{"id":251,"date":"2007-04-03T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2007-04-03T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=251"},"modified":"2007-04-03T07:00:03","modified_gmt":"2007-04-03T15:00:03","slug":"open-source-new-computers-with-preinstalled-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/open-source-new-computers-with-preinstalled-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Source: New Computers with Preinstalled Software"},"content":{"rendered":"

Companies like SpikeSource<\/a> and SourceLabs<\/a> are combining popular Open Source programs and modules into simple one-step installable software stacks.\u00a0 The stacks are tested and certified and configured so that the individual software components work in a compatible way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Computer manufacturers may be next.\u00a0\u00a0 Most PCs sold today already come with preinstalled software bundled and ready to run on a Windows operating system.\u00a0\u00a0Systems with preinstalled Linux and Open Source applications may be next.<\/p>\n

That’s what\u00a0customers are telling Dell on their DellIdeaStorm<\/a> site.\u00a0Users want to have options of pre-installed Linux flavors like Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuSe.\u00a0 They want to have an option for software like Open Office preinstalled too.<\/p>\n

Over 111,000 customers told Dell that they’d prefer to buy a machine configured with Linux rather than to pay for one with Windows preinstalled.\u00a0 76,000 would like to see OpenOffice preinstalled.<\/p>\n

Dell already has been experimenting with offering an option for Red Hat Linux on their server-class machines and for a very select set of desktops.\u00a0 There’s nothing to stop Manufacturers from offering Linux.\u00a0 Antitrust action has forced Microsoft to drop very restrictive\u00a0contracts with manufacturers that had kept them captive to Windows OS.<\/p>\n

Computer manufacturers have stayed away from Linux and Open Source because they couldn’t quantify the demand.\u00a0 The result of Dell’s survey of interested customers shows that the demand for Linux machines may be out there.\u00a0 The sizable number of responses could well motivate Dell into going after the growing Linux and Open Source market.<\/p>\n

And if Dell goes in that direction with some success, there are sure to be other manufacturers that will follow suit.<\/p>\n

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Companies like SpikeSource and SourceLabs are combining popular Open Source programs and modules into simple one-step installable software stacks.\u00a0 The stacks are tested and certified and configured so that the individual software components work in a compatible way. \u00a0Computer manufacturers…<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-source"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}