Dell has created a “sort-of” open user community site (Dell insists on owning all of the suggestions) to generate ideas on how to improve Dell products & services. The most popular suggestion on Dell Idea Storm is to provide computers with pre-installed Linux; followed by a suggestion to have Windows boxes with pre-installed OpenOffice.org alongside MS Office.
I think that this year may be the tipping point for desktop Linux with the Linspire and Ubuntu canonical partnership announced recently. The partnership may result in a more user-friendly Linux desktop for the mainstream.
If Dell follows the suggestions (382 comments on suggestion #1 so far) from the crowd, there may soon be an easy way for your average user to get on the open source cluetrain.
Update: Dell will soon be selling Linux-loaded desktop PC’s and notebooks
Opensource OS and average mainstream user do not match. If you’ve ever tried working with opensource stuff you would understand that opensource is for the moment an atrocity to work with.
Everytime I hear an opensource evangelist and how opensource will take on the world I always know I am dealing with someone who considers time free and who has never had to support technology at the enterprise level.
Time is free? Look at our experience. Linux took 10 minutes to install while Windows took over a week. Perhaps I should bill Microsoft for my time. I never mentioned enterprise applications, only home use.
http://jarche.com/?p=985
OpenSource will eventually redo the pathway and become truly simple to install for everyone. It has started and the wheel will not stop turning soon. Microsoft better be worried and prepare. That may be why Bill Gates is retiring – he’s not a idiot, he sees the Road Ahead… Google Office, OpenOffice, Moodle, Blender3D, Wikis, blogs, etc… Let’s not forget that the generation coming up will not comply to the same rules as we have now.
Viva Open Source!