[ltp] Re: Lenovo to shun Linux

[Bill Wohler]

Rob Bell <RobDBell@mailworks.org> writes:

> Straight from Slashdot & Digg, a sign that any strides towards Linux 
> support that IBM made are being negated by Lenovo:
>
> http://www.crn.com/sections/infrastructure/infrastructure.jhtml?articleId=188701277

I just sent Lenovo the following email. I encourage *all* of you to do
the same. While I wouldn't expect it to change their policy, it just
might, and it certainly wouldn't hurt. Feel free to borrow as much as
my text as you'd like.

  http://www.lenovo.com/scripts/contact/contact3/us/en


Dear Lenovo representative,

I have just learned that you have officially stopped supporting Linux.
The news is distressing for many reasons and I would encourage you to
rethink this strategy.

The ThinkPad is one of the best laptops for many reasons, and one of
those reasons is that it is reasonably well supported on Linux. It
could actually be even better supported, not less, and I fear that
your decision may send many of us to other manufacturers. For example,
I persuaded my last company to switch from Dell to the ThinkPad since
the laptop ran both Windows and Linux equally well. Have you taken
away my ability to argue for ThinkPads at my next company?

You might have based your decision on the number of laptops being sold
with Windows. Considering that nearly 100% of the machines are sold
with Windows, it is surprising that there as many Linux installations
as there are. If you were to sell 100% of your laptops with Linux, I'd
bet that eventually the numbers of Windows machines would drop below
the current number of Linux machines as users discover that computing
does not necessarily mean viruses and reboots.

IBM has been a company that has given Linux users hope that when they
call a company for support, their first level support personal
actually have a checkbox for Linux. Lenovo should continue to carry
that torch.

Thanks for your attention.


-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.