Comments on: A Laptop for Developers without paying The Windows Tax

By: Tdruo

Tdruo — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:59:00 +0000

By: Joomla Mart

Joomla Mart — Sun, 02 May 2010 14:30:46 +0000

I bought a Compaq CQ 40 last month. It had only licensed DOS installed on it, so i had to pay again for the windows license.

By: Joomla Mart

Joomla Mart — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:30:00 +0000

I bought a Compaq CQ 40 last month. It had only licensed DOS installed on it, so i had to pay again for the windows license.

By: erkin tek

erkin tek — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:34:25 +0000

Hi,
we linux users won a trial. When purchasing we are obligation to buy op.sys inside. Many producer provide freedos or a kind of linux.But specially recently we got so little choice . An advocate sued the firm he bought his computer and he could withdraw (take the money out of firm) of windows.

I guess microsoft makes deals with dealers,

By: Reggie Burnett

Reggie Burnett — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:53:54 +0000

Jay

You’re wrong about this. In today’s market vendors will do just about anything to get ahead of their competitors. If linux laptops were selling in any numbers they would be offering them. I don’t think MS is doing much bullying these days. They don’t have to. Windows 7 is selling like gangbusters and they know that the vast majority of all laptops sold will include Windows by customers choice anyway.

The real reason is support. These vendors have to support their devices. It’s hard to just sell a bare machine because then they have no idea what you will put on it. Then they are forced to not really support it at all. That’s ok for geeks like us but for most, that just doesn’t work. Linux is hard for vendors too because of all the variants. Yes, they all have a very similar kernel but there are way too many variants. They can’t possibly support all of them and once again they are back in the no support camp. It’s for this reason they don’t want new versions of Windows any more often than every 2-3 years.

If there were a single very dominant flavor of Linux that didn’t change every 2-3 months so that the vendor could feel good about supporting it on their hardware then they could offer it. Then it would just be whether or not people buy it.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:32:29 +0000

I think the best way to remove the “windows tax”, is by getting a new and discounted vista laptop.

I found quite a few of those that companies are trying to get rid of. I got almost a 30% discount on a Lenovo U350.

By: Vladislav Vaintroub

Vladislav Vaintroub — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:06:06 +0000

@Robert,
sounds like a good box, from HW point of view. I would buy it, disregarding OS is being preinstalled. Actually I think geeks would prefer to pay 20$ less and get an OS-less box – they would always want to completely reconfigure the machine according to their personal preferences.

By: Robert Hodges

Robert Hodges — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:18:53 +0000

@Vladislav. Thanks for the correction; I have to read comments more carefully. What I really meant to say what that I think you can have a successful business selling decent Linux systems but you have to focus on it. I get the impression that Linux machines other than servers are regarded as a distraction by people within Dell and Lenovo because they don’t have the right marketing and product engineering focus to pull down much business. It’s no wonder they don’t make money.

If it were my business I would focus on high end developer/engineering Linux laptops and desktops–kinda like Alienware for Nerds. Xen pre-installed, SSD, 8GB ram, nice ergonomics, etc. I would buy that machine. Would you?

By: Ronald Bradford

Ronald Bradford — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:09:20 +0000

I was just looking at Lenovo laptops yesterday, given a like $500 off discount code.

I was disappointed there is not a NO OS option.

By: Vladislav Vaintroub

Vladislav Vaintroub — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:41:07 +0000

@Robert: I have not said Linux is more expensive. But I do believe that a company like Lenovo could have saved a couple of bucks eliminating Linux on laptop from their offering, because it did not sell as well as they hoped for. For me it sounds like a more natural explanation than Microsoft making pressure on partners to sell Windows.