Dell Moves Quickly to Deliver the GNU Goods

LXer Feature: 23-May-2007 Dell started "listening" to its customers in February. They spoke loudly and clearly. It's not even June yet - 24 May, to be exact - and Dell is set to launch it's lineup of desktop and laptop computers with Ubuntu Linux 7.04 pre-installed.

Dell announced on their Direct2Dell blog, early this morning that the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook would be available. Dell will provide the hardware support, but OS support will come from Dell's Linux forum. Naturally, users will also find plenty of help from the Ubuntu community. If you need paid support, options available through Canonical. The blog emphasized Dell's commitment to improve hardware and driver support as time goes on. Apparently, Dell is quite clear on the mandate from users to improve hardware support.

Dell's blog also provided some background information, including the user who first submitted GNU/Linux as an option. Over 30,000 users helped make that the #1 request, and another 100,000 completed the surveys to move the process further along. The blog post includes a video, interviewing John Hull and other members of Dell's GNU/Linux team. Dell also thanked users for their efforts, reinforcing the idea that they are definitely listening to user feedback.

Dell's success with it's Ubuntu lineup is as crucial for the GNU/Linux community as it is for Dell. If Dell falls short on the hardware support issue, customers will revolt. By the same token, luke-warm sales of GNU/Linux systems will signal to Dell that all their attention was spent listening to cheapskates. While Dell appears to be making a minimum investment in the GNU/Linux line-up, probably based on past experience, their speedy time-to-delivery, combined with their thus-far effective communication offer some semblance of hope that they are serious about meeting customer demand. Time will tell.