Also, you must not only consider the cost of the operation system in regards to the influece of Windows over price. As I mentioned before, you must also consider (through the sheer dominence of Windows) MS's influece over PC makers and the level of services they provide to you. OEM's who live off 3% margin are easily influeced by MS rebates and discounts. In the end it will cost you.
MrChad
Lifer
- Aug 22, 2001
- 13,507
- 3
- 81
OEMs have other things to consider, such as offering technical support for their customers. Can you imagine if Dell offered 20 different flavors of Linux in addition to Windows XP to their home customers? How in the world could they afford to train their support staff to handle those configurations? Even if you took away Microsoft's rebates and discounts, I still believe that most OEMs would limit their OS offerings, at least to their home customer base.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
- 30,672
- 0
- 0
Your other bills are irrelevant, your budget should have been designed with cost of software included, that is if you want to actually use commercial software on your computer.
And again I'll say that the $150 that you pay to MS every 5 years or so is much lower than any other 'tax' you'll pay to use other devices like gas for your car, electricity for everything in your house, water for your shower, etc. Hell, if you have cable, cancel your cable subscription for 2 months and you'll have more than enough money for Windows. It's not like there's anything good to watch on TV anyway.
What OEMs do now for boxes that are intended to run Linux they offer a 'No Windows' option were they ship with FreeDOS installed. (another Free Software OS that is MS-DOS compatable.)
This is because if they ship with NO OS, then they loose part of the massive discounts that Microsoft offers. In MS's contracts with them it is supposed that they have special discounts that stipulate that if they sell a machine with no os installed then they loose said discount.
It used to be that if they shipped a computer with No Windows installed, then they'd loose the discount.. but the antitrust lawsuites and the monopolistic conviction of MS by federal courts changed that to no OS.
When they tried originally selling supported Linux stuff there wasn't much of a consumer response and often they'd have people calling in tech support asking how to do this or that in Linux, which is very expensive. Dells/HP's tech support designed to help if something is wrong with the computer, not a teach-yourself-linux-over-the-phone setup.
So that didnt' work out to well.
Most major OEMs offer Linux in one form or another. They offer certain desktops with 'FreeDOS' option. They almost always have their server boxes with Redhat Linux or Suse pre-installed as a option if you pay for the Novell/Redhat year support contract along with a 'FreeDOS' option for people that want to run Debian or CentOS or whatnot.
HP I know offers professional 'workstations' (smp machines and such) with Linux-preinstalled and they offer business class laptops with freedos if you look hard enough on their almost tragicly badly designed website. Occasionally they offer Suse and they had a Laptop for Europe that had Ubuntu, I beleive.
But almost nobody offers consumer-style stuff with linux or other non-windows option.
For linux Laptops you'd have to look for professional-style smaller hardware vendors generally.
Like Aslabs;
http://www.aslab.com/products/laptops/excaliburlt580.html
Or Los Alamos Computers:
http://laclinux.com/en/Workstation
(check out the custom built systems)
They'll have laptops and workstations that are fully supported with custom kernels and setups designed specificly for specific hardware.
That sort of thing.
With Big OEMs like HP or whatnot it's a bit unnerving because they'll actually charge MORE for laptops that dont' have Windows. This is because that even though they offer 100 dollars off to get rid of Windows the problem is is that they have all these mass-built, mass-installed, mass-configured machines. They offer a discoutn to people that buy these machines since they are all pre-built and everything, but for custom machines (like requesting specific hardware or software configurations) they don't offer the same discount. So that when you add everything up you pay more for a custom machine without Windows then a more generic machine with Windows.
http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml
This is because if they ship with NO OS, then they loose part of the massive discounts that Microsoft offers. In MS's contracts with them it is supposed that they have special discounts that stipulate that if they sell a machine with no os installed then they loose said discount.
It used to be that if they shipped a computer with No Windows installed, then they'd loose the discount.. but the antitrust lawsuites and the monopolistic conviction of MS by federal courts changed that to no OS.
When they tried originally selling supported Linux stuff there wasn't much of a consumer response and often they'd have people calling in tech support asking how to do this or that in Linux, which is very expensive. Dells/HP's tech support designed to help if something is wrong with the computer, not a teach-yourself-linux-over-the-phone setup.
So that didnt' work out to well.
Most major OEMs offer Linux in one form or another. They offer certain desktops with 'FreeDOS' option. They almost always have their server boxes with Redhat Linux or Suse pre-installed as a option if you pay for the Novell/Redhat year support contract along with a 'FreeDOS' option for people that want to run Debian or CentOS or whatnot.
HP I know offers professional 'workstations' (smp machines and such) with Linux-preinstalled and they offer business class laptops with freedos if you look hard enough on their almost tragicly badly designed website. Occasionally they offer Suse and they had a Laptop for Europe that had Ubuntu, I beleive.
