL SiS650 / 64MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 64 MB AGP / ATX 256 Kb cache
Socket 478 291 (301)
P4 1600E (1800) / MSI-6533GL SiS650 / 64MB SDRAM / 10 GB U66/ 64 MB AGP / ATX 512 Kb cache 277 (294)
I don’t think MS considers GNU/Linux a threat unless the economy and tech spending stagnate. In a growing economy, businesses and home consumers have plenty of money to toss around on license upgrades and the latest whizbang feature that they don’t need yet somehow want. If money is tight and I would say that money is tight now, frugal people will start to look at alternatives such as Wal-Mart’s low-end Linux box which has most of the features and functionality that are needed. If enough people and small businesses start buying non-MS platforms, then some momentum might be generated. I think MS fears momentum like a QB fears the five man blitz.
Perhaps the director’s cut of “Where the Heart Is” will include a pregnant Natalie Portman logging into the Internet on a $199 Linux box while she hides out on aisle 3.
-d.
Lycoris on those Wal-Mart Microtels would be great! I noticed they (Lycoris) are not offering it pre-installed on those out of date Compaqs and ThinkPads anymore.
>>Lycoris on those Wal-Mart Microtels would be great! I noticed they (Lycoris) are not offering it pre-installed on those out of date Compaqs and ThinkPads anymore.<<
Maybe Lycoris could land a deal with Dell and sell some of those unbranded white box PC with Desktop LX installed?!
Those prices are unimpressive.. I could build a 1ghz PC from retail parts for less than £300…. doesnt include Windows obviously but .. who cares?
Wal-Mart does own a chaain of stores in the UK… but here where I am living I have never seen a PC sell for less than €700 from most of the cheap electronic shops, but then again I am living in the Netherlands and some things don’t come cheap here (electronics usually are pretty well priced before btw)!
If you use the Asus terminator as a basis you can assemble
something decent for about €450 incl btw in the Netherlands (without monitor and windows)…
1200MHz duron, 20~40GB harddisk, 256MB RAM, optical mouse,
keyboard, cdrom, sound…
I think this is a good move for the Linux community, it will put them closer to the desktop market, which is where they want to be if they want to be a serious compeditor to Microsoft when it comes to OEM distributors for home systems. I commend the people working on the Lycoris distro for the hard work they’ve put into making a good OBE for new linux users, I wonder if Lindows and Lycoris will be fighting over the same OEM markets, hmmmmm. It will be very intersting to see how the first real OS war that isn’t based on propriatary hardware turns out.
” Seriously how is linux snapping at Microsofts heel? Linux not doing anything. I doubt MS really cars about this bit of the market. They know there is not much money to be made from people who can barly aford a computer. And those who buy this as a cheap entry computer for their child, or as a secondary one, will someday buy a more powerful machine that comes with windows pre-installed. Also the majority of these computers will experiance a format and be loaded with windows when they get home from a cd people have around or from a friend. Linux may be MS’s biggest threat (potentialy) but they currently are no threat (in reality).”
Come on, you can’t be serious
Price matters the most. It means marketing done the right way. Good for the seller and the consumer
Microsoft benefited from the low priced PCs. Now it is Linux’s turn 🙂
I first thought that this might be one of those new ITX systems. $199 would be an excellent price for one of
those, even if the ITX motherboard is mounted in a larger micro-ATX case. Does anybody know what
motherboard they used in this thingie?
If Linux was any threat to Windows, then MS would have their own feature-rich version of Linux to kill the others. The only reason they’re playing along with your naivete’ is because KDE and Gnome have changed linux into a training tool on how to use Windows until you can afford a copy of your own. It has the bonus function of rallying all the disgruntled among us under a single flag while they finish consolidating their power. Look at their preposterously oppressive registration/activation schemes. They get away with them because they CAN, because Linux is NO THREAT to Windows. Grow the hell up. Linux was finished on the desktop when you morons started rating it’s readiness by how well it could mimic Windows.
Too bad you and Microsoft don’t share the same feelings! Oh and weird analogy! I never heard that one before he he 🙂
…and it’ll probably ship this week. I’ll post back to let you know how it is.
how easy would would it be to load another OS on to this machine. Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware etc….
