Re: [ox-en] esr on software costs
- From: "Timm Murray"<hardburn runbox.com>
- Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 14:37:45 GMT
ESR IS WRONG.
Or at least I can say this, there is no sign that the ESR argument is
correct at all. There is no talk at OEMs (yes I work at one of the biggest)
about the possible increase in profits by switching away from Microsoft
software. OEMs don't want consumer prices to drop and often they are even
more concerned with total revenue more than profits anyway. What they are
trying to do is sell more and more stuff with the computer, not less. What
analysts, etc are concerned with is ASP (average selling price) and their
concerns/statements have the effect of vendors trying to keep ASP as high as
possible by selling more stuff. Furthermore, it might could be argued that
selling OSS is actually more costly to the seller than selling Microsoft.
Not too mention whatever monopolistic licensing practices MS is using to
trap vendors in.
BeOS attempted to get itself dual-booted on OEM machines, and was willing to give away
the OS to do it, too. Nobody took up the offer, apparently NOT because of lack of
intrest, but because MS licenses said the OEMs can't sell any other OS with an OEM
version of Windows.
The only thing negative I ever hear about Microsoft software isn't the OS's
cost to the PC, it's the rest of their software not being very profitable.
MS has even recently changed the way they manage enterprise licensing in
favor of themselves over the reseller. Still you can't increase in revenue
by not selling something or by replacing it with something that is free (and
this "free" item may actually cost you more). And Microsoft is in control
much of their negatives. That is, when MS costs too much that some OEM want
to switch to some OSS OS, they can just drop that costs to whatever they
need in order to maintain a monopoly. Don't think OEMs are paying MS
anything near retail. MS can afford to pretty much give away their OS to
OEMs, then make it up in ugrades and other software.
Yes, as the Slashdot story said, MS would give away Windows if it ment keeping its monopoly elsewhere.
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