Say No to Pre-Loaded Windows

Robin_T_Cox

A French man has won a lawsuit against computer maker Acer over a laptop
he bought that came pre-loaded with Microsoft's Windows XP and other
applications he didn't want.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/09/26/acer_laptop_microsoft_windows_french_ruling/

Antoine Gutzwiller disputed
(http://perso.libre-zone.net/article-125-proc-dure-r-ussie-num-ro-4.html)
the fact that he had no choice but to buy the €599 Acer notebook with the
ubiquitous operating system and software products including Microsoft
Works, PowerDVD, and Norton AV.

The court of Puteaux in France ruled that the PC giant, which is the
world's third largest computer vendor, should refund Gutzwiller €311.85 to
cover the full cost of software loaded on his machine.

Intially, Acer offered to settle for just €30 for the software bundled on
Gutzwiller's laptop, but he rejected that sum and took the firm to court -
ending up with reimbursements worth nearly double that of the original
cost of the machine.

Under the judgement, the court said Acer should also cough up €500 in fees
to cover what it described as "abusive resistance and committed expenses".

Apparently, the dispute had rumbled on for nearly a year. It is unknown
whether the French court ruling could set a precedent for future European
cases involving pre-loaded software.

No doubt, with the example of the current rebellion against unfair bank
charges, we shall also see more consumers using the Small Claims procedure
in the UK to break this cosy agreement between Microsoft and the OEMs
whereby consumer choice is denied.

gremlin666_2

Seems like a way to make money for nothing if you ask me. My question is other than putting linux on it i cant see what use it would be without an OS. Its just another case of european law gone mad if you ask me!!!!

BritBrat

That is quite old I read it ages ago.

superscaper

Robin_T_Cox wrote: »

No doubt, with the example of the current rebellion against unfair bank
charges, we shall also see more consumers using the Small Claims procedure
in the UK to break this cosy agreement between Microsoft and the OEMs
whereby consumer choice is denied.

Unfair comparison. You should not be able to sue a company for giving you exactly what you paid for. If you don't want it, shop elsewhere. It was market demand that made Dell offer linux pcs, not threats of being sued over their windows pcs. France is particularly anti capitalist which is probably why this happened. It's also france who are demanding Apple make AAC music format available to other companies, completely defeating the point of having a profitable company in the first place.

It'd be like me suing Ford because I bought a petrol engine car from them and then deciding I wanted a hydrogen car. Ford's fault for not giving me enough engine choice. :rolleyes:

Robin_T_Cox

It isn't being anti capitalist to insist on free market competition and consumer choice. It is being anti capitalist to lock out consumer choice through cosy agreements between a software provider - in this case, Microsoft - and hardware providers.

To ask what consumers would do if the hardware was not pre-loaded with MIcrosoft software is irrelevant, since Microsoft is not the only possible software provider - although it might wish consumers to think so, to its advantage.

The fact is, that the restrictive covenants that Microsoft has with hardware suppliers is against consumer choice, and anti-capitalist. Capitalism depends upon free competition: which means, not only that companies are free to choose what to supply, but also that hardware buyers are offered a free choice in the market place.

Such restrictive covenants do not serve the best interests of consumers, or of capitalism, since they lead to inferior product. They are merely a form of feather-bedding for incompetence.

tomsolomon

superscaper wrote: »

Unfair comparison. You should not be able to sue a company for giving you exactly what you paid for. If you don't want it, shop elsewhere. It was market demand that made Dell offer linux pcs, not threats of being sued over their windows pcs. France is particularly anti capitalist which is probably why this happened. It's also france who are demanding Apple make AAC music format available to other companies, completely defeating the point of having a profitable company in the first place.

