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Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

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Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#31

Post by wpietri »

doktrin wrote: post #12

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? If the conclusions drawn by this paper are true, this is a massive business opportunity. They practically go so far as to imply that close to 10% of the laptop market is up for grabs if only the pesky retail oligopoly would stop sabotaging their own financial interests.…

I doubt there's a strong demand for Linux laptops[1], but there's a fair bit of demand for cheap laptops, so a free OS should have an advantage there.

[1] I'm using one now, but even most of my nerdy friends just use Apple laptops.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#32

Post by bunderbunder »

Not too long ago, Linux did enter the market. In a fairly big way. When the netbook craze was really ramping up, around about 25% of units sold were running Linux. That wouldn't have been possible if what the study says is true.

But the Linux units saw a depressingly high return rate. MSI was reporting it was four times that of the Windows netbooks.

So retailers and manufacturers dropped Linux like a hot potato. Not because of some perverse supply chain structure, but because consumers had clearly and emphatically indicated that they were dissatisfied with the product.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#33

Post by wpietri »

revorad wrote: post #30
qxcv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, just looking at your homepage there I can't say I'm entirely sure what you do . What do I gain by buying a Thinkpad from you instead of buying it from Lenovo and installing my own distro? Do I save money by not having to pay for a Windows license?

You gain: 1. A better price on an equally specced machine because we buy in bulk. 2. Save time installing and much more importantly testing and making sure everything works out of the box. If you like playing with drivers, then maybe this is not for you (although we might want to hire you!). 3. Get to work faster - choose your distro and software packages on the site when you place your order. A fully customised mach…

This is exactly why I bought a preconfigured Linux laptop. I ended up paying a few hundred bucks over retail to Emperor Linux for a Thinkpad x220 tablet because I didn't have time to screw around with drivers and didn't want to take the risk of having the machine not work at all due to some issue with unsupported hardware.

Sadly, they didn't live up to the promises; their support has been terrible. But I think the idea has a lot of merit, and I hope your business goes well!

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#34

Post by mironathetin »

wpietri wrote: post #31
doktrin wrote: post #12

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? If the conclusions drawn by this paper are true, this is a massive business opportunity. They practically go so far as to imply that close to 10% of the laptop market is up for grabs if only the pesky retail oligopoly would stop sabotaging their own financial interests.…

I doubt there's a strong demand for Linux laptops[1], but there's a fair bit of demand for cheap laptops, so a free OS should have an advantage there. [1] I'm using one now, but even most of my nerdy friends just use Apple laptops.

I assume, as soon as people understand, how much they pay for a Windows licence, linux on a laptop would become more popular. I tried to find a notebook a while ago, without windows. Thats really impossible. IBM used to offer Thinkpads with linux for a while, but that seems to be over now.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#35

Post by mironathetin »

bunderbunder wrote: post #32

Not too long ago, Linux did enter the market. In a fairly big way. When the netbook craze was really ramping up, around about 25% of units sold were running Linux. That wouldn't have been possible if what the study says is true. But the Linux units saw a depressingly high return rate. MSI was reporting it was four times that of the Windows netbooks. So retailers and manufacturers dropped Linux like a hot potato. Not…

Agreed. I used linux for 8 years on my main development notebook (a Thinkpad). That was a lot of trouble compared to Mac OS now.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#36

Post by npsimons »

doktrin wrote: post #12

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? If the conclusions drawn by this paper are true, this is a massive business opportunity. They practically go so far as to imply that close to 10% of the laptop market is up for grabs if only the pesky retail oligopoly would stop sabotaging their own financial interests.…

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void?

They did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC - and those things sold out. Repeatedly. In multiple locations. Then all of a sudden, Microsoft backpedaled on Vista and binning XP, stripped down XP a bit (including the price tag), and most importantly, strong armed the vendors. Lo and behold, you can't get a netbook with Linux anymore.

Let's face it: the demand is there. Linux has worked just fine on the desktop for well over a decade. The market failed, and the legal system (in the form of patents and copyrights) isn't helping. This is why monopolies, overreaching copyright and software patents are bad things.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#37

Post by rfugger »

wpietri wrote: post #31
doktrin wrote: post #12

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? If the conclusions drawn by this paper are true, this is a massive business opportunity. They practically go so far as to imply that close to 10% of the laptop market is up for grabs if only the pesky retail oligopoly would stop sabotaging their own financial interests.…

I doubt there's a strong demand for Linux laptops[1], but there's a fair bit of demand for cheap laptops, so a free OS should have an advantage there. [1] I'm using one now, but even most of my nerdy friends just use Apple laptops.

As I understand it, manufacturers receive fees for packaging bloatware on Windows machines, and so there's little to no savings to be had with preinstalled Linux, at least until there's bloatware to package with Linux...

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#38

Post by anamax »

doktrin wrote: post #12

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? If the conclusions drawn by this paper are true, this is a massive business opportunity. They practically go so far as to imply that close to 10% of the laptop market is up for grabs if only the pesky retail oligopoly would stop sabotaging their own financial interests.…

> If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void?

One possibility is that the market is too fragmented.

Yes, many of you want a pre-installed linux laptop. However, there are two variables in that "want", the software (which distribution) and the hardware (the amount of memory, the processors, the screen, the pointing device, battery life, etc).

With retail MS or Apple laptops, hardware is the only variable.

So, you've got a significantly smaller market, consisting mainly of folks who are reasonably happy doing it themselves, and it's more fragmented.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#39

Post by muyuu »

doktrin wrote: post #12

If there really was a strong market demand (and supply!) for preinstalled Linux laptops, why hasn't any reseller stepped up to fill this gaping void? If the conclusions drawn by this paper are true, this is a massive business opportunity. They practically go so far as to imply that close to 10% of the laptop market is up for grabs if only the pesky retail oligopoly would stop sabotaging their own financial interests.…

Eventually Ubuntu or some company like that will take on it, I'm guessing. There are low budget efforts but obviously they cannot compete with the big guns. Very, very deep pockets will be necessary, which is why it's way out of startup territory.

Re: Study explains how retailers stop Linux from entering the market

#40

Post by kevinchen »

werpon wrote: post #8
patricklynch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention how relatively easy Macs and iThings are to use. This is subjective, but I think Apple's better than anyone at making computers that "non computer people" can figure out.

I don't think OS X nor iOS are much easier to use than their free counterparts, it's just that new users have at least two incentives to learn them, and so they do, without thinking too much about it. First, they have a positive reinforcement: Mac is "hip", so you'll look cool by using their products (the fact that everybody and their mother owns one or ten doesn't seem to diminish this perception), and also a negati…

Apple operating systems (and Microsoft operating systems too) are absolutely easier to use than Linux. For example, my Linux box regularly throws up dialog boxes that are nothing more than rehashings of error messages printed out by command-line utilities. My Mac computer and my Windows computer never do that.
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