I'm a simple person so I will keep it simple. If another company wants to create a new operating system to compete with Windows then do it. If they build it better, advertise it and price it correctly many will buy it. Microsoft has a huge market just because we keep buying them. There are choices out there.No one stuck a gun to my head and made me to buy Windows 7, I chose to and I'm happy I did.
I don't think Microsoft's expectation is unreasonable ... they most likely assume that if you preferred another OS, you would pursue enterprise deployment with that instead of Windows.
Although personally, I think you are actually just supposed to provide the number of machines you need Windows for ... the language only sounds the way it does because they are assuming you need/want total company-wide deployment, and thus the two numbers are equal.
Exactly.
Yes, this is a simple viewpoint and it makes sense when you don't think it through.
Take a guess at how hard it would be as an independent developer, making a new operating system to get the third party manufacturers to release specs or give you any assistance at all with getting their drivers into your new operating system.
Then imagine, if you took your independent operating system to Dell, HP, IBM, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Hitachi, Toshiba and asked them to start selling machines that included your independent OS rather than Windows. Yeah guess what....these vendors get a reduced price on Windows, from Microsoft, but they are just about required by Microsoft to include Windows and nothing but Windows on their machines in order to retain their business. Sadly, these vendors cannot afford to get these contracts cut...nor can they survive in the marketplace without offering Windows...so they are stuck.
Now, also imagine the uphill battle you would have to design a new OS that would work well within a network of Microsoft boxes. If you wanted to participate, you might pay massively out the nose for the insight into the SDK's and such to even have your machine participate on an SMB network. Of course, unless you totally ate that cost, you would have to pass it onto your customers. It's getting very hard now to keep a reasonable price. And if you attempted to reverse engineer the technology...you would get your pants sued off of you by Microsoft claiming copyright and intellectual property infringements which would tie you up endlessly in courts...because you likely don't have the venture capital to battle Microsoft in the court systems.
I think as you can see...this market is extremely difficult to get into. Some would say impossible.
Don't get me wrong, I think Windows 7 is solid and I like it a lot. Aside from Apple though, there is no other real competition on the desktop. I think for the average joe though, if you cannot afford a macintosh computer and you are buying a retail machine...it's either Windows or skip having a computer.
It's not that they assume you want company-wide deployment....they require it (or at least make you pay the same as requiring it). Call them and ask them...I think you will be surprised to hear them explain it's all computers just as I was surprised that my lab machines running Linux and VMWare ESXi needed to be included. But of course, according to them, I could switch out to HyperV instead of VMWare ESXi and make use of my Windows license. Thanks, but no thanks.....it's not all 1 way or the other for me. Best tool for the job. And honestly, it's cheaper in the long run to pay for the licenses you never use than it is to buy outside of the enterprise agreement. It's just the principal of the matter.
Don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty sure if Microsoft had their way there would be no other OS options, and hardware that could run when windows is installed would be disabled if Windows were removed. Apple does it with OSuX, and gets away with it, only because they have a small market share.
Very few computer manufacturers offer the choice of no operating system on some of their products (Lenovo is one, just ordered a dual Xeon Thinkstation D20 with no operating system).. I like Windows, but Microsoft as a company is just as unethical as any multinational corporation has to be to attain a near monopoly on any market.
And if a company doesn't like the agreement, then don't buy it.
You can not fault MS for selling such an agreement. It is there's to sell, and it is up to you weather to buy it or not. You can commision (or hire) techs to custom build systems for you with no OS, and possibly (with a good buying negotiator) get then really cheap.
Want to talk about leasing terms on pretty much any IT company? Same thing. Some companies charge buy the 5's. Even if you only have 3, if they want to sell their service, they give incentives to make it worth it.
There is nothing wrong with that.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY A PC WITH WINDOWS, IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SHOP AND BUILD IT YOURSELF, OR COMMISSION IT THROUGH A LOCAL SHOP/RESELLER.
NO ONE IS FORCING ANYONE TO BUY HP, DELL, SONY, TOSHIBA, BLA, BLA, BLA.
There are alternatives. If people are willing to learn and look. But they aren't.
There are no other OS companies, cause there is no one willing to do it.
Not because the can't, but because they won't.
How in the hell is that any existing companies fault?
If it is MS's fault, then it is very much Apples Fault and Linux Fault. Since they are in the market.
Otherwise, it's a bunch of cry baby hogwash whiny pants BS.
WHHHAAAA,, mommy, they are too big, I don't like it, we need to knock them down using the gov't.
WHAAAAAA,, Nanny State, Nanny State, I like that company, they are too big to fail, we need to keep them going using the gov't and tax payer dollars.
It is absolutely ludicrous.
You will reap what you sow.
If Company A makes whatchamacallits and people buy them because there is a demand for whatchamacallits, that's sound business practice. If Company B makes thingamajigs to compete with whatchamacallits, but over-prices them, doesn't market them as well, and fewer people buy them ... that is NOT the fault of the whatchamacallits company.
Or to put it in a different perspective, for every six pack of Coca-Cola sold, should they be forced to include a can of Pepsi because Pepsi doesn't sell as much of their own product?
Still keeping it simple. Yes there is a lot of work and money to build, market, sell and maintain, (updates) a new operating system. It cost Microsoft lots of money to do just that. If someone went to Dell with a better and cheaper operating system with the ability to take care of there system Dell, IMHO would jump on it. One can't jump into the operating system building business on a shoe string. Find enough investors with enough money and go for it.
Sorry this is so long, but had to fit in a lot of replies...
The scenario you just described is the same for just about every market on the planet, from frozen foods to televisions. Entrance into a market already controlled by even a few different major companies is not easy, especially if you can't convince retailers that anyone will prefer your product to what is already available.
Please try to prove the statement I've highlighted in bold. How do you figure that these companies are "required" to use only Windows? Dell, at least at one point, was selling Ubuntu on netbooks. The major OEMs use Windows because that's all there is significant demand for (Apple wouldn't let them use Mac OS anyway). Every OEM could offer Linux as an option on all their computers tomorrow, and the market share would barely shift. They don't offer it because there's very little demand for it.
As Tepid said, then companies that don't want to agree to that, they shouldn't go in for it. So the agreement is basically asking you for full corporate loyalty, or the monetary equivalent of it, for them to give you a discount. They could just as easily offer no discount at all under any circumstances.
So you're assuming that it's physically impossible for a product to be "the international best" without cheating? That logic is very flawed. The iPod isn't the best example out there, but it barely faces any serious competition, is almost universally considered the best PMP, and it did not take anti-competitive behavior to get it there. (Now iTunes, that's another story.)
+2 to both of you.
+1 to Layback Bear's last statement as well.
Hey pparks1, check the admin and how he solves his problems at work (using few OS's). Plus, average joe included.
Maybe its little out of topic, but it will make you laugh:)
HAS FEW SENTENCES WITH OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE!
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