Microsoft to Sell PCs, Starting in India 233
kripkenstein writes "According to an Ars Technica report Microsoft will begin selling complete PCs, for the first time in the company's history. The program is aimed at customers in India. 'Dubbed the IQ PC, the machines will cost RS21,000 (about $525), are manufactured in partnership with Zenith, and will sport AMD Athlon CPUs. ... In some ways, the move to sell hardware is a natural extension of Microsoft's low-cost Windows initiative ... It may also be a response to projects like Intel's Classmate PC and the OLPC XO.' The Ars Technica summary is careful to state that they seriously doubt this will lead to Microsoft selling PCs in the US, yet the question must be asked: After Microsoft mice and keyboards, then the XBOX and Zune, Microsoft is increasingly becoming a hardware vendor. Is it only a question of time before Microsoft starts to compete directly with the likes of Dell and HP?"
oh but of course (Score:5, Funny)
Re:oh but of course (Score:5, Funny)
They won't be able to foist off level 1 tech support onto the vendor, as *they* would be the vendor.
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Oh, I thought "Antitrust lawsuits" was the argument as to why MS won't sell PCs in the US.
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Re:oh but of course (Score:5, Funny)
The Customer Wins! (Score:2, Funny)
I can't wait until all of the other corporations start following Microsofts lead and "offshores" their customer bases.
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Finally they will know how we feel when we call them for support.
Zenith? (Score:3, Informative)
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Holy crap. They're oooold.
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Thou shalt not screw thy distributors (Score:3, Interesting)
LG, to give a brand name more people recognize, is Philips. The game just changed in a big way.
The rest of the top 10 OEMs will not take this lying down. That was their market, and Microsoft was not welcome to it. Microsoft is taking the bread off their table. The objective of this "pilot project" is nothing less than to capture the entire emerging PC markets of India and China, between them nearly half the world's populace. There will be repercussions. As long as Microsoft stayed out of PC OEM land,
Good for them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Aimed primarily at students...
If they can get students hooked to MS products when they're young, especially in these developing countries where the alternative may be Linux, then it's likely these students will continue using Microsoft later on in life, because they're familiar with it. It's a clever move, and really, I'm surprised it took Microsoft so long to start doing this.
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Re:Good for them... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but shouldn't they change their name from Microsoft to Microhard ?
Um... wait... nevermind.
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An old Apple technique (Score:2, Flamebait)
Clarification (Score:2)
On one of the mailing lists I'm on, there was chatter today about business actions that don't increase profits but might make the company's position healthier. I can't prove that giving away software makes more money by getting people familiar with it, but I know that all the kids growing up using Apple
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Like the OLPC. Which is why MS is making this (for them) drastic move. Watch for them to offer PCs in other developing countries where the OLPC has gotten orders.
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This really is just an extension of Microsoft's business model.
They're going to release a product, leverage their OS monopoly to drive everyone else out of business, establish a monopoly, and then stop development?
Seriously, though, this would really piss me off if i were running Dell, HP, etc.
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It's a clever move, and really, I'm surprised it took Microsoft so long to start doing this.
Here's my take on this, and I've been noticing more and more what Microsoft's been doing and it suddenly makes sense now that I see this article. Microsoft has always played it safe. They're the pussies of the computer industry, and they could see how hard it would be to control/maintain the hardware *and* the software, a la Apple, SUN or IBM. Like the various UNIX-based software companies, they took known concepts and applied them to other peoples' hardware. To IBM: we'll sell you a DOS if you put it
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This is a stupid move on their part, and if it spreads to the rest of the company, it will be their end. Just like Sun.
