Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products [LWN.net]

Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products

Posted Feb 1, 2013 0:09 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784)
In reply to: casual contributions and Github by anselm
Parent article: LCA: The future of the Linux desktop

It's the oldest trick in the book: to show that there's "no demand" for something, make it as unattractive as possible so that people won't buy it, and then point to the lack of interest in the product as a "justification" of the strategy of not offering it in the first place.

It is, however, actually possible to get Thinkpads with some GNU/Linux distributions pre-installed, but not necessarily direct from Lenovo as a "consumer": instead, retailers seem to be able to obtain them from the distribution channel and do the necessary bundling, and this is quite evident when one considers the frequency with which Thinkpads appear amongst the vendors that do bundle GNU/Linux.

Really, one should be able to buy the bare hardware. Even Windows users would benefit from that, potentially, given that some of them are likely to have more licences than they can use and don't need another one foisted upon them, but scary noises about "piracy" are always made when this guaranteed revenue stream comes under threat.

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Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products

Posted Feb 1, 2013 18:49 UTC (Fri) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link]

> Why do they want to show justification? How does this trick put the company ahead of where it would be if it simply never offered Linux at all? Or offered it in a way that it was truly valuable?

So that they have a ready answer when the press and/or consumers come complaining about the situation -- the crapware vendors and Microsoft put heavy pressure on them not to admit the truth. It saves them some bad PR and might even give some good PR, since they are, after all, offering a Linux product.

If they were to offer Linux in a truly valuable way, of course their vendors would be very upset, and might even withdraw their support.

Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products

Posted Feb 1, 2013 20:02 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I don't think that much thought is going into it, there is always some buzzing around Desktop Linux so vendors from time to time dip their toe in the water to gauge the response but they aren't exactly going to restructure the company around Desktop Linux without some demonstrated growth of paying customers. For the most part Linux works well enough on their existing models so there really isn't any reason to throw resources into it. It's like when VA Linux tried to be a better Dell, selling cheap x86 Linux boxes, it turns out the best Dell is Dell.

Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products

Posted Feb 1, 2013 20:45 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Have you actually read the article?

The crapware vendors and Microsoft put heavy pressure on them not to admit the truth.

Not even close. Crapware vendors pay them money. Nothing more, nothing less. Price of Windows+Crapware for major vendors is negative (that is: vendors actually receive more money from crapware vendors then they pay Microsoft) and for some strange reason Linux-lovers are unwilling to pay more for a system with Linux preinstalled to compensate for the loss.

If they were to offer Linux in a truly valuable way, of course their vendors would be very upset, and might even withdraw their support.

Crapware vendors don't care, but Microsoft is very aware and it makes it hard to sell computers with Linux (actually any OS other then Windows): Linux system must be separate entity, you can not offer dual-boot and you can not offer pick-your-OS-at-the-checkout-time service (not if you want to keep the discounts). This is well-known phenomenon, I don't see where your make it as unattractive as possible so that people won't buy it, and then point to the lack of interest in the product as a "justification" of the strategy of not offering it in the first place idea comes from.

Hardware vendors do offer the best possible Linux support they realistically can, but well, they are businesses, to sell Linux systems with a loss to satisfy some strange ideas is not something publicly trading company can justify for long.

Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products

Posted Feb 1, 2013 21:42 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]

I don't see where your make it as unattractive as possible so that people won't buy it, and then point to the lack of interest in the product as a "justification" of the strategy of not offering it in the first place idea comes from.

I'm being quoted there so I'll respond to that. By unattractive I mean offer a token product at the low-end (presumably because Linux users are cheapskates or poor or something) so that when people look at the specification and realise that it's not very attractive as a product - the screen isn't very big, or there's less memory, or the CPU has half the number of cores, or whatever, compared to the next model up in the range - they then mumble about it not meeting their needs or expectations and then go and buy the next (or next but one) model up, wipe the disk, and install Linux on it themselves. Result: one Windows sale, no Linux sale.

Why would a company offer something unattractive - an "economy" model - instead of something else? That's the interesting question. It's not necessarily the case that the more expensive computer costs more for them to put Linux onto it and roll it out as a separate product, so you can't claim that the token Linux product at the low-end is dipping a toe in the water whereas a token mid-range or high-end Linux product would be sticking their whole leg in the water, especially since some of these vendors ship Linux on their workstation and server offerings already.

Why would a company use the lack of a response from customers as justification of a lack of Linux products? I would imagine that there's a continuous stream of requests and enquiries on sites like Dell's IdeaStorm (or whatever it's called) as well as from random customers. Doing nothing doesn't look very good, and doing just a bit more than nothing is the next best thing and looks a whole lot better. Result: "people don't buy these things when we offer them, but we will continue to review demand going forward" plus business as usual.

Guaranteeing "no demand" through poor products

Posted Feb 2, 2013 22:31 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

So that they have a ready answer when the press and/or consumers come complaining about the situation

You obviously believe having the public believe in your business plan is more valuable than I do. I think that if, when the press comes asking why it doesn't have Linux products, HP were to say, "no comment," its sales would be the same as if HP said, "because we've proven there is no demand for them."

Maybe you're also of the ilk that say things like, "the oil companies will probably use this development in the Middle East as an excuse to raise the price of gas." In my experience, oil companies never offer excuses for raising their asking price. Every time Shell has reason to believe a different price would generate more revenue, Shell just changes the board. And I don't think I've ever heard a driver say, "I'm going to buy more gas today, even though it costs more, because Shell needs the money."