Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

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>buying new PC hardware bundled with the Windows 8 “we won’t say Tax but that’s what it is when you levy a fee on all products within a market because you exercise dominion over it as a quasi-authority”)

Really? So does my car have a tire tax, just because it comes with tires on it? If you're buying a PC, 99.99% of all people expect it to come with an OS. In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150). There are major manufacturers making Linux PCs. There are major manufacturers that will sell you a box loaded with FreeDOS. There's even a major manufacturer that sells pre-installed, well-supported, and beautiful Unix PCs (I've heard they're one of the richest companies in the world). It's not like Microsoft is literally taxing computers, they're charging an incredibly small amount of money and in return you're getting their OS preinstalled like most of the market wants.

Can we get over the Windows Tax thing? It's pretty much akin to saying Micro$oft. Funny in middle school, but it makes your argument much less attractive now.

I bought a ThinkPad recently in Europe, and there was no way for me not to buy Windows. I don't need it and I don't want it. I don't even have it: I wiped the hard disk immediately after getting it. I could choose what memory I wanted, what screen I wanted or how much hard disk I wanted (SSD or regular HDD), but I could not choose not to get Windows. The same is true for the great majority of laptops.

Over the years I've wasted a lot of money buying copies of Windows that I never used and that I never wanted.

I very much doubt that this is so because of convenience: it is so because it gives more money to Microsoft.

It's outrageous.

So, yes, I wish we could get over the Microsoft Tax thing. Call it Microsoft Mandatory Purchase or Microsoft Gratious Gift for Mere Pennies if you wish, it doesn't matter.

Oddly enough, I bought a MacBook last year, and there was no way for me to not buy OSX. I don't need it, and I don't want it. I installed Windows 7 immediately after getting it.

Of course, I knew that when buying a MacBook I would end up paying a small amount for the development of OSX even though I had no intention of using it.

I had options, you had options. We chose the option we did because in balance that was the best option for us respectively.

Is it wrong to point out that you would have had better options if manufacturers made this bundling optional? And that the range of options seem to decrease over time? (Eg. you can't buy Windows RT and install it on an iPad).

The ARM market is different due to many drivers and specs not being open-sourced. In some cases, the drivers for the SoC are hidden behind an NDA and you have to be a hardware partner to get access to these drivers. Trying to install Windows RT on an iPad would likely result in finding driver incompatibilities.

Options don't come for free though. Every option in the chain doubles the number of configurations that the manufacturer has to maintain. So, yes, better for consumer, but not better / easier for OEMs.

There's just one company that sells computers with OSX pre-installed.

Legally. ;-)

  > I very much doubt that this is so because of
  > convenience: it is so because it gives more money
  > to Microsoft.

When Microsoft was throwing its weight around with OEMs to not offer alternative OSes, it was not because a handful of enthusiasts would have avoided paying an extra $35 on their computers. It was to make sure that alternative OSes remained a niche because they weren't hardware vendor supported.

That said, I've seen places with Microsoft shops would have wanted to avoid the 'Microsoft Tax.' I remember each machine in University had two Microsoft licenses. One that came with the purchase from Dell, and the other one purchased separately so that we could do more enterprise-y stuff with it. I'm sure that on a purchase of 1000s of desktops, avoiding $35/machine would have been nice.

Working at a semi-large-ish IT company here and the computers we buy come without any OS. So larger entities than a single person apparently have ways of purchasing large volumes of computers and avoiding buying OSes multiple times.

I should have qualified that my experience was from ~2001 or so. I guess it's also possible that the person doing the purchasing was incompetent, or didn't care about the savings because it wasn't their money.

The latter may even be a valid reason. At least when universities here (Germany) are given a certain budget for certain things they have to use it up, lest they get less the next year. So there often is a rush at the end of the year to spend all remaining money on office supplies and other things that are not strictly necessary or need renewal, just to not get cuts the next year.

> I bought a ThinkPad recently in Europe, and there was no way for me not to buy Windows.

You could have just as easily purchased something that wasn't a ThinkPad. That's akin to complaining that the iPhone comes with iOS on it, or that Mac's come pre-installed with Mountain Lion.

You also ignore the fact that it's probably more expensive to provide a laptop without Windows then with. Consider that with Windows is the norm, and because of that, it's easy to produce in greater numbers. Producing an exception, or a custom, will drive up the price.

