<snip> > Max Hyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Their per-hardware-unit-sold > license was so much cheaper than the per-OS-copy-sold > license that it made no sense to do anything else. Thus, > any system sent out already had the cost of MS-DOS (later MS > Windows) built into its price. Hence, remarks about the > ``Microsoft Tax''. > Once this happens, adding any other OS, no matter what > (>= 0) its price, means more effort for the manufacturer. > It raises the cost of the sale, and Linux is frozen out by > economics. Thats a very fine point, I totally agree! What I am wondering is when will the lost sales to consumers who want Gnu/Linux on their boxes will outway the extra cost. In other words at what cost say Gnu/linux offer >= lost sales. I do think the Windows tax is a perceived cost even as you so pointed out might not be a factual one. I think that consumers, expect to see a Gnu/Linux system to be cheaper. So if I was Dell I would offer a base model about 15-30 dollars cheaper then a similar Windows box let the consumer choose the addons. I bet the increase in volume sales would make up for poor product margins. I just hope that HP will get into somewhat of a marketing war with Dell, see who can have the best Gnu/Linux offer. One good thing that I see come out of this is good Gnu/Linux hardware support. If this catches on, has some good volumes you might see Windows only hardware support decline as it would be much cheaper just to use Gnu/Linux. The cost to certify hardware for Windows might make that choice easy, when a company knows they will not sell hardware to Gnu/Linux and only have Windows they might change behavior. In fact you might see a reversal instead of having hardware support for Windows, you will have it for Gnu/Linux, then you have to add the cost of all the different versions of Windows ie 64 bit Vista, 32 bit XP on and on. Gnu_Raiz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]