Re: [MLUG] Mac moving to Intel

[Vern Green <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

The reason most computer manufacturers never offered al alternative OS
was because of Microsoft.

This is where the real anti-trust story was. Microsoft used to hold
the Windows OS hostage. If you did not sell Windows on the desktop and
Windows only, then you would not get preferred status and would have
to pay more for the OS, this placed companies like Dell and Compaq at
a competitive disadvantage for 99% of the computers they sold.

Thus, you could not buy a computer without an operating system.
Eventually Dell got the price of the hardware down to a point and got
large enough they could tell Microsoft to shove it.

Dell offers their "N" line of desktops for those companies that want
to use something different, they do not offer them at the Home user
level as far as I know, (even though a home user could buy from the
office section).

Interestingly enough, you do not save any money buying without an OS
on it. The Dminesion 2400n costs the same or more than the Dimension
2400. So Dell really is not doing anything different without putting
on an OS.

Workstations are a different animal, and those indeed can be bought
with Red Hat pre-installed. Interestingly enough, if you try and
customize the workstations to build your own, the option for Linux
goes away.

On 6/6/05, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Jun 2005, Vern Green wrote:
> 
> > Dell puts Linux on servers, you can still order desktops with no OS
> > installed as well. I have not noticed Desktops sold with Linux though.
> 
> I'm pretty sure you are right - Dell only sold Red Hat on servers.
> 
> Still, if they would do that, why wouldn't they sell OS X on desktop
> machines?  I think it is quite possible that they will do it one day.
> 
> Mike
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-- 
Thanks
F Vernon Green

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