The Register: Dell, Prisoner of the Beast of Redmond

“Dell has a long history–regularly documented in these
pages–of not quite getting behind Linux on the desktop. Dell Linux
machines do pop up every now and again, but what desktop efforts
there are find themselves first consigned to obscure corners of the
operation, then disappeared, no doubt because of lack of demand.
Why is this? One can surmise that Dell’s closeness to Microsoft has
something to do with it, but one now has less reason to merely
surmise, because Linspire CEO Michael Robertson has broken cover
with a few claims, and a few numbers.

“Microsoft soft money ‘kickbacks,’ he estimates, could account
for up to $200 million, ‘or more than 25 per cent of Dell’s
profitability…'”

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