On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Daniel James wrote:
> Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: Is the Linux desktop really here ?
>
> > With OpenOffice 1.1 I have yet to meet a user in real life (I've
> > heard lots of accounts like your own on the net and I believe
> > you, but in business I gotta rely on the experiences of those
> > who pay me) who's unable to use it for basically everything for
> > which they used Word/Excel previously. So I'm going to go out
> > on a limb and say that number is a lot larger than 5% now, and
> > is growing with each release even if the market share's a lot
> > slower due to the primary marketing being word of mouth. I'm
> > surprised the low end PC makers aren't already preloading it in
> > lieu of MS Works or WP Office, but I bet they do sooner or
> > later.
>
> Our local white box mail order computer builder already ships Windows
> XP PC's with OpenOffice preloaded. It's a no-brainer for them, given
> the cost of an MS Office licence, which they can't put much mark-up
> on because the customer will go to the volume software retailer
> instead.
>
> They can't put much mark-up on XP either, so I expect the operating
> system market for the smaller independent builders will go the same
> way. I expect that in future Windows will be priced as an optional
> extra, which is only fair. I believe the Windows licence is the most
> expensive individual component of an entry-level PC.
>
> Cheers
>
> Daniel
>
The cost of XP is right up there with good DDR. Here's an entry-level PC
I'm tryin to scrape up the cash to build for my nephew for Xmas:
Asus A7N8X-X nForce2 $ 75.00
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8GHz $ 72.00
Seagate Barracuda 60GB $ 73.50
512MB PC2700 CL2 Blue (Mushkin) $ 112.00
XP Pro $ 137.00
USR 56k PCI Modem $ 23.95
Fong Kai 603 w/ silent PS $ 90.00
------------------------------------------
$ 583.45
$ 446.45 w/o XP
Dual-boot. He's already using Linux, and he may end up installing XP
himself if I can't scrape up that extra #137... ;-)
// John Bleichert
// syborg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
