Checking up on how Ballmer’s way out-of-step-with-reality plan to raise the price of netbooks is going, I looked at Dell’s website, to see what a Dell Mini 9 would cost with MSWindows vs how much it would cost with Ubuntu. This used to be very difficult to do, because Microsoft’s agreements with vendors specifically forbade that kind of transparent pricing.
But Dell surprised me beyond any expectations.
I expected to have to dig around to find the comparison between two comparable systems, one with MSWindows and one with GNU/Linux. Boy was I wrong. Dell put the cost of MSWindows front-center with a button titled “Personalize with WindowsXP for an Additional $150″. Good for Dell!
So do I want to pay $239 for the Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu or $389 for the exactly same system with Microsoft’s buggy OS? hmmm….
And here’s the visual, screenshot from Dell’s website today, with eee_eff graffiti added:
eee_eff 
The computer and the operating system are separate. One should never be “forced” to buy a computer with an installed operating system.
[…] to this potentially-new revelation, Microsoft may charge $150 for Windows XP at the OEM channel. Is this possible? I expected to have […]