23 ms·
OEM: Let's differentiate our otherwise commodity hw product! OEM: I know, let's add value with bundled software the customer can't uninstall! T
by cryptonector 8y ago
OEM: Let's differentiate our otherwise
commodity hw product!
OEM: I know, let's add value with bundled
software the customer can't uninstall!
Then the bundled software turns out to (inevitably) be useless vulnerable garbage. Inevitably because a) the customer doesn't need it, b) it's engineered with all the effort that normally goes into adware for captive audiences (i.e., _minimal_), which means it will be vulnerable.
Here's an idea:
OEM: Let's differentiate our otherwise
commodity hw product!
OEM: Let's add NO bundled software.
That would be fantastic.
- mro_master 8y agoYou forgot the last part: OEM: Profit
- agumonkey 8y agoit's almost a psychology experiment where brands con you just enough and let you absorb the pain long enough that they forgot and start browsing for a new machine, repeating the cycle
- mro_master 8y agoBut then the engineer in you says "I'll objectively choose the best hardware", and you end up with another lenovo. I really think it is the Windows Wizard Warriors that complain about bloatware, I always wipe it and start with a fresh install.
- bayareanative 8y agoI don't use Windows, but Lenovos ship without any bloatware. Vanilla Windows plus their drivers. That's it.
- agumonkey 8y agoThey used to have malware/rootkits class programs preinstalled not long ago. Unless you mean thinkpads.
- cryptonector 8y agoThat doesn't happen in the first case. The second case costs less in terms of engineering and PR/reputation, so there's more profit there.
- hammock 8y agoTell that to Pixel.
- tssva 8y agoThe author chose to download the software from the OEM and the software can be uninstalled.
- cryptonector 8y agoMy impression was that a normal user wouldn't know not to take the offer, but fair point.
- mwexler 8y agoDell SupportAssistant was preinstalled on my machine. It was the easiest way to find Dell's customized driver updates since they are difficult to find (which of the many network drivers does my machine need?). It's sad that it has problems, but it's supposed to make maintenance easier. HP has something similar.
- DKnoll 8y agoYou only have that issue if you search by the model of your PC. For Dell, search by the service tag (short string of letters and numbers) and you will get the drivers for only the hardware that PC shipped with. For HP enter the serial number.
- tssva 8y agoIt may come preinstalled but in this case the author wiped the computer, reinstalled Windows and then voluntarily installed the software while visiting the Dell support site checking for updated drivers. It is also able to be uninstalled which the original comment suggested it could not be.
- cryptonector 8y agoBecause the author was doing research? Come on.
- tssva 8y agoAccording to the article the author wasn't doing research when first downloading and installing the application.
- cheerlessbog 8y agoPlus, once it's gotten on the machine, why bother to patch it? You've achieved your goal and it was most likely written to spec by a vendor who has already been paid and moved on.
- zanny 8y agoIn both the phone and PC space I do not understand the need to do this at all. There is commoditization of the market on the low end, but high end products that compete with iphones and macbooks are definitely not commodity and there is ample differentiation to be had on quality where mindshare can reap substantial margins on a smart investment of good design.
- flattone 8y agodo not understand the not understanding that businesses seem to exist to monetize every possible aspect of their existence.
- cryptonector 8y agoAny business (individual persons too!) has at least some conflicting goals and trade-offs to make. E.g., profit now, or profit later? The one in this thread is exactly that sort of trade-off: monetize consumer data vs. optimize for reputation. It's not like reputation has no value. Reputation is an intangible. You'll be able to put a fairly accurate dollar value on reputation after ruining it, but you should be able to estimate it before trying to ruin it. Problem is, intangibles have an out-of-sight, out-of-mind effect going on: because you don't see them when putting a dollar value on tangible things, you tend to ignore the intangibles. Companies often find this out the hard way and end up taking tremendous PR damage. Remember United's PR damage when they had to have cops drag a passenger off the plane because they wanted to "bump" him? Yeah. That sort of thing. Or perhaps the 737-MAX saga. Or any number of such events.
- naikrovek 8y agoThere is no need for this stuff, of course. It's added because marketing want to improve the company's image in the eye of Joe/Jane Consumer, and probably someone in a support organization was honestly trying to make a customer's life easier. It was just implemented poorly. The day that hardware vendors get over the idea that they need to "add value" to software that they resell will be a very good day for everyone.
- 8y ago
- swsieber 8y agoReally, I thought it was OEM: Let's make more money. OEM: We can sell out our users while claiming we aren't.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoIt's odd how powerful MS is in this equation, and how the don't step in and add some sanity. It's possible to have pre-loaded software without ruining everything.
- cryptonector 8y agoRight? MSFT could easily put an end to this nonsense.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoThe reason they don't apparently is that this supply chain is their bread and butter, and they don't want to mess with it. But - I feel this is causing them harm in the long run. I feel that there is a mostly win-win were they to step in and just try to move against the bad shenanigans. I feel that even big companies like Dell, Sony etc. shoot themselves in the foot with this stupidity. I'm mac 10x years now, strongly looking for change, but I'm wary of that kind of Windows stupidity.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoDell sells to Enterprise A LOT. This sounds like a tool intended for behind-corporate-firewall deployment that got promoted to the public.
