The OEM barrier is falling: Open Letter to Dell

Dear Dell,

I have been actively reading your Dell Ideastorm forums and was excited to see your announcements about moving forward offering Linux pre-installed. This action on your part will position your company to reap the benefits from the open source enthusiast community. With that said, like most who post in your forums I have advice, feedback, etc, that I have outlined below.

Laptop's without an OS

I understand and applaud you for offering some models without an OS (and more to come) and understand that this is the best you can do. If you pre-install any OS, Linux, BSD, etc, you are bound and forced to pay Microsoft anyway. Being forced to pay MS AND installing Linux on the laptop diminishes your margins even more in a fiercely competitive market. Unfortunately, for the consumer, even those well versed in Linux must go through the process of installing the distro, tweaking it to work, and configuring it completely before they can move on to the computing experience. There are also the unknowns such as "Does Wireless Work with Ubuntu?", "Can I run 3D accelerated with OpenSuse?", etc.

There is an interim solution that enables you to preserve your profit margin and virtually eliminate the problems above. As you mentioned, you are working with Novel to certify Suse on some of your desktops. Why not embrace the give and take with the open source community even more.

If you were to send me a Dell D620 (what I am writing this on right now in Mandriva 2007), I could pre-install it, tweak it with the required 915Resolution patch, set the BIOS to allow for seamless docking station operation and ship it back. Poof, you have a disk image for the D620 line. You can then create a new installable DVD from the HD (it would only 1/2 fill a single DVD). You offer this DVD to your customers when they purchase the Dell with FreeDos.

Upsides
1) No MS tax
2) Customers know that everything will "just work" when they install the image
3) Customers have the DVD image, they can restore their PC to "factory" settings in 30 minutes.
4) You, literally, have to do nothing to get your laptop certified, get an image, and heck, I'll even throw in the imaged DVD for you.

Downsides
1) I can't think of any.

Now, on a serious note, I don't expect you to ship me a laptop to pre-configure it, however, why not place the call to Mandriva, Ubuntu, FreeSpire, Xandros, etc. You probably would not even have to lend them laptops. You ask them to pre-configure their distro, exactly the way they want, pre-configured, and send you the D620 DVD, or D480 DVD and so on down the line.

On your web site, you openly have an option on all your laptops (for which you have images created) to ship without an OS pre-installed. You then have the customer select the Linux Image DVD they would like. I can see it now.

$799 for XYZ, choose an OS DVD.

1) Linspire with Crossover prepaid $45
2) Mandriva with Club Membership for a year $45
3) Xandros with Crossover and 6 months support $60
4) Ubuntu $0
5) SLED $60

Well, you get the idea.

Desktops

There is no reason you can't offer the same program with Desktops, however, pre-installing any Linux version is great. There are pricing problems as pointed out throughout your forums. In many cases the pre-installed Linux PC costs more than the equivalent Windows installed PC. There are also cases where OS free PCs cost more than the equivalent Windows installed PC.

Again, I do understand the problems you have the MS tax. If any OS is installed, per your OEM agreement, you must pay MS, even when Windows is not installed. To make the purchasing process equivalent, and to realize more sales for you and price savings for the Linux enthusiast, selling your desktops with the same type of imaged DVD would likely be a positive first step.

You see, the number one hindrance to purchasing a PC from a large OEM vendor wihtout a brick and mortar store locally is two fold.
1) We don't want to be forced to pay MS for their operating system that we will not use and
2) We have to spend a lot of time making sure the PC we buy, everything "just works".

For me, I stuck the Mandrake Live CD in a co-worker's machine, and there it was, everything working or not working for me to see. Many Linux users will literally, bring a live CD to the store to dry-run the desktop/laptop they are looking at purchasing. With your machines, that is not an option, and the uncertainty factor certainly hinders your direct sales to the Linux community.

I think you will quickly find that, if you offer to sell it any preconfigured distro CD/DVD with any of your blank laptop/desktop computers, but ask the CD/DVD to be supplied, the response will be overwhelmingly positive and swift from the community and Linux distribution suppliers. It is truly Win-Win-Win (Dell-Supplier-Customer). I buy desktop X, ask for Suse 10.2 and you include the DVD Novel supplied you, leave it in the drive, and on first power on, it installs, and everything "just works"

TripleII

P.S. Mandriva 2007 on D620, 1440X900 works great. 1024X768 on boot up, set your resolution to 1440x900 then click on "configure X-Server". It will ask you to install the 915Resolution fix. That gets you out of 1024X768 expanded mode on your screen. 3D acceleration, 3D effects and ~1500 with glxgears. If using dock, set BIOS to "Internal video card when docked".