Stuart Clark wrote:
[...] given the similar costs to Dell (remember they pay quite a lot
less than even OEM prices you can find on eBuyer or similar due to their
volumes).
Apparently Acer pay around £20 for XPHome, £40 for XPP, so I suspect
Dell are somewhere around that point. It won't make much difference to
the price (economies of scale will more than take up that difference)
but if they are able to provide a supported product without paying the
MS tax that's great. Much as I'm all for cheaper PCs, I'm happy if Dell
are able to make a profit from selling Linux PCs, coz then they'll sell 'em!
I've been looking at opportunities to sell pre-installed Linux PCs where
no money has gone to MS; it will almost certainly be able to undercut
any price I can be profitable at by buying a Windows pre-installed PC
and wiping it. I might still give it a go and see if there's a market
though.
[NB: I have asked the question of Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens whether I can
(a) have their PCs without Windows, or (b) buy with Windows but go
through the painful process of getting a refund on the Windows licence
with their "blessing" (ie they don't make the process prohibitive), but
no joy so far. For example Acer's process seems to be that you buy a PC,
ship it to them, they remove the XP licence, they ship it back (at your
cost), and they refund you £20/£40 as above (that's where I got those
prices from). It is very unlikely you would be better off after the cost
of shipping, but if they authorised me to do it myself and send proof it
could be workable. I suspect that any refund comes from Acer not MS,
though, ie it just means Acer have paid £20 to MS for a license they
didn't charge on, so the tax to support MS is still paid.]
--
Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555
Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
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