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Re: Dell Caught Making Controversial Remarks on Linux Laptops

Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> On Jul 17, 6:36 am, Mark Kent <mark.k...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Rex Ballard <rex.ball...@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> > On Jul 16, 10:42 am, Mark Kent <mark.k...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> >> >http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/13/intel_joins_olpc/
>>
>> >> 125 million computers per year.  So, after a decade, we will have buried
>> >> 1 and 1/4 thousand million computers.  That's enough kit to cover most
>> >> continents in one go.  The only hole to be patched is around persuading
>> >> people that linux on older hardware is functional and effective, against
>> >> the marketing monster of Microsoft.
>>
>> > Keep in mind that every computer Dell CAN'T give away costs as much as
>> > $300 per PC for disposal.  PCs are actually loaded with Toxic waste,
>> > including arsenic, cyanide, selenium, phosphorus, nickel, lead, zinc,
>> > titanium, and dioxin.  Sticking them in land-fill contaminates water
>> > supplies.
>>
>> It's an interesting economic model here.  Microsoft did a good job of
>> making a durable good (software) non-durable, thus forcing replacement,
>> and at the same time, did the hardware manufacturers a huge favour by
>> requiring a huge hardware upgrade each time a new release of non-durable
>> Windows came along, thus essentially making the highly durable hardware
>> components essentially non-durable too.
> 
> It got worse than that.  As prices for XP machines fell, and labour
> costs and the costs of backup/recovery increased, it became cheaper to
> simply replace a corrupted computer, rather than repair it.  The only
> problem for the OEMs, the price had eroded so badly that they were
> actually losing money on these "disposable boxes".
> 
>> This is one reason why take-up of Linux was seen so negatively by so
>> many hardware and software organisations - the view being that if Linux
>> could keep the hardware going for longer, people would buy fewer
>> machines, thus both Microsoft and the hardware vendors lose out.
> 
> This was probably true, up to about 2003.  As the price eroded, and
> profits were squeezed progressively tighter, Microsoft was driving
> volume, but they had reduced all OEM products to commodities with
> paper thin margins.  During 2004, many companies were actually LOSING
> MONEY ON THE SALE OF EACH PC.  They had to subsidise those losses by
> generating profit margins in other products including printers,
> monitors, HDTV, consulting, and other secondary services.

You're quite right, there was most certainly an OEM tipping point.
I think the first clear sign that the OEMs were seeing the writing on
the wall for Windows was when in about 1998/9, Hitachi bundled BeOS on
their Flora Prius machine;  unfortunately for Be Inc, Hitachi and almost
all Flora Prius owners, Microsoft abused their monopoly position to
force Hitachi to hide the fact that it was even installed, nevertheless,
Hitachi were clearly seeing that alternatives to Windows were inevitable,
and were trying to work around the monopoly abuser in order to benefit
their customers.

It's interesting to note that the Wikipaedia entry for operating systems
doesn't even mention the boot-loader incident in their BeOS write-up.
It would seem that wiki is heavily influenced by Microsoft, too.

> 
> In 2005, HP broke from the pack by introducing a 64 bit PC.  They sold
> it with 32 bit Windows XP, but they also announced that all of these
> machines could run 64 bit SUSE Linux if users wanted all of the
> benefits of the 64 bit processor.  Strangely enough, even though HP
> offered the machine with SUSE preinstalled, users almost always
> purchased the machine with the OEM version of Windows.  It turned out
> that having the license eliminated a number of legal risks, and gave
> users the best of both worlds.

More monopoly abuse - most major corporations had, by this stage, volume
licensing deals with Microsoft, interestingly, so did the OEMs.  This
leads to the very interesting possibility that Microsoft were probably
being paid /at least/ twice for every machine sold, *even if* it didn't
have any Microsoft software on it.

It is scant wonder that Microsoft were expanding so rapidly during this
period.  Getting paid twice for almost nothing at all is bound to be
highly profitable.

> 
> Server Virtualisation has been a hot topic for years.  Some would
> argue that Virtualisation has been a hot topic since IBM introduced it
> as a "skunk works project" almost 40 years ago.  When EMC purchased
> VMWare, it created a huge opening for Server Virtualisation on Intel
> platforms.  The VMWare Player solution made desktop virtualisation
> very doable (though there are still many nice features to VMWare
> Workstation.  Most recently, VMWare converter has made it possible to
> create a VMWare appliance out of whatever you've been running on
> Windows, then install that image as a client to VMWare Player running
> on Linux.  The irony is that Windows runs faster this way, it's better
> protected by the Linux firewall, and if there is a corruption, the is
> better damage control and quicker backup/recovery to/from USB drives.

Virtualisation for windows is like a padded room for an unstable person,
it provides an environment for Windows where it is least likely to hurt
itself, and those around itself.

