5 ms·

While not huge in the grand scheme of things, Dell has probably been the biggest vendor of Ubuntu machines, mostly in India and other poor countries. For $2 bil

While not huge in the grand scheme of things, Dell has probably been the biggest vendor of Ubuntu machines, mostly in India and other poor countries. For $2 billion Microsoft gets to tell them to kill any such Ubuntu or Android product line-ups, and any research involving them. How is this good for Dell itself as a company, especially with the Windows/PC market going down? Is Dell really letting Microsoft turn them into another Nokia?

barredo 14y ago
Wouldn't Microsoft need a majority in the board to do so?
- slav 14y ago
  Exactly! For $2bn out of $24bn they can talk but not much more.
  - wildgift 14y ago
    Talking is worth something if the other $22bn is listening.
  - joonix 14y ago
    It's a loan, not shares, either. Does your mortgage lender get to tell you which career path to take?
- jnsaff2 14y ago
  I think that's not really what microsoft is after. But if so, would the other board members care either way about Ubuntu/Linux? And even if they do they could give in on this to get something else.
  - markokocic 14y ago
    > But if so, would the other board members care either way about Ubuntu/Linux? Of course they would care if it brings profit.
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
Non-core international divisions are more likely to be spun out than killed for nefarious purposes.
yread 14y ago
How do you even know that's going to happen? MS has invested in Facebook and that didn't lead to them replacing PHP and Linux with Windows and C#
davidw 14y ago
I've used Dells for a number of years and been pretty happy, but this does have me a bit worried. I was really pleased the one time I did have a problem, while living in Austria, with a machine I'd bought in the US: very quick service and no hassles to fix it, so the fact that it's a big, global company turned out to be pretty positive. I'm not sure who else I'd go with... More than anything, I'm amazed and dismayed that tablets are far surpassing the screens they put on laptops these days: http://www.google.com/nexus/10/ http://www.google.com/nexus/10/ - why won't anyone who's not Apple make a decent screen?! They've gotten worse, as my current machine does 1920x1200, and you can't find those anymore.
- rednukleus 14y ago
  The problem is that Windows 7 and prior don't handle high DPI screens too well - the UI elements come out too small. Windows 8 does have better handling for high DPI screens, so hopefully we will see some higher resolution screens coming out over the next year.
- bhauer 14y ago
  Agreed. Modern laptop and desktop monitors are shameful regressions in technology. I very strongly believe that a large portion of any real or perceived market weakness of PC manufacturers can be traced to an utter failure to innovate in displays. I also blame the "HD" moniker. My rant on HD: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/hd-sucks http://tiamat.tsotech.com/hd-sucks
- runako 14y ago
  >> why won't anyone who's not Apple make a decent screen?! The perception in the non-Apple segment of the market is that the customers will not bear the increased cost.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    That market does exist though. I've known quite a few people who have asked me for advice on laptops who were dismayed when I told them the cheapest they could get a laptop was $250. I've also had the same type of people come to me when their $250 laptop dies after 6 months and they "threw away all that money" on some cheap garbage. A $250 laptop will last you 6 months while a $1000 laptop will last you five years, but there is still the market who finds a better deal in the incredibly shitty computer.
xradionut 14y ago
You can get 100% OSS virtual machines through MS Azure. There's a whole division set aside to pimp the MS cloud to folks that don't do MS software. (As an aside, my Dell laptop runs Ubuntu and keeps the Windows OSes caged in VMs... :) )
cooldeal 14y ago
> Dell has probably been the biggest vendor of Ubuntu machines, mostly in India and other poor countries. For $2 billion Microsoft gets to tell them to kill any such Ubuntu or Android product line-ups, and any research involving them In my experience, the vast majority of such devices are wiped and loaded with pirated Windows.
- amalag 14y ago
  There is no good software in India and other countries for Linux. If you want to run business accounting software, you have to run Windows. And there the prices are so high for Windows and there is no enforcement, so they pirate. They do crackdown on things like Autocad for architects and animation software pretty hard though.
  - yuhong 14y ago
    MS has tried to combat this by creating country-specific versions of Windows with activation limited to a specific country with lower prices.
  - pm90 14y ago
    Yes, its actually pretty despicable. For a house that my parents were considering buying, the architect showed them the floor plans, which was done in Autocad. I realized this not only because I'm familiar with the way Autocad prints look, but there were, in large letters printed 'FOR TRIAL USE ONLY' Until they start enforcing copyright protection, quality software alternatives will never get the boost they need.
mseebach 14y ago
It's unlikely - if the Ubuntu activities at Dell turn a profit, Microsoft will have to make a convincing case that not being Windows-exclusive is somehow detrimental to longterm strategy, and that's going to be a tough sell. Dell is one of (the only?) major player with an offering to a new (and very influential) market. Nokia is different - Microsoft wasn't displacing a successful smartphone business, they bailed out a massive clusterfk. Maemo was promising, sure, but in no way profitable. Basically, Nokia wasn't in a place financially to make a long bet on a new player in the smartphone OS market - Microsoft was.

