[Wolves] Re: MS tightens the screw

[Peter Cannon]

On Friday 07 April 2006 10:07, Stuart Langridge wrote:

> More to the point, that's not really what MS say. What they say is
> "You can resell Windows, and you get to buy it for OEM prices; if you
> start selling Linux machines then you have to pay retail price for
> Windows."

Yes you are right however there is a clouding of the issue which people need 
to see through to understand whats going on even if they think they do 
understand.

MS is, or least should be, nothing whatsoever to do with hardware MS never 
said "You can only put this on Compaq machines" they said "Here's a product 
that will run on anything. On their own both items are useless they both go 
hand in hand to make each other functional.

If you have an outlet selling purely software theres no problem for you as MS 
cant really stop you/affect your business by withdrawing supply of the retail 
boxed product, this would be silly on the part of MS as they would be doing 
themselves out of a higher revenue stream than they command on OEM.

If you sell Computers then you are very much at the mercy of MS as you rightly 
say they can refuse you OEM licenses and discs. Now that in itself may not 
stop you from selling computers it will make you more expensive but you may 
have a loyal customer base who are prepaired to pay the extra even word of 
mouth "Look go to Dick Turpin, hes not the cheapest but his stuff is good and 
the support is brilliant"

Everyone can gnash their teeth, throw their rattles across the room and have a 
temper tantrum but having to take down all references to Microsoft from say 
your shop front, removing all logos from stationary not getting the free full 
software that we get so that we can train our sales team and evaluated those 
products will affect any IT business.

The killer question from a customer will be "Don't you sell MS Windows?"

My own personal view is I don't care what MS does they can lock down the OS 
tighter than a ducks bum for all I care, keep all the code, drivers and 
anything else secret its their product so why not protect it what I do care 
about is a SOFTWARE producer trying to control what I run on MY computer.

If I was one of those conspiracy theory freaks I'd be saying Dell & MS are in 
cahoots and are trying to make the world a one OS & one Machine society.

To say as a defense "Ah but Peter Dell are selling Linux machines" is naive at 
best, never played chess? You sacrifice pieces to win the game.

I am an authorised Dell reseller I will tell you for a fact, three years ago 
(and this may still be in effect) Dell's sales were based on units out the 
door NOT on profit made so units went out the door at cost and in some cases 
below cost. the ultimate goal is to dominate the market by forcing smaller 
outlets out of business once supremacy is established....... Yet I don't here 
anyone attacking Dell with the same venom they attack MS with which I find 
strange as in my book they both do the same.

It's a thought :)

-- 
Regards
Peter Cannon
FC5 & SuSE10
Jabber:highwayman.turpin at gmail.com

"There is every excuse for not knowing
 There is no excuse for not asking"