As Dell and Acer Duke it Out, Their Open Source Stances Matter

"Acer ships its Aspire One netbooks in both Windows and Linux versions. Meanwhile, Dell has a new line of netbooks out, which are available with either Windows or Ubuntu. Dell would like to have the same kind of success that Acer has had in the netbook arena, but that may take time, and Dell is suffering from a punishing business hardware buying environment.

"Dell has recently launched an effort to ship computers to buyers in the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) market, pre-loaded with free, open source software. The effort is dubbed "SMB in-a-box." Meanwhile, Acer seems to be putting more focus on selling Windows-based laptops and netbooks than on Linux-based ones, although the company does have plans to ship Android netbooks starting in the third quarter."

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