[ltp] Bad news for us ...

[linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org]

I'm not sure if Msoft's pricing for Windows has changed with all the antitrust suits, but when they were pressuring IBM to drop OS/2 as a preload option  the simple version was 3 price categories:

1) retail, what Joe Public pays at Best Buy etc.  Currently ~$200 (winXP home)

2) OEM, what a small maker, or home assembler of a computer would pay, generally have to buy it at the same time as a motherboard.  Roughly $100

3) Preferred large scale PC maker.  Maybe depending on volume, ~$30.


As you can see, a PC maker would REALLY want to keep on the preferred list to save $70 for every Windows PC they make.  The usual requrement for that is to agree that EVERY PC will include Windows.






---- Duncan Anderson <duncangareth@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: 

> I do believe that computers should be sold with operating systems such as 
> Windows as optional extras, so that those people who wish to use Linux or 
> Solaris or FreeBSD, etc., may do so without paying the insidious Microsoft 
> tax, but I am not naive enough to believe that OEMs are likely to do so to 
> any appreciable extent in the near future.