By Richard Thurston, 4 May 2007 09:10
NEWS
Dell will not sell Linux PCs in the UK - at least for the time being.
The PC supplier has said it will sell machines with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed later this month. But Dell has told silicon.com sister site ZDNet UK that the systems will only be sold in the US for now. It refused to reveal any timescale for the sale of such systems in the UK.
Dell said in a statement: "Currently these are only being offered in the US. Dell is still working out details of its global programme." The company refused to put a timescale on when UK users might benefit.
It is not the first time that Dell has offered products to US customers but refused to ship the same product to the UK. It already offers so-called "naked PCs" - computers without operating systems - to customers with a US address. But customers in the UK are unable to order such a system.
Dell's customers have waited a long time for a pre-installed Linux operating system. More than 130,000 users of Dell's IdeaStorm forum have "promoted" a suggestion that the vendor should offer pre-installed Linux as an alternative to Windows. About 60 per cent of respondents to a separate survey by Dell said they would prefer Ubuntu ahead of any other Linux distribution.
It took Dell three months to respond to those users' demands, although it will still not reveal which systems are involved and how much users will have to pay.
Dell offered Linux-based systems starting in 1999, although it withdrew the portfolio after two years. The PC supplier could provide no clear reason why its products should succeed this time. It simply said: "When customers win, Dell wins." Dell added it would issue no sales targets for Linux systems.
Support - also as yet unpriced - will be provided by Ubuntu's commercial backer Canonical but Dell will also answer users' queries on the software, the company said.
Separately, Dell hinted it might extend its use of Ubuntu beyond the desktop and into its server portfolio. A spokesman said: "We're looking at Linux across the breadth of our product line. It takes a bit longer sometimes on that side. Stay tuned."
Richard Thurston writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. Trevor Stolber
I think Dell should sell Linux system to the UK market. The way I precieve the UK computer buyer is that they are less tolerant to viruses, security flaws and system hangs than the US market.
The main draw backs are usability and awareness of Linux. These things are starting to change. This is obvious from wide spread linux adoption in european government agencies.
I think Linux has a fairly bright future on the desktop as well as a server platform.
2. Simon
One of the biggest issues for Linux is driver support. Many manufacturers still do not suppport anything but Windows, and many will not release any information to allow open source drivers to be written.
A significant issue affecting Dell will be that to sell a Linux box they will have to have all the drivers available for everything in the box - and that may not be trivial for some items. They may even have to persuade component manufacturers to write drivers for some bits and/or provide programming information to ease open source development - either way it's a win for Linux.
If they do achieve this, it will make 'Linux on a Dell box' as easy to set up and use as 'Windows on a Dell box' simply be eliminating the requirement for users to find and install all the drivers.