[sclug] Using open source to make money on generic PCs (article)

[Roland Turner SCLUG]

On Mon, 2006-06-12 at 13:46 +0100, Alex Butcher wrote:

> Before I answer, I'd like to thank you for asking these questions as they
> made me think about where my objection lies. In essence, it's with the issue

You're welcome. This was more or less my hope.

> of *leverage*; is the vendor just acting as a distribution vector and taking
> their 5% for doing so, or are they selling FOSS as a way of leveraging sales
> of other (usually more profitable) products.
>...
> linux-laptop.net-style HOWTOs). If they were just shipping any old
> half-arsed barely-functional crap in a beige box, then they're extracting
> the urine, doubly so if the markup approaches or exceeds 100%. :-]

Understood and agreed, except that, captive customer/market situations
aside, any vendor doing this would most likely put itself out of
business quickly. This applies both to boutique markets (selling to a
small market like Linux desktop users, where bad news travels very fast)
and even more so to mass markets (where support problems == commercial
suicide; see also IBM's exit from the entire hard drive business on the
back of a single dud product). Consequently, it's not a situation that
bothers me too much.

The corollary for anyone planning to run a business doing this is pretty
straightforward: make good products or go broke!

- Raz