Frys has a 1.1g machine with the same basic specs as the lindows machine but with “thiz linux” as the os for $399 ( instore rebate of $100 off = $199) they also have a 1.8 for $599 with $100 off = $499. What advantge would I get from purchasing from wal mart vs Frys?
CattBeMac: I thought Lycoris looked slightly better, but I guess we’ll know what the best easy to use Linux desktop is once Xandros comes out to play!
As for Lycoris, all it holds above other distributions, especially Red Hat 8.0 is that it in some degree clones Windows XP’s UI. This isn’t good because
a) It doesn’t give a professional look to Linux, only a “copy-cat” status.
b) It isn’t a direct clone. I found myself stumble a lot here and there in Lycoris because it looks like Windows XP but it isn’t Windows XP, a lot of things are different.
My critism about Xandros is about the same as Lindows. Why follow Windows’s style in file hiearchy? Why have C:, D: etc.? Why, especially since C: doesn’t point to a drive, but points to /home/user which really should be My Documents. While Microsoft tries to find this part of Windows, these two companies are so eager to copy it?
My criticsm on Lindows is “Why root?”. Right, just say Lindows suddenly becomes a craze, get’s 50% of the market, blah blah blah, this is a huge opportunity for virus writers. There is no security blockage! Most users don’t do much chances that require the root password, and if one is really desperate to “ease” this whole thing, why not give normal user with some extra privilegdes to do stuff like installing apps.
All these companies have to do much more than what they are doing right now.
Besides, Lycoris is bundled in one computer at CompUSA.
CattBeMac: Too bad Be Inc. couldn’t have landed a deal like this with Wal-Mart, it just seems that they missed an opportunity of a lifetime so to speak. It would have been great for the BeOS community!
Especially since BeOS is more geared towards the desktops than any other distro I know (yes, including RH Null), plus pretty cheap…. Besides, this whole new Walmart thingy won’t increase Linux’s market share significantly….
CattBeMac: Now how does this affect the anti-trust case with Microsoft, it would be evidence that consumer PCs do ship with other OSes installed!
The stupid case using a stupid law is about Microsoft blocking OEMs from bundling both BeOS and Windows on the same machine….
Dalt Wisney: If money is tight and I would say that money is tight now, frugal people will start to look at alternatives such as Wal-Mart’s low-end Linux box which has most of the features and functionality that are needed.
I doubt much businesses would buy something made from a relatively unknown company even if it is endorse by WalMart (well, Wally has some other bad products, right?). The big inroads into this market is made by Red Hat. No Lindows.
gfx: If you use the Asus terminator as a basis you can assemble
something decent for about €450 incl btw in the Netherlands (without monitor and windows)…
1200MHz duron, 20~40GB harddisk, 256MB RAM, optical mouse,
keyboard, cdrom, sound…
450 euros? My god, the taxes are that bad there? I could get the same machine here at around 250-350 euros.
Microsoft benefited from the low priced PCs. Now it is Linux’s turn 🙂
Linux turn is here, and Linux is getting a lot of users from Asia especially. But for the American and Europe market, $40-50 dollars can’t be that bad for the consumer, right? <flamewar shield>Especially since Windows is better for the desktop</flameware shield>
CattBeMac: Too bad you and Microsoft don’t share the same feelings! Oh and weird analogy! I never heard that one before he he 🙂
Oh, living in Netherlands, you see nothing. I’m living in Malaysia, and you have no idea how much Microsoft is trying, in vain, to stop businesses and the government from adopting Linux for the back end and especially for the desktop (the governement is in midst of planning to introduce Linux systems in schools, kicking out Macs and Windows).
me: Frys has a 1.1g machine with the same basic specs as the lindows machine but with “thiz linux” as the os for $399 ( instore rebate of $100 off = $199)
How does $399-$100=$199?
I wonder myself, never been good at maths…
I’ve been thinking of building a VIA C3-based system because they run so cool you can normally use a simple passive heatsink on the CPU. This would help, along with some other things, to cut down the noise from the system enough I could use it in my stereo cabinet as an MP3 server
This Wal-Mart box might do the job as well, if you added a second hard drive and (perhaps) a decent sound card to one of the PCI slots.
