XPost: alt.comp.os.windows-10
Sjouke Burry wrote:
On 8-8-2018 8:48, Chris wrote:
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
Stan Brown wrote:
On Tue, 7 Aug 2018 02:32:01 +0100, Brian Gregory wrote:
It's supposed to be a dollar sign because Mico$oft Window$ is
expensive
software to use and Microsoft just want your $$$s.
Very old joke first seen maybe 20 years ago.
And it was puerile and unfunny even then.
I hold no brief for Microsoft, and I would cheerfully see them fall
into a deep dark pit, but they're no different from any other company
in wanting to make money off of us.
Well, they are different in one way -- through license agreements
very favorable to manufacturers, they've made it extremely difficult
to get a non-Apple computer without Windows. If you could readily buy
a computer with Linux and drivers for that computer's hardware
preinstalled, I imagine Windows' market share would be quite a bit
less than it is now, and Microsoft might actually have to do a better
job in software quality.
This article is dated November 16, 2017.
https://fossbytes.com/dell-precision-linux-laptop-machine-ubuntu/
"It is a 27-inch AIO workstation which offers Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
as an option along with RHEL WS v7.0 and Windows 10."
I guess with those prices, just about anything is possible
The machines offered vary between $1.5K and $5K. They're
not Dollar Store computers.
The Wifi didn't work out of the box on that one. And
required some fiddling. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Maybe the
machine received an update ten minutes after it
started -- wiping out the Wifi ?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-ultimate-linux-workstation-the-dell-5720-aio/
The high price on that, is a reflection of a 27 inch screen
with 4K res.
I've never seen an article reporting sales or uptake
rate, to say whether "real" customers out there,
even know what that product is offering. Since the
industry is quite price-sensitive, we know nothing
will "catch fire" because of that offer. The price
dampens the enthusiasm.
It would be more fun to see a $100 tablet offered
with Ubuntu 16.04 on it.
Paul
Dell still sells ubuntu laptops. The XPS is available ubuntu 18.04
pre-installed.
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/new-xps-13-laptop/spd/xps-13-9370-laptop/configurations
The fact it still exists means there's demand, although not much as dell
aren't offering it wider.
The bespoke nature of these products means there's no cost saving to the
user; they're the same price with or without windows.
So you are paying for windows, even if you get Ubunto ???????
That's why I mentioned the $100 tablet.
Below a certain screen size, Windows is free.
(There may still be charges to the OEM, like
maybe a one-time charge of some sort. The "free"
implies the per-unit cost is zero, under some
set of conditions. Maybe you have to move
a million units to get that price or something.
We cannot know the whiny details of the contract.)
Other examples of shenanigans here.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-may-have-price-increases-in-store-for-windows-10-pro-workstation-win-10-downgrade/
This "free" policy is intended to make Windows competitive
in the low end of the market. The gouging on the other
end, is to inflict a little extra pain. Like we'd just
entered the Win2K era, and the product was worth $300.
How it works, is Chromebook makers might pay $15 for
patents, in order to sell a Chromebook, and then if Windows
is free for small screens, it means an OEM can price
the product a little lower. This was intended to
"elbow" entrants to the low-end market out of the way.
So while Microsoft might have pretended there
wouldn't be "patent warfare", the usual games
apply. It's "orderly warfare" or "business as usual".
If it seems someone is still paying for Windows,
they probably are.
Paul
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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