Re: [school-discuss] M$ Windows 7 (meaning of the "great satan of software")

[Bill Kendrick <nbs@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 10:00:55AM -0700, Tim Dressel wrote:
> MS has a long document history of anticompetitiveness, and their reaction
> to threats is the exact opposite of raising prices. They go the opposite
> way!

It depends on who you are.  If I'm remembering the various stories
I've seen throughout the last decade: for the consumer (e.g., schools), yes,
they drop prices when you start thinking about switching.  But for the OEMs
(the ASUSes, Dells, etc. of the world), they cut the discounts if you
start selling your hardware with competitors' OSes and products.

I believe that's what Marilyn was talking about here:

> > In 2005, I was demonstrating a Linux package at the main Texas
> > technology convention and while chatting with a major hardware
> > vendor asked him, "you know Linux is wonderful . . . why don't you
> > put it on your desktops?"  He answered, "We can't.  If we put
> > a different OS on our desktops, Microsoft will increase their
> > prices with us so we could no longer compete."

-bill!