Most software isn't commodity. You can't easily replace one piece of software with another without folks complaining. Hardware (unless it's top of the line) is commodity---corps compete on price, and price alone. There's virtually no insentive for someone to spend more on another branded hardware, 'cause it's all the same cheap
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on the other hand, hardware development will sta
All the more reason for Dell to sell Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All the more reason for Dell to sell Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
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Politicians shouldn't be allowed to receive funds, air ads, or otherwise "campaign" for election. We should receive notification of whom has "thrown in their hat", have the opportunity to see them participate in fair debates to base our votes on. Level the playing field so we can elect the best candidate regardless of their social or economic circumstances. Instead of having media blitz races where the candidate with th
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Adobe doesn't stop making products for Apple just because Apple has competing software. Same with Adobe not making software for Microsoft because Microsoft sells competing software. Unless Microsoft starts giving their PC some unfare advantage over the other ones. Then HP and Dells will compete with Microsoft on the Hardware end and will be partners on the software side. If microsoft tries to hard to monopolize the PC market that could leave an opening Linux and Apple. (App
That would be normal. (Score:2)
Competition != Mortal Enemies.
M$ is abnormal [slashdot.org]. The company does not act like a sociopath because that's the way big organizations are, it acts like one because the people running it are sociopaths.
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There's a key difference between those relations and the relationships between Microsoft and OEM's. Here's your example in the context of Microsoft/OEM relationships:
Let's pretend that Microsoft makes a plugin for Adobe Photoshop. Let's also pretend that Adobe Photoshop is largely useless (from a sales perspective) without this plugin, and Adobe cannot sell copies of Photoshop without it. The profit margin on t
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Emulating Sun and Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Emulating Sun and Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not, Microsoft's profits have dwarfed those of Sun and Apple combined and have relied on NOT doing this. Don't you think Microsoft selling PC's without paying themselves any licensing costs is going to have the likes of Dell and HP jumping the Microsoft ship faster than you can blink?
You would have to be crazy to promote windows when Microsoft has an inside edge on windows that assures nobody will have a computer that runs as well as those from Microsoft. Microsoft can do anything they want, including intentionally altering windows in ways that will cause it to misbehave on competitor hardware. This is a conflict of interest so glaring that is insane.
MS might get away with India... or not if the hardware companies are bright. But if MS takes this very far you will see a great deal more HP and Dell support for Linux and customization of Linux to work perfectly with their own hardware.
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I'm not, Microsoft's profits have dwarfed those of Sun and Apple combined and have relied on NOT doing this. Don't you think Microsoft selling PC's without paying themselves any licensing costs is going to have the likes of Dell and HP jumping the Microsoft ship faster than you can blink?
Dell and HP cannot afford to jump a ship that forms the basis of their economics. Even if Microsoft were successful, it wouldn't mean that EVERYONE would jump to buying from Microsoft. There is room for many competitors.
You would have to be crazy to promote windows when Microsoft has an inside edge on windows that assures nobody will have a computer that runs as well as those from Microsoft. Microsoft can do anything they want, including intentionally altering windows in ways that will cause it to misbehave on competitor hardware. This is a conflict of interest so glaring that is insane.
Microsoft would not hamstring their own OS because they could never hope to compete with the output capability of Dell, et al. Microsoft wants their OS to run EVERYWHERE. They do need another source of income, though. The advent of Vista is proving to Microsoft this very point. Vista
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Nonsense, Dell and HP are in the business of selling computers. Linux is a very viable computer operating system. What would happen if Dell and HP/Compaq stopped offering windows based PC's tomorrow and only offered Linux based PC's? People wouldn't stop buying PC's, 3 months from now I doubt Dell and HP would be behind, actually their sales would probably be higher. Windows sales on the other hand would plummet. Microsoft needs hardware manufacturers to pre-load their op
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That is the generally assumed truth. Yet, I am starting to doubt it in recent years, and perhaps so does Microsoft.
The tipping point was the XBOX. Previously, Microsoft were adamant on their 'software-only' position (even in the portable music player market, which left it wide open for Apple, in retrospect). Then with the XBOX they changed that, and apparently it is starting to work well. Th
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They will if they are smart. Remember, we aren't talking about a minor element in the windows empire. The major PC vendors ARE the pillars the hold the empire up. Dell and HP only need a viable operating system, there is no particular reason it needs to be windows.