But almost nobody offers consumer-style stuff with linux or other non-windows option.
For linux Laptops you'd have to look for professional-style smaller hardware vendors generally.
Like Aslabs;
http://www.aslab.com/products/laptops/excaliburlt580.html
Or Los Alamos Computers:
http://laclinux.com/en/Workstation
(check out the custom built systems)
They'll have laptops and workstations that are fully supported with custom kernels and setups designed specificly for specific hardware.
That sort of thing.
With Big OEMs like HP or whatnot it's a bit unnerving because they'll actually charge MORE for laptops that dont' have Windows. This is because that even though they offer 100 dollars off to get rid of Windows the problem is is that they have all these mass-built, mass-installed, mass-configured machines. They offer a discoutn to people that buy these machines since they are all pre-built and everything, but for custom machines (like requesting specific hardware or software configurations) they don't offer the same discount. So that when you add everything up you pay more for a custom machine without Windows then a more generic machine with Windows.
http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml
Originally posted by: Chosonman
So you guys think if I migrated to Linux I wouldn't have any problems running my programs? ie.. games
I know there's a Direct-X emulator for Linux around, but that' costs money to.
uh if your builing 300 dollar computer for games your not going to get far.
The difference is that there is competition. For Cpus, there are price wars. There are always newer and better cpus, and you can always get last year's cpu for alot less. Same for video cards/mobos/ram/etc. But for windows, you pay a fixed rate, and the price never seems to lower.
Take for example other software. Computer games start at around 50, then after a year they go down in price to around 30 or if an expansion is released, the original goes to 20. Microsoft hasn't changed its price for XP in a LONG time.
Its not a case of supply and demand. Its a case of very weak competition. Because the alternative OSes are not as viable for the average home user/gamer as XP is, Microsoft can sit in its loft all day. I would GLADLY pay 50 dollars for a NIB retail version of windows 2000.Originally posted by: Phoenix86
You don't say...
Supply and demand.
Wow, this thread has taken on a life of its own. I don't think it is even worth arguing whether Microsoft has monopoly power in their space. They do. The law does not make it illegal to have monopoly power; what is illegal is to abuse it to coerce the market. Does Microsoft abuse their monopoly power? Pretty damn hard to say. What should the price of an operating system be? If someone corners the market on oil it isn't hard to tell that an artificial shortage is being created, along with a price bump. How can you say whether this is happening in Microsoft's space? There are all sorts of companies that have monopoly power. Look at some vaccine manufacturers, for example.
What is really interesting about all this is watching the free market do exactly what it is supposed to do. Back when MS operating systems were largely used in offices and a few enthusiasts homes, either people were getting it for nothing, or in environments where they didn't personally care about the cost. Now that it has reached such a broad market, there are significant numbers of people for whom the cost (which seems very reasonable to me) is too high. For some of these people any cost is too high. So you see Microsoft coming under some pressure from alternatives. Windows is a huge chunk of their revenue, greater than 75% if I recall correctly, and I would think it has peaked at this point. Thus the recent pressure on their stock price. Growth is king, and just running a hugely profitable multi-hundred billion dollar business isn't enough anymore.
My guess is that at some point Microsoft will completely reconstruct the model. They are probably already thinking their way through the details of how it will work. It might be that every PC comes with basic TCP/IP and OS loader code in firmware, and you just subscribe to MS services (or alternative o/s services) by credit card at startup. They may even decide Windows should be free to noncommercial users, and charge a small monthly fee for updates and support. Something big will have to change soon, or they are in danger of becoming a utility business.
What is really interesting about all this is watching the free market do exactly what it is supposed to do. Back when MS operating systems were largely used in offices and a few enthusiasts homes, either people were getting it for nothing, or in environments where they didn't personally care about the cost. Now that it has reached such a broad market, there are significant numbers of people for whom the cost (which seems very reasonable to me) is too high. For some of these people any cost is too high. So you see Microsoft coming under some pressure from alternatives. Windows is a huge chunk of their revenue, greater than 75% if I recall correctly, and I would think it has peaked at this point. Thus the recent pressure on their stock price. Growth is king, and just running a hugely profitable multi-hundred billion dollar business isn't enough anymore.
My guess is that at some point Microsoft will completely reconstruct the model. They are probably already thinking their way through the details of how it will work. It might be that every PC comes with basic TCP/IP and OS loader code in firmware, and you just subscribe to MS services (or alternative o/s services) by credit card at startup. They may even decide Windows should be free to noncommercial users, and charge a small monthly fee for updates and support. Something big will have to change soon, or they are in danger of becoming a utility business.
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