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I believe the idea is that Windows laptop makers make more money from preinstalled bloatware (McAfee, Candy Crush, etc.) than the cost of the OEM Windows licens

I believe the idea is that Windows laptop makers make more money from preinstalled bloatware (McAfee, Candy Crush, etc.) than the cost of the OEM Windows license. So if they ship the laptop with Linux which doesn't support the bloatware then they don't make as much money as compared to the Windows version at the same price.

hnlmorg 5y ago
Not just this, though this is a big factor. Often there will be hardware differences too. For example a Linux laptop might run more expensive hardware simply because it has better support with open source drivers (thus satisfies Debian et al users). Whereas a fair number of Linux users are more than happy to run closed proprietary binaries instead. So often Linux certified laptops will be different hardware to their Windows counterparts rather than just Windows machines shipped without an OS. Then you also have the economics of scale where building a laptop for 1k customers would work out more expensive (price per laptop) than building the same laptop for 100k customers.