Insulting!

Story: Dell replies to those who requested computers with Linux pre-installedTotal Replies: 4
Author Content
cubrewer

Feb 25, 2007
11:13 PM EDT
I found several aspects of this "update" insulting. First, they seem to lump together pre-installed Linux and OpenOffice. Those are two really different things... preinstalling Linux would affect a small percent of their users. Giving everyone OOo out of the box would be an enormous boon to users but a big set-back to Microsoft. It's insulting when Dell asks for ideas and then ignores one that could help a lot of their users.

Second, I followed the link to their "open-source notebooks" page. There you can buy a Latitude without Windows. Again, this link seemed to imply pre-installed Linux and instead it's just a no-OS option. Bad enough... But then I priced the no-OS Lattitude D520 laptop against the same machine with Windows... the no-OS is $50 MORE expensive for the same build! Shouldn't it be $50 CHEAPER?!!?

And the reason it's more expensive is that there are two upgrades thrown in for free on the Windows machine but not on the no-OS (a 60 GB HD and a 8x DVD). The no-OS machine is slightly cheaper in it's default config but also slightly inferior.

Geez, I had high hopes but now I'm skeptical.
swbrown

Feb 26, 2007
1:55 AM EDT
Wtf is the point of creating a customer info gathering 'idea storm' portal if they're going to ignore all the customer's ideas?

"In fact, today XPS customers can opt-out of almost all preinstalled software."

BS, I have such a system, and it still comes loaded with a ton of garbage. Significantly less than a standard Dell, but still a whole bunch of crap I didn't want. Worse, it's all burned into Dell's reinstaller for the OS, so you can't even install clean. Even worse, even if you did manage to clean it all off, your system would be CRIPPLED as they did things like strip the DTS decoder from Creative's drivers as they say providing it with the bundled CinePlayer that no one wanted is good enough. As they explained to the irate buyers, they just wanted to not have to pay for two DTS licenses, so of course, they gave preference to their bundled crapware. :P They didn't tell anyone this, the buyers found out the hard way. Along with the gimped NForce 590 chipset (they stripped nearly everything out of it despite advertising it as a 590 - various RAID levels, dual gigabit ethernet, etc.), gimped virtualization (the BIOS didn't allow you to turn it on!), and various other things they really need to be sued over for false advertising.

"It’s exciting to see the IdeaStorm community’s interest in open source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice."

And it's exciting to see you ignore both.
jsusanka

Feb 26, 2007
4:58 AM EDT
agree with these posts. openoffice and linux should not be grouped.

I think it is insulting they put the crappy microsoft works on their computers instead of openoffice. They are doing their customers no favors installing microsoft works. Open Office is better than microsoft's flagship Office product (subjective of course) and yet they still give their customers crappy works. the dells and gateways are just another division of microsoft in my opinion that is why they don't get my money.

we will see what comes of this but I think they will continue business as usual and not upset good old boy bill g.
Scott_Ruecker

Feb 26, 2007
5:31 AM EDT
Quoting:Wtf is the point of creating a customer info gathering 'idea storm' portal if they're going to ignore all the customer's ideas?


So that they can say to themselves that they take customer input..now as for what they do with it...oh well.
hkwint

Feb 26, 2007
1:45 PM EDT
Hmm, not buying Dell is also customer input, I suppose?

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