barredo 14y ago

Wouldn't Microsoft need a majority in the board to do so?

slav 14y ago
Exactly! For $2bn out of $24bn they can talk but not much more.
- wildgift 14y ago
  Talking is worth something if the other $22bn is listening.
- joonix 14y ago
  It's a loan, not shares, either. Does your mortgage lender get to tell you which career path to take?
jnsaff2 14y ago
I think that's not really what microsoft is after. But if so, would the other board members care either way about Ubuntu/Linux? And even if they do they could give in on this to get something else.
- markokocic 14y ago
  > But if so, would the other board members care either way about Ubuntu/Linux? Of course they would care if it brings profit.

JumpCrisscross 14y ago

Non-core international divisions are more likely to be spun out than killed for nefarious purposes.

yread 14y ago

How do you even know that's going to happen? MS has invested in Facebook and that didn't lead to them replacing PHP and Linux with Windows and C#

davidw 14y ago

I've used Dells for a number of years and been pretty happy, but this does have me a bit worried. I was really pleased the one time I did have a problem, while living in Austria, with a machine I'd bought in the US: very quick service and no hassles to fix it, so the fact that it's a big, global company turned out to be pretty positive. I'm not sure who else I'd go with... More than anything, I'm amazed and dismayed that tablets are far surpassing the screens they put on laptops these days: http://www.google.com/nexus/10/ http://www.google.com/nexus/10/ - why won't anyone who's not Apple make a decent screen?! They've gotten worse, as my current machine does 1920x1200, and you can't find those anymore.

rednukleus 14y ago
The problem is that Windows 7 and prior don't handle high DPI screens too well - the UI elements come out too small. Windows 8 does have better handling for high DPI screens, so hopefully we will see some higher resolution screens coming out over the next year.
bhauer 14y ago
Agreed. Modern laptop and desktop monitors are shameful regressions in technology. I very strongly believe that a large portion of any real or perceived market weakness of PC manufacturers can be traced to an utter failure to innovate in displays. I also blame the "HD" moniker. My rant on HD: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/hd-sucks http://tiamat.tsotech.com/hd-sucks
runako 14y ago
>> why won't anyone who's not Apple make a decent screen?! The perception in the non-Apple segment of the market is that the customers will not bear the increased cost.
- freehunter 14y ago
  That market does exist though. I've known quite a few people who have asked me for advice on laptops who were dismayed when I told them the cheapest they could get a laptop was $250. I've also had the same type of people come to me when their $250 laptop dies after 6 months and they "threw away all that money" on some cheap garbage. A $250 laptop will last you 6 months while a $1000 laptop will last you five years, but there is still the market who finds a better deal in the incredibly shitty computer.

xradionut 14y ago

You can get 100% OSS virtual machines through MS Azure. There's a whole division set aside to pimp the MS cloud to folks that don't do MS software. (As an aside, my Dell laptop runs Ubuntu and keeps the Windows OSes caged in VMs... :) )

cooldeal 14y ago

> Dell has probably been the biggest vendor of Ubuntu machines, mostly in India and other poor countries. For $2 billion Microsoft gets to tell them to kill any such Ubuntu or Android product line-ups, and any research involving them In my experience, the vast majority of such devices are wiped and loaded with pirated Windows.

amalag 14y ago
There is no good software in India and other countries for Linux. If you want to run business accounting software, you have to run Windows. And there the prices are so high for Windows and there is no enforcement, so they pirate. They do crackdown on things like Autocad for architects and animation software pretty hard though.
- yuhong 14y ago
  MS has tried to combat this by creating country-specific versions of Windows with activation limited to a specific country with lower prices.
- pm90 14y ago
  Yes, its actually pretty despicable. For a house that my parents were considering buying, the architect showed them the floor plans, which was done in Autocad. I realized this not only because I'm familiar with the way Autocad prints look, but there were, in large letters printed 'FOR TRIAL USE ONLY' Until they start enforcing copyright protection, quality software alternatives will never get the boost they need.

mseebach 14y ago

It's unlikely - if the Ubuntu activities at Dell turn a profit, Microsoft will have to make a convincing case that not being Windows-exclusive is somehow detrimental to longterm strategy, and that's going to be a tough sell. Dell is one of (the only?) major player with an offering to a new (and very influential) market. Nokia is different - Microsoft wasn't displacing a successful smartphone business, they bailed out a massive clusterfk. Maemo was promising, sure, but in no way profitable. Basically, Nokia wasn't in a place financially to make a long bet on a new player in the smartphone OS market - Microsoft was.