> 
>> What was not factored into this equation, though, was the huge barrier
>> this put into the way of real progress in computing, which hasn't become
>> clear until fairly recently, where we now have linux running on pretty
>> much every platform going, including old Psion machines, a newer
>> generation of phones, and perhaps more importantly, the entertainment
>> device world.  The potential for new sales into this environment is
>> huge, something which Sony have recognised all too well with the PS3.
> 
> The biggest problem is that the traditional Windows Paradigm is pretty
> much played out.  With the exception of 3D animated video games, it's
> very hard to tell the difference between Window XP/Office XP running
> on an 2Ghz Pentium, and the same software running on a 4Ghz Pentium.
> Worse, Vista seems to run slower, not faster.  The load time of an
> application is a very minor part of performance.  Waiting several
> seconds while the Windows XP garbage collector tries to clean up after
> itself can be a much bigger issue.

The only thing Microsoft are left with is end-of-lifing existing
operating systems (NT5/2k, NT5.1/XP, NT5.2/Server 2003) thus forcing an
upgrade for larger businesses who wish to have formal support in place
for their software.

End-of-lifing is the last resort in making durable goods non-durable, as
it is the most overt approach.  Even the most rampant proprietary
software zealot is likely to recognise that an end-of-life decision,
when the new product offers no value to the customer, is purely a
money-making exercise on the part of the vendor.

> 
>> To my mind, old hardware is likely to be used alongside new hardware,
>> rather than preventing the use of new hardware, although there will
>> surely be fewer absolute new sales than there might have been, had
>> Microsoft still got the world conned into believing that you have to
>> replace computers every 18 months.
> 
> There seems to be a very predictable progression in the migration from
> Windows to Linux.
> 
<snip>
> 
> 
> Later, the experienced Linux user, now comfortable with doing
> installations, put the Windows virtual machine on the Linux host.
> 
> A very small number of Linux users eventually drop Windows entirely.
> Estimates are that less than 2% of the Linux user base ever gets to
> the point where they are completely "Windows free".  This may change
> over time, but it looks like Microsoft still has a really good market
> in Linux machines.

I think it will start to happen in very large numbers now that Open
Office, Firefox, mplayer, gaim and so on are so good and capable.  There will
be no need for Windows.  This is precisely why Microsoft are trying so
hard at the moment to subvert standards bodies into approving "Microsoft
Office" as a kind of worldwide standard for document exchange.  They see
it as a final stab at keeping their monopoly for a little longer.

The funny thing is that it is most unlikely to deliver what they're
looking for.  Experience shows that poor standards are never adopted;
not almost never, or hardly ever, or sometimes;  they are *never*
adopted.  A few organisations which have had Microsoft people put in at
senior positions might insist for a while, but their own workforces will
soon force them to move to the new, superior, capabilities such as ODF,
Firefox and so on.

> 
>> If OEMs are being charged for this, then it makes complete sense for the
>> OEMs to push Linux on older hardware, as it could be saving them up to
>> US$300 per machine, enough to wipe out any profit on new hardware sales.
> 
> Yes.  This is one of the reasons why Dell and these other companies
> would LOVE to have the ability to have 100 million computers/year
> going into other countries as Linux systems instead of having to
> recycle them.  It's actually amusing that you even assume that there
> is profit on hardware sales.  Many "Linux Hostile" systems have
> actually been sold at a LOSS.  When you are taking a $100/machine hit
> on every Linux hostile machine you sell, you can't make it up in
> volume.  Just to break even, you have to make profit on accessories
> and upgrades.

It does change the position of the OEMs with respect to Microsoft and
their non-durable software - suddenly it doesn't look so sexy if you are
responsible for disposal!

> 
>> > Nearly every town and village in the USA has a "recycling centre"
>> > where home users can drop-off or pick-up used computers that they
>> > consider obsolete.  Several times I have dropped off computers that
>> > were picked up while I was bringing in my second load.
>>
>> We have them here, too.
>>
>> > I usually write "Works" on the computers that are still functional,
>> > but too slow to stay in MY rack.  I still have a 1.3 Ghz Athalon I
>> > purchased almost  5 years ago.
>>
>> Such a machine is perfectly usable as a Linux machine.
> 
> Absolutely!  In fact that was what I have been running on it.
> I even cleared the password.  Whoever picked up the machine would have
> been greeted with a nice "ready to go" Linux system.
> 
> I often wonder, even speculate, on how many machines that were "sold
> with Windows" end up "Linux Powered".  They might be dual-boot,
> VMWare, or Xen sharing, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if the
> number was approaching 200 million Linux installs for every 100
> Windows systems sold (VMs, Used machines...).

I'm not sure that we'll ever know.


-- 
| Mark Kent   --   mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk          |
| Cola faq:  http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/   |
| Cola trolls:  http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/                        |
| My (new) blog:  http://www.thereisnomagic.org                        |

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