🚀 go-pugleaf

As Microsoft gears up its marketing machine for the impending release of
Windows 98, a consumer advocacy group is trying to convince PC makers to
give buyers alternatives to Windows.

On Monday, the Consumer Project on Technology sent a letter to six top
personal computer makers. Signed by founder Ralph Nader, the letter asks
the original equipment manufacturers to start allowing consumers to buy
computers with non-Microsoft operating systems preinstalled.

The letter was sent to the heads of Dell, Gateway, Micron, Compaq,
Hewlett-Packard, and Packard Bell-NEC. It recommends that they offer
such operating system alternatives as Linux, Caldera's Open DOS/Spider,
and forthcoming operating systems including Apple's Rhapsody or the BeOS
from Be Inc.

James Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, says
consumers would benefit from increased competition in operating systems.
But currently the failure of PC makers to offer options to Windows
creates a large entry barrier for Microsoft competitors. And Love says
even advanced PC users are unlikely to try Windows alternatives like
Linux if they can't get them preloaded on a new machine.

"We'll concede the what-most-people-want argument," says Love. "But we
won't concede that everyone wants [Windows] ... because we know that's
not true. We hear from people all the time. I think that the
alternatives are good enough today, or will be in six months, that if
people could call up Dell and [get] a box that has a feasible
configuration of Linux already working, more people would try it."

No PC makers on Monday were ready to comment on the letter. Love says
many vendors are reluctant to offer machines with Windows alternatives
because they fear reprisals from Microsoft.

But even without coercion from Microsoft, PC makers have little economic
incentive to offer Windows alternatives, according to Bob Young, the
president of Red Hat Software, which markets Red Hat Linux, one of the
leading Linux platforms.

"Their responsibility and their job is to serve the bulk of their
customers," Young says. "And the bulk of their customers want Microsoft
OSes. But if we can prove there is a big enough market, they should
provide ... Linux boxes to their technical customers."

Young predicts that within the next six months, several top-tier PC
vendors will offer machines loaded with non-Microsoft operating systems.
They'll target those boxes at corporations, the government, and other
organizations with the technical resources to overcome the lack of
hardware drivers and applications written for non-Windows platforms.

But Giga Group analyst Rob Enderle says the added costs of testing
drivers alone will be enough to prevent PC OEMs from offering Windows
alternatives. Testing for compatibility "becomes a real headache," he
says.

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system, says he
welcomes Nader's efforts to open the door for Linux. And even if PC OEMs
don't offer Windows alternatives, Torvalds says Dell and other OEMs
should at least provide the option of buying a PC without any operating
system installed.

As Torvalds sees it, "For somebody like me, who really doesn't want to
have Windows, I end up paying for Windows for no good reason. That's
like paying taxes for something you really abhor."