Now that Michael Dell is back actively running his company, he’s making some changes. See this memo for some of the details.
He announced today that Dell will now sell PCs loaded with Linux. Quite a blow to Microsoft.
Most observers beleive that this is in response to a flood of requests from Dell customers (and critics) on the Ideastorm portal. At New Paradigm, we strongly believe that collecting and responding to client feedback through forums such as this is the way to go; although it takes a lot of chutzpah…if you look closely through Ideastorm, you’ll notice a lot of posts that would make Dell’s lawyers and marketers uncomfotable.
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Interesting development for sure. What isn’t sure is how long Dell will stay on this course. Will Microsoft offer enhancements to their relationship if Dell retracts this offer. This could be a landmark for the open source community if Dell stays with it.
Comment by Don - May 2, 2007 12:29 pm
I wish Dell the best of luck in selling GNU/Linux preloaded on machines. We shall all see how this story goes as time progresses.
–kc2keo
Comment by George - May 3, 2007 10:35 am
Let’s put the stick in the sand right here.
If Dell are still selling Linux pre-loaded on desktop machines in 2008 and they are making enough Linux sales to justify the project then we will be able to say that 2007 was the year desktop Linux finally came of age.
Comment by Tel - May 5, 2007 8:58 pm
What a relief. I have waited for this day. I wanted to order a Dell machine a few years back and was disappointed that I would not be allowed to purchase a system without an OS. This will certainly give a major boost to Linux popularity not just in the business world but also home PC users.
Comment by Steve - May 9, 2007 10:28 am
I was shopping for a new laptop last week. AFAICT the FreeDOS version (D520N ? can’t recall exact model name) costs $19 more than the WinXP version (D520), identically configured. :^( Whatever Dell’s doing, buying a system w/o M$ OS doesn’t seem to save money.
Comment by Michael Hill - May 10, 2007 12:57 pm
You are wrong man..! Laptop/desktop without microsoft will surely reduce its cost. Im a linux lover, and i used to work only with linux, then whatz the purpose of giving the money for an unused thing..? Here in india.. laptops without MS ( or with only Linux) has a price difference of about 100$..
Comment by Anees - May 7, 2008 8:18 pm