3 ms·

I doubt their reasons but not necessarily their conclusions. Breaking in to the laptop market seems fiendishly hard, at least due to economies of scale. Sure, 1

by marcusf 14y ago

I doubt their reasons but not necessarily their conclusions. Breaking in to the laptop market seems fiendishly hard, at least due to economies of scale. Sure, 10% might be willing to buy a Linux laptop, but at what markup? When do you just say sod it and buy a Windows laptop to re-install. And from what I gather, Windows is so highly subsidized for OEM vendors that the cost is really negligible. Further, it seems like the 10% savvy enough to want Linux won't be a perfect subset of the people buying laptops from brick and mortar retailers any way. Breaking in to the market would require a lot of other stuff, not necessarily retail (e.g. an efficient supply chain, direct sales to corporate, quality laptop builds, ...).

brudgers 14y ago
At the retail level, it has nothing to do with economies of scale. It's all about margin. Assuming it takes the same resources to sell a Linux box as it does to sell a Windows box (which is probably a bad assumption), then the lower price of the Linux box means less profit at a given margin. It's not Microsoft that's preventing reseller's from offering discounts for Linux, it's basic retailing economics. There's probably only ten or twenty dollars difference at retail when it comes to Linux v. windows when all the factors are considered. It's not as if Linux machines are cheaper in logistics or take up less display space.