Linux vs Windows - Conquering a Windows Based World

Dell has  announced plans to expand its linux offerings to small business and will also offer the systems internationally.  Covered at a dell company blog by Lionel Menchaca

“Dell does have plans to offer Linux to more consumers in additional locations outside the United States. More details to come later this summer. We will also offer Ubuntu to small business customers in the future. As soon as we have more details to share, I’ll blog about both topics here. “

Covered at Computer World

“The PCs will be available in the U.S. after 4 p.m. Central Time from Dell’s Web site at http://www.dell.com/open. The laptop starts at US$599, while the two desktops, the Dimension E520 and XPS 410n, start from $599 and $849 each, respectively. A comparable XPS 410 with Windows Vista Premium costs $899.”

Straight from the Dell Forum.

“Dell is going to offer Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn as part of an overall effort to update our Linux program. Today we are announcing a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu on select consumer desktop and notebook products.”

After hearing about Michael Dell using Ubuntu on his laptop, this should come as no surprise.

“While unable to confirm this through official Dell channels, we have heard the same story now from several internal Dell sources. They tell us that the Austin, Texas, computer giant will be preinstalling the newly released Ubuntu 7.04. These systems will be released in late May 2007.” 

If you’re in China you can buy Dell Dimension C51-n computer with Athlon64 for around $600. Covered by Phil Hochmuth at Network World.

“Dell appears to be trying to upstage China-based Lenovo, the former PC/laptop division of IBM, which was sold off in 2004. Lenovo currently offers no low-cost Linux machines in China ”

Straight from DELL March 28 2007.

Dell says we hear you!

Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today.

This could be the tipping point. Expect a flurry of press from Redmond to counter this.

HP is already shipping thousands of Linux desktops, and is in the process of making additional massive multi-thousand unit deals. This is covered www.crn.com by Edward Moltzen.

“We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard,” said Doug Small, worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing at HP. “We are in a massive deal right now for … multi-thousands of units of a desktop opportunity for Linux. That’s an indicator.” He declined to give details about the Linux deals.

HP just might beat Dell to the general desktop market with a Linux Desktop.

The Dell IdeaStorm site which was launched on Friday , has already had 63,000 users request Linux to be pre-installed on their desktops rather than Windows.

Never thought I would see the day.  Dell is selling computers without Microsoft Windows.  Don’t believe it  either?

Dell is marketing them as a “desktop on which you can run Linux” to “Open Source Customers” .
Anyone think Dell lost a little Vista discount by doing this?