I don’t think that Dell was planning on a big business rollout. I know that if I were specifying new systems for a customer, with a network in place already, I’d recommend the purchase of just 1 machine. I would evaluate for 90 days, and if the test program was successful, then purchase the rest of what was needed.

As for printers, don’t you think most businesses have at least one networked PS capable printer? I don’t see this as a big obstacle.

As far as the codecs, I’d ask why anyone in a business environment really needed them anyway. [Anyone who said they needed them I would suspect as a time waster, and watch closely [g]]

Hi Marc,
Maybe I misunderstood the target market, but I thought these were earmarked for consumers? For business use I personally believe Suse is better suited.

Thanks for the comments, Ron

Ron, perhaps I misunderstood the target market, because in the long run, an individual user is probably being silly if they switch to Linux just to save a few bucks. One could buy XP, and use all other software that is free or open-source.

To me the reason to buy a pc from Dell with Ubuntu is more for the small to medium business who wants to cut costs now and be able to purchase a volume of pcs. If you think about it, for every 5 average business pcs from Dell without Vista, you should be able to purchase a sixth. You won’t immediately have to outfit them with antivirus and antimalware programs, and because most things they’ll be using are business apps, they will tend to change less over time, and when they do they will be fully ’scienced out’ by the time you need to change. Apps that are mature tend to need less support, so there is savings there.

I agree for the sophisticated business, with sophisticated users, I know Suse is the way to go. For the uninitiated, I think Ubuntu is more friendly and hand-holding.

I also see the individual who uses Linux as wanting a lot more control over the build of their pc than Dell is probably willing to give. For example, it was not so long ago that Dell was using weird custom motherboards with cases that only allowed 5 PCI brackets, not 4 like mATX, or 7 like ATX, but 5. I haven’t seen any for awhile from the inside, but they used to stay very close to the same build, simply due to the economy of volume. I don’t think the user of Linux is an ‘economy of volume’ kind of guy or gal.

Hi Marc,
Good points. And here they are:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Ron