Dell - Some Good News And Bad News - Michael Dell Using Ubuntu Linux
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We all know the old saying. “I got some good news and bad news, which do you want to hear first?” I usually answer: “neither.” 
But sometimes we just have to take our lumps and it sure has been lumpy for Dell lately.
Bad news first: HP sales are increasing rapidly while Dell is sliding down the scale as each quarter goes by. Gartner is reporting Dell slid almost 7% in sales compared to last year. HP jumped up a healthy 28% in sales compared to last year. At the same time Acer has been slowly increasing its sales and is in a good position to take the number three spot away from Lenovo.
The good news: Remember the guy whose Ford pickup truck was engulfed in flames and his Dell lappy got blamed for the fire? Well Robert X. Cringley in a recent article states that Dell has examined the truck and lappy and says it wasn’t its product that caused the fire. Bob goes on to state that Dell offered to give the owner a new laptop, but not a new truck. Full details here.
This is also strange from Dell. What kind of computer is Michael Dell using at home?
“At home: Dell Precision M90″
So, you say, big deal. Well it is because the software is Linux and Michael is trying out Ubuntu 7.04. He has other Open Source software on his system as well.
This could be the first hint that Dell may be giving serious consideration on making Ubuntu the official Linux version when it starts to offer its new Linux systems. I personally believe it is a great choice because of the popularity of Ubuntu and its ease of use.
Dell link here.
What do you think? Is Ubuntu a good choice for the new Dell Linux systems? Comments welcome.
[tags]dell, news, good, bad, linux, ubuntu[/tags]
3 Comments
Tim Hodkinson
April 19th, 2007
at 4:08pm
I think Ubuntu is an excellent choice.
For starters, I’m sure Ubuntu’s sponsor, Canonical will give Dell the install disks for free.
Ubuntu support can be provided by Ubuntu and be free of Dell’s support service problems (one less thing for Dell to worry about). Ubuntu is stylish right now and will appeal more to new users than the other distros. Ubuntu has been designed for desktop users (ie. ordinary folks).
Whether it pays off for anyone though depends on how many people will actually buy these systems. Everything seems to depend on the size of the user base. It’s really up to customers to decide what happens. I don’t think Dell could choose a better distro than Ubuntu, though.
marc klink
April 19th, 2007
at 6:33pm
I’m not sure that business users will want to have Ubuntu, but for home users it should be great. The bad thing about business desktops is that over and over it has been reported that Suse from Novell is best. Unfortunately, Novell is somewhat persona non grata with the rest of the Linux community right now because of their deals [some would spell that s-e-l-l-o-u-t] with MS. I haven’t tried the latest Suse, but as of 9.2 they showed me what a great product it was, and at that time worlds ahead of anything else. This included Redhat, but then this is my preference. I base this on how well it worked on an MS network, and how well it came up on the somewhat odd variety of hardware I own.
Ron Schenone
April 19th, 2007
at 8:44pm
Hi Tim,
I agree. Ubuntu is a great choice. Thanks for the comment.
Heh Marc,
Ubuntu is a consumer class Linux distro. And Suse does appear to be the best one currently for business. Though Dell seems to like Red Hat for their servers.
Thanks to you both, Ron