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> There's enough demand for prebuilt Linux machines to meaningfully reduce your Windows sales such that you fall into a different discount bracket That's the e

> There's enough demand for prebuilt Linux machines to meaningfully reduce your Windows sales such that you fall into a different discount bracket That's the easy one to satisfy when Microsoft is tailoring your discount bracket to be just below your predicted total sales numbers. > A sufficient percentage of those (apparently significant number of) people who want a Linux box will fall back on Windows rather than looking for another OEM. Millions of people need a machine to do basic web and email, so they go to Best Buy or similar and buy whatever is on the shelf. They have only weak preferences in either direction and then get Windows by default. Look at what happened when Google started paying for a tiny bit of shelf space for Chromebooks. Suddenly they're a percentage of the market proportional to how much shelf space they bought. If people actually had a preference for Windows, shouldn't they have rejected those instead of grabbing them off the shelves in proportion to how many of the machines in stock were Chromebooks?

lolinder 2y ago
> That's the easy one to satisfy when Microsoft is tailoring your discount bracket to be just below your predicted total sales numbers. This is rank speculation, and I don't see any reason to believe that Microsoft would need to do this in order to see what we're seeing in the market. Low demand is a much simpler explanation that does suffice (unless you have evidence that it does not suffice?). > They have only weak preferences in either direction and then get Windows by default. They have a strong preference for a machine that just does what it's supposed to do without maintenance. Aside from Chromebooks, Linux is not that at the moment. Best Buy in turn has a strong preference for people not returning their machines angrily. Chromebooks are an exception because they're nominally Linux but the interface presented to users is basically just Chrome. They actually are a general consumer device, which is not what OP is asking for.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > This is rank speculation It's the thing that came out in the anti-trust trial. > Low demand is a much simpler explanation that does suffice If demand is low then why does Linux market share keep growing despite the low level of promotion or retail availability? > They have a strong preference for a machine that just does what it's supposed to do without maintenance. Aside from Chromebooks, Linux is not that at the moment. ChromeOS is just a Linux distribution (Debian derivative?) with a UI that emphasizes Chrome. You can run some rolling release distribution if you want to risk breakage in exchange for bleeding edge versions of packages, but there are plenty of boring LTS distributions that require less maintenance than Windows does.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > It's the thing that came out in the anti-trust trial. The one from 2001? I thought we were talking about the conditions today. > If demand is low then why does Linux market share keep growing despite the low level of promotion or retail availability? Because it counts Chromebooks, Android, and Steam OS. Which is fair, those count as wins for Linux, but those also aren't what OP is asking about when they say that they can't find Linux machines. The only kind of Linux machine they can't find is the kind that comes with a distro that is built for power users.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > The one from 2001? I thought we were talking about the conditions today. They arrived at a weak settlement in that case and have been largely ignored since. Why would they have stopped instead of just being more subtle about it? Also, if they weren't still doing it then why don't major Windows OEMs also promote Linux machines when non-Windows OEMs do? Specialization doesn't really explain this; they sell Linux machines but don't promote them, so whatever fixed costs they have to pay to do that, they're already paying. > Because it counts Chromebooks, Android, and Steam OS. It doesn't. Android has basically zero PC market share, ChromeOS is almost 2% by itself, but regular old desktop Linux is up from ~1% to ~4.5% over the last few years (and it's 6% if you count ChromeOS). Steam OS is a pretty decent proportion of Linux gaming systems, but most Linux PCs aren't gaming PCs.
scarface_74 2y ago
> That's the easy one to satisfy when Microsoft is tailoring your discount bracket to be just below your predicted total sales numbers. And selling 4% less is going to put them in a different “bracket”? > Millions of people need a machine to do basic web and email, so they go to Best Buy or similar and buy whatever is on the shelf. They have only weak preferences in either direction and then get Windows by default. Until they realize that the computer they bought can’t run any of their software and they try to return it or get help from the “Geek Squad”. > Look at what happened when Google started paying for a tiny bit of shelf space for Chromebooks. Suddenly they're a percentage of the market proportional to how much shelf space they bought Chromebooks have around 2% market share and most of that is schools buying them in bulk. Normal people aren’t choosing Chromebooks. How many college students do you see buying them? 70% are buying Macs

lolinder 2y ago

> That's the easy one to satisfy when Microsoft is tailoring your discount bracket to be just below your predicted total sales numbers. This is rank speculation, and I don't see any reason to believe that Microsoft would need to do this in order to see what we're seeing in the market. Low demand is a much simpler explanation that does suffice (unless you have evidence that it does not suffice?). > They have only weak preferences in either direction and then get Windows by default. They have a strong preference for a machine that just does what it's supposed to do without maintenance. Aside from Chromebooks, Linux is not that at the moment. Best Buy in turn has a strong preference for people not returning their machines angrily. Chromebooks are an exception because they're nominally Linux but the interface presented to users is basically just Chrome. They actually are a general consumer device, which is not what OP is asking for.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> This is rank speculation It's the thing that came out in the anti-trust trial. > Low demand is a much simpler explanation that does suffice If demand is low then why does Linux market share keep growing despite the low level of promotion or retail availability? > They have a strong preference for a machine that just does what it's supposed to do without maintenance. Aside from Chromebooks, Linux is not that at the moment. ChromeOS is just a Linux distribution (Debian derivative?) with a UI that emphasizes Chrome. You can run some rolling release distribution if you want to risk breakage in exchange for bleeding edge versions of packages, but there are plenty of boring LTS distributions that require less maintenance than Windows does.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > It's the thing that came out in the anti-trust trial. The one from 2001? I thought we were talking about the conditions today. > If demand is low then why does Linux market share keep growing despite the low level of promotion or retail availability? Because it counts Chromebooks, Android, and Steam OS. Which is fair, those count as wins for Linux, but those also aren't what OP is asking about when they say that they can't find Linux machines. The only kind of Linux machine they can't find is the kind that comes with a distro that is built for power users.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > The one from 2001? I thought we were talking about the conditions today. They arrived at a weak settlement in that case and have been largely ignored since. Why would they have stopped instead of just being more subtle about it? Also, if they weren't still doing it then why don't major Windows OEMs also promote Linux machines when non-Windows OEMs do? Specialization doesn't really explain this; they sell Linux machines but don't promote them, so whatever fixed costs they have to pay to do that, they're already paying. > Because it counts Chromebooks, Android, and Steam OS. It doesn't. Android has basically zero PC market share, ChromeOS is almost 2% by itself, but regular old desktop Linux is up from ~1% to ~4.5% over the last few years (and it's 6% if you count ChromeOS). Steam OS is a pretty decent proportion of Linux gaming systems, but most Linux PCs aren't gaming PCs.

scarface_74 2y ago

> That's the easy one to satisfy when Microsoft is tailoring your discount bracket to be just below your predicted total sales numbers. And selling 4% less is going to put them in a different “bracket”? > Millions of people need a machine to do basic web and email, so they go to Best Buy or similar and buy whatever is on the shelf. They have only weak preferences in either direction and then get Windows by default. Until they realize that the computer they bought can’t run any of their software and they try to return it or get help from the “Geek Squad”. > Look at what happened when Google started paying for a tiny bit of shelf space for Chromebooks. Suddenly they're a percentage of the market proportional to how much shelf space they bought Chromebooks have around 2% market share and most of that is schools buying them in bulk. Normal people aren’t choosing Chromebooks. How many college students do you see buying them? 70% are buying Macs