[sf-lug] [Fwd: Re: The holy grail for FOSS publicity: NYT on-line covers Dell GNU Linux]

[Tom Haddon]

On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 14:28 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> 
> Part of "the numbers" is Microsoft Corporation's very considerable co-op
> marketing money, which OEMs fear losing.  They fear it a _lot_.  You
> seem to be implying (but apologies if I'm overinterpreting) that this is
> a level playing field, where Dell is motivated to offer whatever
> bundlings garner the best end-customer purchase/gross-margin response,
> but that is not the case.  

This I do agree with. Unfortunately since the Bush Govt. decided to
cripple the anti-trust investigation, we're no closer to a level playing
field now than we were then.

> I detailed the way OEM Windows deals work
> when Sam Varghese asked me about the second "Windows Refund Day in 2002:
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/26/1040511127721.html (Skip down
> to "Are you involved in the forthcoming refund day (January 23)?")
> 
> > Calculating when it's going to make financial sense for them to do
> > that, and what happens in the meantime (other retailers offering Linux
> > pre-installs, customer demand) will determine how far and how fast this
> > goes...
> 
> Pretty nearly the only significant (or even non-significant) retailers
> offering Linux pre-installs are small ones that do _not_ have Windows
> OEM contracts.  For some of the reasons why, please see above link.
> 
> 
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Tom Haddon
mailto:tom at greenleaftech.net
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