Of course, one could always go the route of the http://www.slimdevices.com/“>SliMP3 instead
>>Oh, living in Netherlands, you see nothing. I’m living in Malaysia, and you have no idea how much Microsoft is trying, in vain, to stop businesses and the government from adopting Linux for the back end and especially for the desktop (the governement is in midst of planning to introduce Linux systems in schools, kicking out Macs and Windows).<<
Oh I believe that Linux is threat… we have already adopted it at my work, and it’s only going to get more adoption as time goes by! We plan to add 3 more Linux workstations to our work center, we have been testing the one Linux workstation and it has done a great job of being up to task for our requirements! I told our Lead Software Engineer to get Gnome 2.0 on it and I would be sold definitely (though I still like KDE better, but it has some issues with multiple screens… we use 3 per workstation/console)!
>>My critism about Xandros is about the same as Lindows. Why follow Windows’s style in file hiearchy? Why have C:, D: etc.? Why, especially since C: doesn’t point to a drive, but points to /home/user which really should be My Documents. While Microsoft tries to find this part of Windows, these two companies are so eager to copy it?
My criticsm on Lindows is “Why root?”. Right, just say Lindows suddenly becomes a craze, get’s 50% of the market, blah blah blah, this is a huge opportunity for virus writers. There is no security blockage! Most users don’t do much chances that require the root password, and if one is really desperate to “ease” this whole thing, why not give normal user with some extra privilegdes to do stuff like installing apps.<<
I imagine your feedback and comments will always be helpful, give them a shout! I don’t think they’re going totally the right way about it either, but that’s my opinion! I guess it’s a start!!
>>Especially since BeOS is more geared towards the desktops than any other distro I know (yes, including RH Null), plus pretty cheap…. Besides, this whole new Walmart thingy won’t increase Linux’s market share significantly….<<
I think BeOS had a better shot at the desktop than Linux, but that will soon change!
>>The stupid case using a stupid law is about Microsoft blocking OEMs from bundling both BeOS and Windows on the same machine….<<
I know, the bootloader issue!
>>450 euros? My god, the taxes are that bad there? I could get the same machine here at around 250-350 euros.<<
That’s an understatement!
Rajan: To a Windows user, Lycoris shortens the learning curve significantly. People who want the computer to do something, as opposed to those who prefer to tinker, get a fully functioning OS on first bootup, without having to worry about which shell to use, which browser is better, etc. It’s all set up for you; I appreciate that.
As far as looks goes, who cares if it looks like Win XP? Win XP looks like Mac OS, Amiga OS, Be OS, etc…
The best compliment I can give Lycoris is that it sits on a dual boot partition with Win XP on my home system; I spend more time in Lycoris than Windows…
Oh my god.
If you have ever spent a day in the typical WalMart, you would wonder what genious thought it woudl be a good idea to sell these necks computers with Linux on it?
Maybe I am just overgeneralizing from my South GA WalMart experience.
David Huff: This would help, along with some other things, to cut down the noise from the system enough I could use it in my stereo cabinet as an MP3 server
You could always use an Intel or AMD processor and use a quiet fan… (Besides, processor fan noise accounts for little of the noise my PC makes. My hard drive and PSU makes more noise.)
Tony Muscarella: Rajan: To a Windows user, Lycoris shortens the learning curve significantly
I’m a Windows user, for the past 4 weeks. I use Lycoris, the learning curve is longer than Red Hat….. I wonder why? (I stop using Linux 4 weeks ago when Limbo and Mdk 9.0 practically destroyed my HDD, planning to repair it all when the holidays come.
Tony Muscarella: without having to worry about which shell to use, which browser is better, etc.
They can do this without cloning Windows, no?
Tony Muscarella: As far as looks goes, who cares if it looks like Win XP? Win XP looks like Mac OS, Amiga OS, Be OS, etc…
Windows may copy UI ideas from Mac OS, Amiga, Be OS (who doesn’t?), but it certainly doesn’t look any of them. Mac OS uses photorealistic icons in OS X and symbolic ones in OS 9. Amiga and Be also uses symbolic icons. Windows XP uses cartoonish symbolic icons.