Hardware companies, Microsoft, Competition and Consumer Choice

Tue May 19 11:23:33 BST 2009

Heya Sean

Have you checked out Dell? They support preinstalled Red Hat. Also know for a fact if you go into Harvey Norman you can opt out of having windows come with the laptop and they take the price off. Also HP laptops can have the option to have preinstalled Suse. It may not have preinstalled ubuntu but atleast you know its supported for linux. The ACCC can not tell people how to run their business. If the ACCC forced international hardware vendors to support linux then they would also have to force them support Solaris, BSD, OSX10 etc. As far as I know Dell and HP trialled preinstalled linux back in 2004 – 2006 and there was not enough demand so they have stopped marketing it. Its not the ACCC you need to be contacting but the vendors themselves. 

As consumer you do have a right to not be charged for windows but you can not force a business like Harvey Norman to sell laptops with Linux or even the hardware vendors themselves. It may cost a company like HP could argue it costs too much money  to make a laptop compatable with Linux then it would windows for example. Getting the ACCC involved you are really just attacking the developers of Linux themselves. What you may find though the current Ubuntu will work fine on most modern laptops anyways but pays to do some research. Go to the vendors like Toshiba, HP, Dell direct put in your request and they will point you in the right direction.  Just because Lenovo only supports windows doesn’t mean other laptops do, Lenovo is a sub company of IBM, and you can buy IBM laptops that do support Linux so the ACCC can not do anything about it. It’s the companies choice and your choice to buy from them. 

So what next going to get ACCC force Apple to have to support Solaris and/or NetBSD?

Rick

From: ubuntu-au-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-au-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Sean Van Buggenum
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 5:47 PM
To: ubuntu-au at lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Hardware companies, Microsoft, Competition and Consumer Choice

Dear all, 

Recently I sent an email around asking for information of where to get a laptop,, linux compatible, without Microsoft bundled in with the deal. 
This appears to be difficult. 

Accordingly. I have written an email (and will follow up with a phone call soon) about the situation. 
I believe that only through consumer action can this competition-unhealthy situation be resolved. 

I urge you all to also contact the ACCC about this issue. The more we are heard, the more likely something might be done about it. 

Here below is the email I sent to the ACCC:

------------------------------------------------------------

To whom it may concern, 

I would like to inquire into the legality within Australia of the following situation:

Lenovo computers, has a deal with microsoft that;
1. All lenovo computers must be sold with Microsoft Windows Vista 
2. Consumers have no choice in this matter. They can neither opt for No operating system, or opt for a different operating system. 
3. Consumers must also pay for this extra product which they did not ask for, and quite likely do not want. Windows vista is an operating system which has been over time shown to be lacking driver support and software compatibility. It is not acceptable that this is through deals between Lenovo (and most other hardware providers) and Microsoft, consumer choice suffers in this manner. 

Please advise me as to 

a) the view point of Australian law, with issues such as these. 
b) What action I can take .
c) How the ACCC can help me in this matter. 
---------------------------

Please write your own complaint, in your own words, and help provide a more competitive environment with the computing industry!

Sean

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