5 ms·
An extra point is that OEMs charge to distribute third-party software, which is usually called crapware. If you install a lot of crapware, you can reduce the co
by scholia 10y ago
An extra point is that OEMs charge to distribute third-party software, which is usually called crapware. If you install a lot of crapware, you can reduce the cost of Windows close to zero. That's why OEMs do it even though users don't like it.
If one of your users subscribes to the bundled AV software then you can make a recurring income from Windows that can be larger than the profit you made on the hardware.
Offering Linux as well as Windows just increases costs. There's the extra hardware qualification, sourcing drivers etc, extra stock-keeping and distribution costs, and extra advertising costs. You may have to do that across dozens of languages for over 100 countries.
Ad costs can be significant because Microsoft and Intel provide advertising support, discounts or kickbacks for including phrases like "MightyCorp recommends Windows 10" in your adverts. Microsoft isn't going to pay out if your ad includes Linux.
If you survive that, you have to survive the cost of support and/or returns. When your user base has a vague idea how to use Windows, and zero idea of how to use Linux, that's a killer. One "support incident" kills any profits from at least five sales.
- shmerl 10y agoAll this is a poor excuse for perpetuating monopoly, which should be simply illegal.
- marvy 10y agoThe thing that should be illegal is the kind of secret deals that MS makes with PC manufacturers; see this for example: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsof...
- shmerl 10y agoIndeed.
- scholia 10y agoThe 1990s called, they want their anti-Microsoft bigotry back.
- marvy 10y agoBut this hasn't changed since the 90s, has it?
- scholia 10y agoOne of the conditions imposed by the US Justice Department in the anti-trust settlement was that Microsoft was prevented from doing separate deals with all the main manufacturers. That was probably in place for a dozen years. Did you see what a difference it made? You didn't, so I'll tell you: it pushed up the average price of Windows and made Microsoft more profitable.
- scholia 10y agoWhat, like the Android monopoly, the Google monopoly, the Facebook monopoly, and so on? Please look up power laws... Microsoft won the market fair and square (against an even more evil and much larger monopolist), and Linux has been built on the market created by Microsoft's de facto standards and the economies of scale that Windows has generated.
- marvy 10y agoDid you read the article I linked to? It wasn't fair and square. MS gave the PC makers a discount with strings attached: don't sell PCs that can dual-boot into another OS. I think you can agree this is pretty anti-competitive behavior.
- scholia 10y agoNo, I certainly don't agree with that. Anybody can dual boot their PC, if they install the second OS themselves. Apple took exactly the same view of BeOS, which had failed to sell BeBoxes. All discounts have strings attached. You either want the deal or you don't. "Anti-competitive" in this case simply means "not giving the competition a free ride". Companies tried to sell Linux and Unix PCs in competition with Windows, and they failed. Some went out of business. IBM tried to sell OS/2 systems and failed -- it ended up paying to have OS/2 taken off its PCs and Windows installed, even though OS/2 ran Windows. Apple ended up getting bailed out by Microsoft just to keep it alive. You can lie to yourself for as long as you like, but it would be better to face the fact that people wanted Windows, and they didn't want the alternatives available at the time.