'once established as basically the only operating system vendor for PCs, Microsoft can then branch off into selling PCs, and capturing even more profits.'
And that is exactly what will
Re:Emulating Sun and Apple (Score:5, Informative)
IF... (Score:2)
If they had produced MS-Box instead of being a OS only vendor, CP/M or some Unix would have been the dominant OS, and Microsoft Box would only have less than 10% market share like Sun and Apple. Or would have flunked like most of the company that sold integrated hardware+OS solution during the 80s and 90s.
Microsoft rose during the 90s because one could install their OSes (first DOS, then Windows) on any of the then dominating platform (x86 PC-clo
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Add to this that MS has consistently shown that it cannot produce a complex hardware product that people will pay a real premium for, and we see another effort to flood a market with intentions of creating a monopoly.
well, Intel is not gonna like this :) (Score:2)
but at least they're already selling linux
(OK, technically not selling, but intel is one of the bigger investors in linux, right up there with redhat, novell, IBM).
Microsoft is a software conglomerate (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft is a software conglomerate (Score:4, Funny)
For Years Microsoft has been neutral to OEM's (Score:5, Interesting)
For Years Microsoft has been neutral to OEM's. Could this move drive a further wedge between leading PC vendors and MS?
Is it a sign that Microsoft understands it cannot require OEM's to stop from selling alternate OS's and must enter the PC market itself?
Or is MS just licensing its brand name to go on the outside of the computer and making money for very little cost (something MS is good at)?
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Since they cannot make their money selling OS licenses in India, they will make that $300 per PC the way Apple does it now: by selling overpriced hardware.
Show me the Money! (Score:2)
That's exactly what they are doing. Except they don't get their monopoly-standard ROI.
What's more interesting is there are OEM's with a global presence that would be happy to do a deal (ex. Acer) Heck there are probably Indian versions of Dell that do a fine job. Still, Microsoft has to do the deal on their own... Very mysterious indeed.
Microsoft has a long history of stealing their customers lunches and eating it right in fron
long term.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The natural suspicion is that this will eventually lead to whole PCs elsewhere in the world and not for just academics/students. Long term Dell, Gateway and the crowd should be eyeing this carefully I should think.
The writers may doubt it, but even in the FA "..if Microsoft sees success in India, similar partnerships may be forged in other emerging markets".
Damnit (Score:2)
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anti-piracy commoditization (Score:5, Interesting)
It's simple, really. If the market doesn't see software as a product, but rather sees software as inseparable or an ephemeral customization of the hardware "appliance," then the only way to make a profit on software is to bundle it and make profits on the hardware it's installed.
Rarely do people copy a completed MS Word installation from one machine to another. They copy an installer. If there's no installer, there's one piracy vector down. If all the machines have equal deployed software images, that's another piracy vector down. However, if all the machines are alike, but some don't come with the Office and some do, will they start to copy those post-install files and try to get them to work anyway?
Well... (Score:2)
Well (Score:4, Interesting)
MS vs Apple, round eleven million... (Score:2)
And also, what would that mean to their competition with Apple? Don't forget that a few years ago, Apple tried allowing 3rd parties to manufacture Mac hardware, and later decided that they wanted to maintain exclusive control of the platform. We still hear people talk about how "Apple is a hardware company, Microsoft is a software company," or "Apple can only maintain quality in their drivers / operating
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hmm (Score:2)
I think that will not happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Besides making them even more liable to government intrusion regarding monopolies (and I think MS realizes that the next administration, whether republican or democrat, probably won't be as anti-anti-monopoly fanatic as this o
Retaliation (Score:2)
This is MSFT thumbing their nose at Dell selling Linux boxes. Oh, yeah? We'll show you, we'll sell PC's! Starting in India is just a shot over Dell's bow. Hinting that they could always start competing directly here in the US.
If I were Dell, I wouldn't be worried. MSFT won't be any better at selling hardware than they are at anything else.
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Meaning they'll just make another billion dollars of net profit each month? Such a failure...
