Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrysantine
Actually the consensus I've seen so far has been pretty positive from inside the IT people based in Europe.
I was hoping they'd make Microsoft pull out of Europe completely.
|
About the consensus, not only amongst my linux friends, but also amongst the windu IT people: same overhere. In fact most people agree that it's a start but not enough.
This is about the real problem: if I order a copy of Windows XP, MS charges me € 134,=. My regular IT shop offers the same computers incl. XP for under € 250,= , excl. XP for € 210,= There's no way the IT shop is financing the difference, so it must be some other party in the deal. An odd discrepancy.
During the last couple of years many big construction companies in the Netherlands have been heavily penalized for 'under the counter' price arrangements. A comparison between what these companies were trialled for and MS's pricing policy has been made a couple of times on tv and in the press.
What's being investigated now is this matter: If you don't sell all your hardware with our OS on it, we'll change our prices for what you do sell.
And the last sentence, I could not agree more. And yes, even if it's partly for emotional reasons (we'll show you our laws first, and you stick to them like any other company).
I hope this is only a start. Maybe one day, a newly bought computer boots with one menu (figures are fictional):
Select OS to install:
- Windows 7 ( € 134,= license fee )
- OSX ( € 159,= license fee )
- Ubuntu Linux ( no charges )
- openSUSE Linux (no charges )
- Other Linux
The machine would then download an image and perform an automated install finishing with the creation of a first user.