[SLUG] Re: ?180!

[Bob Garrood]

Hi

This reminded me of an earlier thread.  I extracted this from the ebuyer 
website.

 "***Amazing Price*** eSys ePC Celeron-D 315 2.26GHz 256MB 40GB CD LAN 
Mandrake V9.2 + Open Office Software
 £131.95
£155.05 inc VAT"

A little lower down the page they also offer:

 "Microsoft OEM Windows XP Home Edition SP2 - 1Pk
 £50.05
£58.81 inc VAT"

Conditions are at the bottom of the page:

"Microsoft OEM Operating system software MUST be purchased with a 
non-peripheral hardware component or fully assembled computer system. 
Non-peripheral hardware consists of a motherboard, graphics card, memory 
module, hard disk, keyboard or mouse. Full retail boxed products must be 
ordered if no hardware/PC system is to accompany the sale. 
****** Please Note the Licence Key is on a sticker on the Outer packaging. Do 
not discard ******"

Here are 2 typical reviews:

"Got mine yesterday as a replacement for a worn out office machine. Droped 
(sic) in XP and the drivers and it has performed v well.
 
 Bad points.
 
 No keyboard in the box. I am waiting for enotes to sort one out.
 Needs a bit more memory prob another 256 will make all the difference if you 
want to run XP.
 
 If you have the OS and don\'t need any bells and whistles then this is a 
cheap buy.
 
 I paid £140 inc vat so it has gone up £20 today."


"The hardware on this machine is excellent. It is a very good machine, however 
the software, Mandrake 9.2 and OpenOffice 1.1.0 is old and out of date. I 
have partitioned the drive and put later versions of GNU/Linux on it which 
work perfectly on 256Mb, more memory not needed.
 
 I will not be infecting the PC with any rubbish expensive proprietary 
Microsoft products and the associated viruses, worms, and trojans." 

Does this have anything to do with the problems the EU is having persuading MS 
to sell windows without a media player?  See
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1814542,00.html


Bob