On Wednesday 28 February 2007, Joachim Schrod wrote: > Doug McGarrett wrote: > > It might be that they have to have more technical expertise to make sure > > that Linux actually runs on the machine, and they have to cover the > > research and development costs. Also, the help desk for the new Linux > > owners. > > I think that's more the issue. Any change in processes costs. And > that cost must be amortized over the amount of sold systems. Since > we will probably have fewer Linux systems, the price per unit is > higher. (Remember that Dell has one of the best logistic systems in > the world; they surely track costs and their amortization.)
True there are some costs, but its not as much as you might imagine. 1)Dell has long had an internal forum for dell employees using linux. This forum is often found using google when looking for a problem. So they have the expertise in house, if not for every distro, certainly for the ones they sell Suse/Redhat. 2) They already load two different OS's on machines, and have just about always been doing so, except for brief periods of time when say, only XP was sold. They have the images ready to pre-load onto drives, and they knwo what images are required for each machine. They can load drives even before the machine is built since it will all be the same. Aside: (I wonder if this "eats" one of the allowed Vista moves?) 3) The problem is not so much in system construction but in system support. And HERE is where I would expect a mixed bag. As more people start using linux, some will realized that their windows skills only get them so far in the linux world, and will get on the telephone for help. This will cost dell money.. This may be offset by a tendency for more technically astute people to order linux, and Ma and Pa Polyester sticking with windows. This will save Dell money. Dell needs something like SLED, because they do not want to deal with all of their linux users updating every 8 months (or what ever opensuse's current release cycle is). The down side of that is SLED with a $50/year price tag will quickly outpace the cost of XP. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
