Posted on 04/20/2007 9:52:09 AM PDT by upchuck
It appears that Dell, which has slipped to the number two PC maker in the world, is determined to follow the advice of consumers on its IdeaStorm website and see where it takes them. The novel approach has already led Dell to commit itself to bring pre-installed Linux computers to market and the latest move pits the powerful PC vendor against the might of Microsoft.
Dell will sell XP Home and Professional on six PC models including two desktops and four notebooks.
Although Microsoft has said publicly that it will stop offering licences for XP to PC vendors from January 2008, Dell could well be buoyed by the fact that most business users globally have so far expressed little intention to move to Vista. An XP to Vista upgrade is viewed by many businesses as a major operation that they would prefer to avoid as long as possible.
Consumers, however, would be expected to accept Vista more readily, an assumption that appears to be contradicted by the views that appeared on IdeaStorm.
Microsoft's public response so far has been little more than a shrug and a claim that the pro XP views expressed on IdeaStorm represent a small minority of PC users.
With Dell rumoured to bring PCs loaded with a popular Linux distribution to market as early as this month, it will be interesting to see whether the what the users say goes approach will succeed in turning the company's fortunes around.
I am sick and tired of Bill Gates dictating to me.
Win XP does fine for me. And it has a whole lot of features I'll never use.
Office 2000 does fine for me. And it has a whole lot of features I'll never use.
So where is the motivation for me to "upgrade" to another piece of software that has even more features I'll never use? Nowhere, that's where :)
Every time I get a new shipment of Dells I have to hold my breath to see what they changed to make our software cause the blue screen of death when I install it. Sometimes JAVA VM is where I can find it, and sometimes it’s not.
The Vista backdoor?
Just over a month ago I was forced to XP at work. I use Kubuntu at home.
G, we’re a Dell shop and they all work great. Don’t you go jinxing me, I’m the only IT man in the house.
I’m waiting to get a new laptop with Linux preinstalled. Until then, we’ll be using the old stuff (W98SE, W2k and one XP).
Especially since with Microsoft, you’re essentially beta-testing until they come out with a couple service packs...
Especially when Vista is crippled with so much DRM crap that it will make your new computer run just as slow as your old one, but with a 4.5 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM. I’ve got such a hate on for Vista that I wouldn’t even steal it.
Windows 3.1.11, Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and netscape were just fine.
Does Vista really suck that bad? I haven’t tried it or even used a computer with it yet.
Dell should contract Apple to build them a specific OEM copy of OS-X... if they lock the hardware they can do it, that is how apple does it, locked hardware.
When next my computer wears out I am seriously going to consider Linux. To hell with Microsoft.
I had Kubuntu on my old PC. Liked it, but since I’m no computer nerd, it was hard to learn how to install programs - and find them.
Good for Dell!!!
Heh, so true. And the NSA thanks all users for switching to Vista.
That’s what I’ve heard also. It seems to me the engineers at Microsoft are getting sloppy because they figure that people have so much memory and such fast processors that they don’t need to bother to be efficient. As a result, everything kind of cancels out.
I already run linux on one machine. Guess what? Main machine that collects email, and does most of the stuff I do, other than gaming. My other two computers ( a lap top I use for ham radio stuff and a desktop on which I game) have XP Pro loaded on them.
Linux really isn’t good for gaming stuff, but everything else, it does better than Windoze.
We’re holding off from Vista also, XP is fine.
I thought we may have to bite the bullet on Office 2007 for efile compatability reasons but then I found an Offce 2002/2003 compatability snap in to open, edit, and save docs, spreadsheets, and presentations in Office 2007 format.
I tested on a VM running O2K7 beta and it seems to work and it’s free.
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