It'd be like me suing Ford because I bought a petrol engine car from them and then deciding I wanted a hydrogen car. Ford's fault for not giving me enough engine choice. :rolleyes:

Its about free choice...
If you want to buy a laptop with no OS so you can install Linux, no matter weather is Dell Toshiba Panasonic Sony or any other machine, you should be given that choice. Not everyone wants to use MS so why should they have to pay for it. It doesnt cost anything to sell a computer with no OS, whereas it does cost for someone to sit and configure a sytem before it can be shipped to the retailer.
Unless of cause you buy it from PC World in which case you wouldnt be able to get it repaired if something went wrong because the Tech Guys wont touch it unless you reset it back to the factory setting and then it would be no use because there would be no OS for them to diagnose the fault in your machine... (deep breath)

chunter

Yeh, it's free choice,
but it's even more fundamental than that, it's supply and demand.

How many people want a pc with NO operating system.
This is seen as a specialist niche market
It's like selling a car with no seats, because you want to put your own seats in.

Assembly line producers like Dell and Acer have no interest in this market.

How many seat-free BMW X-boxes do you see? ah, they're called vans..

On the other hand, I do disagree with all the nonsense software which comes with off-the shelf pcs. No call for it whatsoever.

I charge a set fee to take all the Norton, Tiscali, Google Desktop, McAfee, AOL, and that huge load of Dell and Acer software nonsense away completely.

Zagu

Robin_T_Cox wrote: »

It isn't being anti capitalist to insist on free market competition and consumer choice.

Is there no corporate choice? Should companies be dictated as to what to sell at this sort of level? I dont really understand what Gutzwiller was thinking. The product was a laptop + Windows, and if he didnt want the package he should have gone elsewhere.

While I feel that MS were, at one time, quite dominating, I think those days have all but gone. Theres plenty of excellent, often free, alternatives. However, I think theres still a hangover of the 'OMG M$ own the world!" attitude, which has lead to a situation where I think MS are almost being victimised. I cant believe Im sticking up for them now....

OS free laptops.

superscaper

Robin_T_Cox wrote: »

It isn't being anti capitalist to insist on free market competition and consumer choice.

The very definition of free market is no legal or governmental intervention!!! Amount of choice has got nothing to do with capitalism or free markets, it merely can be a beneficial consequence of them. It's about allowing the markets to develop themselves through natural supply and demand, if that includes "cozy partnerships" between manufacturers, so be it. Enforcing an arbitrary artificial product choice and dictating the relationships of companies is the exact opposite of capitalism and the free market. This is all hypothetical because in practice we don't have a free market anyway (I can't think of anywhere in the world that does, certainly not on a national scale) but my personal opinion is that it is something we should strive for.

wolfman

tomsolomon wrote: »

Its about free choice...
If you want to buy a laptop with no OS so you can install Linux, no matter weather is Dell Toshiba Panasonic Sony or any other machine, you should be given that choice. Not everyone wants to use MS so why should they have to pay for it. It doesnt cost anything to sell a computer with no OS, whereas it does cost for someone to sit and configure a sytem before it can be shipped to the retailer.

I use Linux, but have to say that is a ridiculous statement. If you don't want Windows on it, just remove it.

Companies generally don't give such an option yet, firstly because most people do want an operating system, and secondly because Windows is the majority operating system by quite some way.

It probably does cost more to sell a computer with no OS, as they have to take account for this. If they ship it with Windows everything follows the same process on the production line. Introduction a no OS option and the production line actually becomes more complicated.

If a company offers you a pc with Windows, that's what you're offered. You can't demand what they do or don't include, that's ridiculous. If there is demand for such a thing a company will take advantage of that market, Dell is a good example now providing Linux on their pc's.

Hey wait, say I don't want Windows or Linux from Dell, can I still take them to court? I want to use BSD. What a joke of a court case.

tomsolomon

Id expect a little better from a Penguine lover. If your a genuine Linux user like you say you are, you should be ashamed of yourself. The whole idea behind using Linux is the fact that its open source, and for a genuine Linux user to buy a machine with preinstalled Windows just to wipe it off, is most hypacritical, and goes against the whole concept.
How anyone would want to pay a large amount of money for something just to throw it away is beyond me. And besides that if you wanted a machine to install Linux to, why didnt you just build a desktop from scratch.