By Christophe Guillemin, 3 August 2004 12:40
NEWS France's number one supermarket chain, Carrefour, has launched a pilot project to sell PCs that come equipped with an OS not often sold by the retail big boys - Mandrake Linux.
Called "Compubox" by the supermarket, the PC is available from Carrefour's internet site to shoppers from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Monaco, with the machines rumoured to be sold in one or two Carrefour stores from August.
If the pilot works out, Carrefour may widen the initiative to all of its supermarkets in time for one of the biggest retail pushes of the year - when kids return to school in September.
Carrefour has, for the moment, declined to comment on the pilot but Mandrakesoft's French arm is feeling a little more talkative.
"It was Carrefour that came to see us about the project", Paul Giullet, Mandrakesoft's commercial director said. According to him, Carrefour is following the example of Wal-Mart in the US, which is selling PCs with Linspire's operating system or the Java Desktop System. Moreover, the French supermarket giant is "sensitive to the maturity of Linux".
"From our perspective, it represents a good occasion to woo the public when our customers are, at the moment, in businesses," Guillet said. As is the custom in the world of open source, Mandrakesoft is counting on earning a huge amount of money from the distribution deal - in the contract with Carrefour, each copy of Mandrake Linux will earn the company 30, according to Guillet.
The purchase of a Compubox entitles the buyer to one month of technical support - only via the web, mind - from Mandrakesoft, one month of security patch downloads and one month of membership to the Mandrake Club, which offers updates to its programmes.
If a user wants to carry on with the help after the initial month, they will have to spend 95 for a year of technical support, which covers up to five incidents; 20 for the patches and 120 for Mandrake Club membership.
The trial is an important one for Mandrakesoft. If it works, the other players in big retail could show some similar interest. "I think LeClerc [supermarkets], FNAC [a music and entertainment chain] and others could follow and we're going to get in contact with them, not with a view to the start of the school year - that's already too late - but with a view to next Christmas," said Guillet.
Carrefour is selling the Compubox PC for 299 without a monitor. The supermarket also highlights on its website that the PC "isn't delivered with Windows XP OS" and that it's meant for users who are "well-informed" about different computing methods.
It goes on to say "the near-ubiquitous Microsoft have found their counterpart in Mandrakelinux Mandrakelinux can be modified at will while Windows is a lot less flexible," and adds "there are no Mandrakelinux viruses".
The text was written by Mandrakesoft but Carrefour has checked every word, according to the supermarket chain.
Christophe Guillemin writes for ZDNet France
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Why not ship OpenOffice on each PC as well ?
2. anonymous
It does come with OpenOffice, as well as some other apps.
http://store.mandrakesoft.com/product_info.php?products_id=112&osCsid=1d58d8184360b2e3a07a4731bda5365b
See the above link for more information. As yet, not available over here in the UK. The page is mainly in French, but with my rubbish French can tell it has OpenOffice.
Neil.
3. CrazyRusty
Coming from the land of Microsoft...
I am suprised to see this headline. I thought I just saw a few articles about a virus (evil.c) as well as a few other vulnerabilities that everyone had to patch...?
4. Charles Lancaster
You pay about 100 Euro for an OEM licence for XP. Over 4 year life of a PC MandrakeLinux will cost you 30 + (4*20) Euro (you need the security patches!). So it is MORE expensive than Windows!!! I suspect most users will buy the cheap hardware and pirate a copy of XP.
5. coppernix
Charles Lancaster -> you are forgetting Micosoft Office, Photoshop and others...
You can find a central unit for 300 euros without system anywhere.
FYI Carrefour Proposal -> en rupture de stock (i don't know the english traduction)
6. Alan Chandler
Charles Lancanster wrote - "You pay about 100 Euro for an OEM licence for XP. Over 4 year life of a PC MandrakeLinux will cost you 30 + (4*20) Euro (you need the security patches!). So it is MORE expensive than Windows!!! I suspect most users will buy the cheap hardware and pirate a copy of XP."
Three points.
1) Even if you intended to pirate you would at least try out the new operating system. You would find it fully functional.
2) If you know enough to get a pirate XP, remove the existing OS and install the new one, bypassing the licencing check - then you will know enough to be able to update your linux system for free. So I don't think you are comparing like with like.
3)You are comparing XP with a distribution that includes a load of applications - so again, you are not comparing like with like in your little equation