> You could have just as easily purchased something that wasn't a ThinkPad.

At least here in the UK, it's not easy to get any computer without Windows - unless you want to shell out much more for a Mac. Dell no longer offer Ubuntu, and there's no local equivalent of System76. I found a small shop that builds unbranded desktops and will install Linux, but their laptops have Windows bundled.

> You also ignore the fact that it's probably more expensive to provide a laptop without Windows then with.

But on the rare occasions that a big name offers laptops with Linux - or without an OS - it is cheaper than comparable Windows machines.

The fact that Dell doesn't offer Linux as an option means there's no market for it. Come WRT and iOS you won't even have the option to easily install a different OS.

> I very much doubt that this is so because of convenience: it is so because it gives more money to Microsoft.

Well, most people want Windows pre-installed. So, is it more/less/equally convenient for manufacturers to maintain a 2nd inventory for the small percentage of people who do not want Windows installed? And would the overall cost associated with this 2nd level of inventory divided by the total number of PC's sold without an OS be greater than or less than the amount you are paying for Windows when you buy a new PC?

I don't know the answer, but it's something to think about.

> In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150)

It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically). This is especially noticeable in the laptop market. (Granted the market may have changed since I last bought a pre-built computer five years ago.)

Anyway, I think the point of the statement you quote really isn't about the "tax" but an illustration of the fact that Microsoft more or less controls the PC market through Windows. If Microsoft arbitrarily decides to double their license fee, manufacturers (until recently) really have no choice but to comply.

> It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically).

I have not noticed this. But I have noticed that Acer laptops with Linux Mips are ~80EUR cheaper than same models with Windows.

>If Microsoft arbitrarily decides to double their license fee, manufacturers (until recently) really have no choice but to comply.

Is this because Microsoft is forcing them to buy a license, or because the market is demanding Windows? We can debate Microsoft's sketchy practices in the past (which they were then punished for), but the here-and-now question is why do OEMs provide Windows? And my answer is, because there's not much else they can do. OEMs offer Ubuntu, and it's a very low-volume seller. OEMs offer FreeDOS, and it's a very low volume seller. When someone buys a PC, they expect it to run right out of the box and with the OS the market is demanding.

I think my point still stands. It's not a tax any more than including (and charging for) a hard drive is a tax. It's just expected that a PC will come with it. It would be cheaper for the OEMs to produce all their PCs with Linux (to the tune of ~$35 per PC), but they don't because the price decrease will not offset the sales decrease. When I bought my truck, I wanted huge 38" MT tires instead of the 31" all season tires that came with it, but I had to buy those separately because the market demands road tires.

> OEMs offer Ubuntu, and it's a very low-volume seller.

Which OEMs? In the UK, the only way I've got a computer without Windows is to order one custom built in a local shop.

Dell, at various times, has offered Ubuntu machines (their latest offering is an Ubuntu XPS laptop). I don't know if they've offered them in the UK or outside of the US at all, but they've always been discontinued shortly after appearing. If they were discontinued because of Microsoft objecting, Dell wouldn't have done it at all (and wouldn't keep trying every couple of years). My guess is that they've been discontinued due to not selling in enough quantities.

Dell also offered FreeDOS as an option. Looking online, Acer has offered FreeDOS in the UK, at least in the past. These computers are usually advertised as "No OS Installed" or something similar.

I've talked to some OEMs about this.

(1) They find that offering one Linux isn't much of an advantage even for Linux users, since so many people have a different preferred distro. Even people who buy a laptop running Ubuntu are likely to replace it with something else, currently Mint.

(2) Supporting Linux is a very expensive nightmare, especially if you try to do it in 30 languages across 50 countries. Selling Linux laptops to newbies is a loss-making proposition, so you only want to sell to geeks and businesses that can look after themselves. And they're the people who install their own OS anyway.

(3) It's not such a big deal to sell business machines with FreeDOS or something similar. With consumer laptops, the pre-installed crapware basically pays for Windows. Business laptops don't have (or shouldn't have) pre-installed crapware so OEMs are not losing to much on installation fees. The exception is probably the anti-virus program, which delivers big bucks if the user signs up and pays.

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