Washington Post Article: Dell Ends Linux Desktop Program

[David A. Harding]

Sad, sad news. See below.

-Dave

Dell Ends Linux Desktop Program

By CHARLES XI
Associated Press Writer

ROUND ROCK (AP) -- Amid economic downturn affecting millions of
consumers, Dell Inc. announced the discontinuation of its Linux offerings.

"Offering Ubuntu on desktop and laptops was an experiment -- an
experiment that has now failed due to the extreme engineering time it
took to produce each system and the low volume of sales we got out of
the program," said Senior V.P. of U.S. Sales William Prince.

Dell will continue to offer Red Hat and SUSE Linux for servers.

An undisclosed sum will be paid to Canonical Ltd., the company behind
Ubuntu & Dell's desktop Linux program, to maintain existing Ubuntu Linux
support contracts.

"This is a sad day for Linux," said Ubuntu and Canonical Ltd. founder
Mark Shuttleworth. "Dell's desktop support was a shinning beacon of
light telling mothers and grandmothers that Linux was OK to use."

Dell's announcement comes only weeks after Wal-Mart Inc. withdrew its
hyped $200 Green PC from store shelves and online warehouses citing,
"lack of consumer uptake and satisfaction."

Hewlett-Packard, which has been considering the idea of also selling
Linux desktops, says Dell's decision has not in any way changed their
position. But industry insiders disagree.

"I've always doubted HP would ever ship a single personal Linux
desktop," said Erehwon Beth Mary. "They were hedging their
bets, waiting to see what happened at Dell. Now that Dell's program has
failed, HP will quietly discontinue their own program."

Original Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050300374.html
--
David A. Harding Website: http://dtrt.org/
1 (609) 997-0765 Email: da...@dtrt.org
Jabber/XMPP: dhar...@jabber.org

[Gerald D. Neale]

Yes it is sad, but I think the brief presence of Linux
at Dell has served to bring down costs of the
competition,i.e. Windows. Surely there also is some
behind the scenes negotiating that also goes on. I'm
not sure if I believe "extreme engineering" is
required to get Ubuntu loaded.

In the end, a viscous monopoly has been damaged and
that is a good thing if you believe in open markets as
I do.
Jerry

____________________________________________________________________________________
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com

[Edward Corrado]

Gerald D. Neale said the following on 04/01/2008 2:46 PM:

> Yes it is sad, but I think the brief presence of Linux
> at Dell has served to bring down costs of the
> competition,i.e. Windows. Surely there also is some
> behind the scenes negotiating that also goes on. I'm
> not sure if I believe "extreme engineering" is
> required to get Ubuntu loaded.
>

Yea, this "extreme engineering" argument doesn't hold water. I can
understand that the sales might not have made selling the product
worthwhile (esp. if Dell's cost to support this PCs were high), but
extreme engineering?

Edward

--
Edward M. Corrado
http://www.tcnj.edu/~corrado/
Systems Librarian
The College of New Jersey
403E TCNJ Library
PO Box 7718 Ewing, NJ 08628-0718
Tel: 609.771.3337 Fax: 609.637.5177
Email: cor...@tcnj.edu

[Brian Green]

"Extreme engineering" probably meant they had to be more particular about the hardware for Linux based workstations.  Dell often uses many different vendors for the same part, depending which is cheaper that month.  That model probably doesn't work as well when using Linux.  Either way, would have been nice if Dell found a way to make this work in their business model.

[Etan Reisner]

The quote from the article (at least in Dave's original email, I can't
seem to find the actual article and don't feel like registering to
try) was "extreme engineering time" not "extreme engineering" which
carries a very different meaning. "[E]xtreme engineering time can
easily be explained by the fact that Dell as an entity had never done
that on the desktop before and needed to spend significantly more time
making sure that all the various parts and pieces they have in their
configurations work to their satisfaction.

-Etan

[James Polera]

April fool's joke?  The original article link is 05.03.2007 and has something to do with Korea.

[David A. Harding]

On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 02:38:13PM -0400, I wrote:
> Dell Ends Linux Desktop Program
>
> By CHARLES XI
> Associated Press Writer

Happy April Fools everyone. <eg>

-Dave

[Gerald D. Neale]

Boo!

That was a dirty trick.
:)

--- "David A. Harding" <da...@dtrt.org> wrote:

____________________________________________________________________________________

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 11:53 PM, David A. Harding <da...@dtrt.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 02:38:13PM -0400, I wrote:
> > Dell Ends Linux Desktop Program
> >
> > By CHARLES XI
> > Associated Press Writer
>
> Happy April Fools everyone. <eg>

You really had me going! Good one!

Luis