- danielhlockard 8y agoNo, this is a tool for consumers too, has been for a LONG LONG time
- killjoywashere 8y agoyep, I remember this at least as far back as 2003.
- killjoywashere 8y agoIf I were corporate IT, I would insist on rolling my own disk image starting from a "gold master" direct from Microsoft.
- triangleman 8y agoNo, they have other tools for enterprise, or in some IT departments buy third party tools off the shelf for this purpose.
- owenmarshall 8y agoEnterprises will absolutely want nothing to do with this; they’ll have a team that handles endpoint provisioning and management from a gold image & other distribution tools. The endpoints will be as homogeneous as humanly possible because they are all leased in huge bulk orders, so you won’t need a tool for diverse drivers. Besides, an end user will never have enough permission to download and install a driver - because if they did they’d be in a position to defeat the DLP, VPN posturing, shitty antivirus and disk encryption tools that have to be installed to satisfy the four nearly identical checklists produced by at least as many independent IT security organizations who most likely hired the same auditor multiple times. Small to mid sized businesses would probably be all over this though.
- LeoPanthera 8y agoIt works, too. This is partly why the iPhone was so popular, at first. It's been so long now that probably everyone has forgotten, but before the iPhone, essentially every smartphone on the market was fully loaded with trialware, crapware, and often had hardware features locked out by software so that you could pay extra to unlock them. I remember one particular phone that had four user-configurable hardware buttons, but Verizon had locked them down so that they all opened the Verizon ringtone store. The iPhone was a breath of fresh air if only for its software.
- cryptonector 8y agoExactly. Doing better by your customers is a differentiator. It's worked very well for Apple. Microsoft could easily take a consumer-friendly stance on OEMs preinstalling software. Microsoft please!
- mroche 8y agoMicrosoft themselves would have to practice that before they can preach it. All the start menu apps they try and force on users...
- cryptonector 8y agoMicrosoft is changing lately.
- saagarjha 8y agoThe Candy Crush in my fresh Windows install (using media downloaded straight from microsoft.com) suggests otherwise.
- rohit2412 8y ago> often had hardware features locked out by software so that you could pay extra to unlock them. Funny, apple did this to iPod touch
- throw_away 8y agoSecond product for this mythical OEM should just be a TV with an instant-on button and as many hdmi ports that will fit given a small-as-possible bezel. One model per year per common size->one price. Big sale on thanksgiving and then the slightly better ones come out.
- kbenson 8y ago> a TV with an instant-on button Please. I use a 4k TV as my computer monitor. It's works fairly well for that because I researched it and found a good fit, but I use a remote to start it every time, and it takes 15-20 seconds before it's ready to receive input. That's a long time to be sitting in front of your computer waiting, especially when it happens 3-10 times a day.
- lopmotr 8y agoI avoid those problems by never turning my TV or monitor off. It does mean they light up the room at night so it wouldn't work if you had it in a bedroom.
- dgzl 8y agoSeems like a huge waste of electricity.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y agoIt's because TVs have become computers with a display. Try an analog TV and you'll see real speed!
- ufo 8y agoI've heard that these exist,but are marked as “lcd pannels”, meant for displaying information in public places.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jtdev 8y agoOne of the many reasons I stopped buying Windows PCs and started buying Mac...
- baby 8y agoCan someone repost this with normal quotes? On my phone
- cryptonector 8y agoI wrapped it short so it would work on mobile. I guess it didn't.
- p_b_r 8y agoGates killed that idea dead, back in the 80's. EDS - Remember that big huge company H.Ross Perot Ran? - We TRIED to buy PCs from hardware vendors without Windows. They refused due to how Bill locked them into contracts. If it was to run Windows, then Windows was shipped with every single hardware sale. On the bill of lading. Government doesn't pay for stuff they don't use. Didn't want Windows if they were to run UNIX (Santa Cruz Operations XENIX System 5, to be precise). Wonder why some people at SCO went crazy and snorted their futures? Blame Bill.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoI was just setting up a slightly older System76 desktop this evening when I came across how they handle firmware updates [1]. That's very impressive to me, showing concern about only using blobs when there's no other option, being transparent about signing, and explaining their QA process, not to mention the whole utility being open-sourced. That's worlds ahead of any other OEM PC manufacturer I've ever seen. [1] https://github.com/system76/firmware-update https://github.com/system76/firmware-update
- pjmlp 8y agoSadly this is something as old as computing and I doubt it will ever change.
- raehik 8y agoSomehow I found this the other day when searching for a new laptop. 2 models, identical, one with Windows 10 pre-installed and one FreeDOS (of all OSes!). 100€ cheaper. Perhaps not to everyone, but that's a worthwhile difference to me as a non-Windows user.
- carboy 8y agoOEM: how can we make money on a commodity platform, when someone else controls most of the design parameters and they are dictated to us, and margins are razor thin, because most people who buy PC’s want to spend the least amount of money. OEM Sales: we have companies lining up to bundle software on our computers and they are all willing to big money to be bundled, and even more money to be bundled and not be removable. OEM: yay, we can be profitable!!!!! Not one person really thinks the bundled software is of any value, other than the cash the bundling fee generates. If it was illegal for OEM’s to bundle software you’d see even more contraction in the PC OEM market.