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Seems to me Microsoft has been wildly successful at selling software so far, whatever you think about the quality of that software or the manner in which they sell it.
Wintel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wintel? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple has nothing to do with this, Intel is fairly opportunistic and they see there is a significant potential for Linux growth over the next few years and having Intel hardware be the hardware of choice due to superior driver support can only help them. They have traditionally provided fairly good hardware support for Linux on the server side of things for obvious reasons, it appears that this is now being pushed out to more desktop/notebook oriented hardware. Most likely in anticipation of desktop Linux growth, especially in the corporate/government universe.
.html [pbs.org]
As far as a MS/Intel alliance, there has not been one to speak of for several years now. It's not that Intel is above collusion or dirty tricks, for example there was that deal they struck with Skype a while back trying to get Skype crippled on AMD processors. It's just that Intel, and many other hardware companies have felt for years that Microsoft is holding them back.
From Microsoft's perspective they have been in a position where most computer users in the world have to pay them a "Microsoft tax" if they want to or not, so the less things change the better because any radical hardware or usage changes (the internet) can only hurt Microsoft rather than help them. This clashes with the goals of most hardware companies, which are to one-up the other hardware companies and crank out new hardware revisions constantly to keep people in the habit of upgrading every year. Graphics processor capabilities have been advancing at an incredible rate the last few years, this is largely because gamers are constantly looking at upcoming games and thinking to themselves "man I'm going to need a new video card when that comes out". What would be an equivalent event for replacing the rest of the hardware in the computer? Perhaps the release of a new operating system, though this doesn't really work when it takes Microsoft 5 years and lots of delays between each version of Windows with only marginal changes, most of which have scared the corporate/government customers away from upgrading.
There has been bad blood between Intel and Microsoft for many years now, if you want further evidence here is an interview from late 2005 with Avram Miller Intel's "Vice President and Director of Corporate Business Development" from 1984-1999 http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/transcripts/008
Here is an example from another former Intel executive who testified against Microsoft in the anti-trust trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_McGeady [wikipedia.org]
All directions at once (Score:5, Funny)
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Growing? (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe they call that, "Flailing."
Like a whale on the beach.
Make Windows Like the Mac (Score:2)
The MS PC (Score:2)
What they need to do is take something like the Xbox 360 (something that will plug into an HDTV, basically), and put a whole new, incompatible "Microsoft PC-only" version of Windows on it. Basically, a "clean" version of Windows that abandons backward compatibility entirely, and only runs on their own hardware.
Then, port Office and Internet Explorer to the new platform. Sell it for a few hundred bucks.
They *must* have thoug
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Really, it wasn't the same thing at all. I'm talking about an old-timey "home computer". Like the Commodore 64 was.
I'll take one please (Score:2)
The Next Step - "Just Add DRM" (Score:3, Funny)
"There is nothing wrong with your computer. Do not attempt to restart the machine. We are now controlling its operation. We control the hardware and the software. We can deluge you with a thousand windows or expand one single image to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your computing experience to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next session we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to... The Microsoft Computer. Please stand by."
As for myself, I think I will pass on the Microsoft flavored Kool-Aid. I tend to get upset when machines start telling me that I can not do [function or feature] with the new [media type or gadget] that I bought because the MAFIAA thinks that disabling [function or feature] is in _their_ best interest.
India's currency: the Rupee (Score:2)
Old man says: "You got computer!"
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I just thought it was funny... picturing a little Link holding a computer over his head
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Dear Lord, what has our education system come to?
For some more currency fun, watch "The Princess Bride" again (I'm assuming you already have seen it, or you should have) and see if you can identify the two currencies referenced in it.
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I'll give you a clue. One of these currencies was around until just a few years ago, when it was replaced by another currency that I guarantee you've heard of. Once you get that one, the name of the other one will be a dead giveaway.
Have fun, and don't forget to post your answer!
Customer service (Score:2, Funny)
More backdoors than a vegas whorehouse (Score:2)
Brace yourselves for spam like you've never seen before.
