[Wolves] MS tightens the screw

[Peter Cannon]

On Thursday 06 April 2006 07:15, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:

> Yes, they seem rather scared about the loss of market-share.
>
> It's a very interesting situation, because it appears to be almost
> desperate.  The very idea of having little "advice gurus" running around
> telling businesses not to miss 5% software sale revenue shows that MS
> must have worrying statistics somewhere regarding this.

Come on Shane lets talk turkey here, these advice Gurus and not about advice 
at all! they are Monitors! You and I both know their remit will be to go 
around the country/s computer system resellers to try and buy Linux machines 
something along the lines of a mystery shopper.

They'll then report back to HQ  who in turn will then ring the outlet
"You sold an Ubuntu machine on such and such day if you continue we will have 
no choice but to........"

Before anyone says that's a bit far fetched 18 months ago a guy turned up at 
our offices it turned out he was a local solicitor (Wolverhampton funnily 
enough) working on behalf of Microsoft  it transpired that we had purchased 
software from a company in London which was selling dubious MS products.

The guy had written records of conversations e.g. notes from a database with 
mine and others names on and what we had said. There was no action to be 
taken other than a warning accompanied with a warning letter.

So if they can go to the trouble of sending a solicitor traipsing round the 
West Midlands just to warn resellers sending two lads around the UK with a 
few hundred quid in their pockets is chicken feed to them.

> HP already ships computers in China and some parts of Europe with
> FreeDOS.  Dell is shipping Linux.  A certain tide is turning.

I'll stop you there, I have just placed an order with Dell for a Rackmount Red 
Hat server with 3 years RHN the Dell web site has lots of hurdles warning you 
that they recommend/promote the use Microsoft products even when ordering it 
my Director was quizzed as to wether the OS was what he really wanted.

Dell and HP are probably in the fortunate position to temporarily hold off any 
potential pressure by MS but I bet if push came to shove we both know the 
outcome.

I think I need to make it clear I don't have the rabid hatred for Microsoft 
that others do, 98% of my working day is selling MS based solutions.

-- 
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"