Bonum Certa Men Certa

OEMs Should Bundle GNU/Linux as Windows Declines, Attracts Malware

"We should whack them [Dell over GNU/Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value."

--Paul Flessner, Microsoft



Dell monitor logo



Summary: Microsoft Windows is not selling well, so hardware companies ought to start looking for alternatives

Sales of Windows continue to decline as we noted earlier this week. The "operating revenue down 10%, Windows revenue 4%," quotes a reader of ours from here, noting "that's worse than the decline in PC market share" (an elusive market due to its general decline). He added that "tablets and smart phones are the main reasons" (many run Linux) and "Windows 7 is a failure" (which is also true as the numbers suggest, contradicting fake hype). So why aren't more OEMs moving away from Windows just yet? Microsoft has just admitted yet again that Windows sales are declining, but we are still not seeing many OEMs that sell GNU/Linux on desktops and laptops. The FFII and AFUL try to address this issue while in the mean time, a UK-based journalist complains about Dell:



There are more reasons to move away from Windows and they include security and the cost to the economy. This was talked about in IRC yesterday. Groklaw responded to this report about citizens paying for Microsoft's mistakes by writing: "Just a suggestion. If everyone used GNU/Linux, fixing a problem is so much more simple. You can delete everything except your home partition, keeping all your documents and data while reinstalling the system. Or vice versa, if it's the home partition that is affected. You can save all your materials, then wipe out the home partition without having to reinstall everything. Of course, this kind of virus doesn't affect GNU/Linux systems anyway, but I wonder why the government doesn't help people to understand the security advantages they could benefit from. And users would benefit too, because they wouldn't need to let the FBI access their computers to clean it up, a rather disturbing concept."

More OEMs can offer dual-boot systems as standard. The GNU/Linux part (not merely fast-boot Linux) does not cost a thing and Microsoft will get the competition it deserves. It will give the OEMs a sound business model and an advantage over the competition, an added value of sorts.

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