Waste of Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess MS can make at least $100 per machine, because unlike OEM's they have to pay $0 for the Window OS. That's a better margin than the Dells of the world. Plus they can control the numbers (we sold 10k machines all with Vista).
Microsoft and AMD (Score:2)
Killer feature (Score:2, Funny)
Not sure what they want to do... (Score:2)
Now about students, let me tell you, they are not in "need" of a computer. It's something nice to have, but often not a necessity by any stretch. FYI, even programmable/graphing calculators are banned even at university level, an
Too high by only $20? (Score:3, Interesting)
Going balls against the wall with Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
However, Microsoft, you can bet your sweet fat arse, would love to build its own machines, so as to especially attempt to beat Apple at its own game of hardware/software integration. This is obvious. Vista copied so many features out of OSX (yay transparent windows and shadows, the calender, Windows Mail instead of Outlook Express, the gadgets in the sidebar, UAC and numerous things) in a transparent attempt to stop users drifting away from MS crapware to Apple. Microsoft entered the portable music player market ONLY because Apple was laughing so hard at Bill Gates every time he started up some new version of MSN music, claiming it would be an iPod killer. The zune may be a joke, but you can bet that MS will work on improving it to try and get it ready for the legendary 3rd revision, by which time MS products are expected to be better than the competition.
You can bet Micrsoft would build its own PCs in a heartbeat to counter Apple if it could. MS is scared silly by Apple. The iPhone is not going to help the fear in Redmond much either, because it is guaranteed to be a huge success compared to MSs Dumbphones. Expect MS to dump HTC and release its own phone in about two or three years.
The only thing stopping MS from making its own PCs is the fact that that is honestly, the only real MS success story. Windows, Office and the Server Windows is where MS makes its money. If MS were to frolic too hard with making its own PCs in the US and Europe, you can bet that Linux would be on the front page of HP and Dells sites tomorrow and that you would have to actually look at who would sell you Windows anymore. (Yes, I'm exagerating, but the OEMs will become OELinux pretty soon, since they would not be able to compete with MS.)
MS would stand to lose vast amounts of marketshare, and they'd still lose, beause no matter how well their machines sold, Apple, in a tight corner, would only have to start selling OSX to OEMs to really bust Redmonds balls.
(rereading this, I wonder just how desperate Ballmer and Bill the dweeb really are?)
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At $500 they already have no chance. That's at least $200 too much for an ultra-low-cost PC, and I'm talking with an LCD. 15" for that price, but they're available. Maybe not in India, yet, but give it time.
How long before It becomes AMD / M$ / ATI VS...... (Score:2)
Re:How long before It becomes AMD / M$ / ATI VS... (Score:2)
Situation in an MS hardware world (Score:2)
A major part of current Vista sales are for older machines (and even new ones), that lack the required hardware for Trusted Computing style security, if they had required this hardware to run Vista it would have sold far less than it has.
better margins without microsoft tax (Score:2)
because they won't have to incur the OEM cost to
include windows with each PC, they'll be able to sell
their PCs for an amount less than what they charge OEMs
to include windows -- all else being equal, it should
give them slightly better margins per unit.
Makes business sence (Score:3, Interesting)
If they are the only game in town, you cant avoid the microsoft tax..
Re:Not Dell and HP... (Score:5, Funny)
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Instead, you have Microsoft lock-in and a Microsoft price.
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I'm not saying any hardware vendor has a perfect product line.
I will say their mice and keyboards are ok. Though the best Microsoft mouse I ever had I didn't pay for, I won in a MSDN contest.
I think if Microsoft was really confident in these PC's, they would have launched them in the U.S. or Europe. One problem they may ha
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Sitting at home somewhere I think I still have my Zenith Data Systems T-shirt that they made up for the military contracts. It featured a cartoon of these stereotypical rather tough looking army guys toting PCs instead of guns.
At least 2 mods with no sense of humor (Score:2)
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