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View Full Version : HP Sees Huge Linux Desktop Deals



ComplexNumber
March 8th, 2007, 12:11 AM
i couldn't see any other thread about this, so i guess this is the first time this has been posted.



Hewlett-Packard is closing custom deals for thousands of desktop PCs running Linux, which has the company assessing the possibility of offering factory-loaded Linux systems, an HP executive said.

"We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard," said Doug Small, worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing at HP. "We are in a massive deal right now for ... multi-thousands of units of a desktop opportunity for Linux. That's an indicator." He declined to give details about the Linux deals.
read the rest here (http://www.crn.com/hardware/197800591). its a short article.




38 views and noboby had anything to say :confused:. i think this is great news. i was hoping that some more details would be known.

Nikron
March 8th, 2007, 03:01 AM
I do too. What more do you want me to say =P

SunnyRabbiera
March 8th, 2007, 03:04 AM
Saw it coming honestly, with vista being teh suck and it cosing HP money it was a matter of time

Nikron
March 8th, 2007, 03:11 AM
Saw it coming honestly, with vista being teh suck and it cosing HP money it was a matter of time

Actually I don't think it anything like that. HP has recently on a comeback from overtaking Dell, so I can imagine that their watching what their largest competitor does. It doesn't really surprise me, I am however surprised that the number of linux users is reaching critcal mass. Didn't know our numbers were on that much of an upswing.

I one thing I don't like is that Dell/HP are leaning towards Novell. While, I've never tried Open Suse, Novell is, after all, partly owned by Microsoft. While I'm no Microsoft hater, I don't really want to be using a Linux platform that they are involved in. It probably does make it easier for Dell and HP to preload their computers with OpenSuse for the same reason..

Anyway, I build my computers, so I don't really care

ComplexNumber
March 8th, 2007, 03:14 AM
I do too. Why more do you want me to say =P
i don't know - find some more details about it, i guess :p



Saw it coming honestly, with vista being teh suck and it cosing HP money it was a matter of time
maybe they've seen what dell is doing. so not to be outdone, they've decided to do the same. or at least, say that they are.
so even if dell doesn't put its money where its mouth is regarding linux, at least dellideastorm would have had something positive come from it if HP start selling linux preinstalled.



Actually I don't think it anything like that. HP has recently on a comeback from overtaking Dell
yeah, apparently, HP are doing really well at the moment.......from what i've heard.

tehhaxorr
March 8th, 2007, 03:44 AM
I one thing I don't like is that Dell/HP are leaning towards Novell. While, I've never tried Open Suse, Novell is, after all, partly owned by Microsoft.


Unfounded lies don't help anyone, Microsoft doesn't own any part of Novell.

The guys like HP and Dell will back Novell or Red hat because they are the Linux providers will all the balls and the rock solid reputation and support structure., they wouldn't even consider canonical/ubuntu, canonical is a fly compared to Novell or Redhat. Sure ubuntu as a distro is just as good as anything novell or redhat can offer, but in the world of enterprise nobody cares about the community distro, novell can do a far better job backing linux than canonical.

kevinf311
March 8th, 2007, 03:55 AM
Building a computer and installing an Operating System from scratch is very foreign to my family. The fact that I've built and setup multiple computers astounds them. Having a prebuilt Linux computer that they can just go to the store and buy will be the biggest step towards converting my family.

Nikron
March 8th, 2007, 03:56 AM
Unfounded lies don't help anyone, Microsoft doesn't own any part of Novell.

The guys like HP and Dell will back Novell or Red hat because they are the Linux providers will all the balls and the rock solid reputation and support structure., they wouldn't even consider canonical/ubuntu, canonical is a fly compared to Novell or Redhat. Sure ubuntu as a distro is just as good as anything novell or redhat can offer, but in the world of enterprise nobody cares about the community distro, novell can do a far better job backing linux than canonical.

Sorry, guess I was wrong, for some reason I thought I had read somewhere that Microsoft owned a part of Novell. A quick google search reveals they do have some sort of deal going on, obviously not a bad thing in by itself.

hkgonra
March 8th, 2007, 04:01 AM
Please nobody shoot me for blasphemy. I am not saying i want this to happen just that I see what I am about to say as a real possibility.
Now,
Although everyone is excited about these possible new deals, I see a REALLY strong possibility that we will see desktop linux in the next few years become very strong. I also see that Novell and Redhat will own linux desktop as much as Microsoft owns the desktop now.
I think that the big boys with the big names in support will run the other distros out of the market and leave them at the best where they are now and at worst almost gone.

SunnyRabbiera
March 8th, 2007, 04:11 AM
Well I can easilly see Ubuntu becomming a contender real soon too, though companies do see redhat and suse as the ones to go to because they are very established, Ubuntu is still a young blood but it has more of a general market interest then older distros like it, like debian (debian as a business is err compared to the power that novell and redhat have)

riven0
March 8th, 2007, 04:11 AM
Like this will ever happen. :-?
Alright, maybe I'm being too pesemisstic, but unless Dell gets on the ball and starts pre-installing Linux, I don't see HP doing anything more than talking big. I imagine this only came up because Dell was considering it first; it's all about competition.

Anthem
March 8th, 2007, 04:18 AM
I don't even care if they sell Linux or not. I'm not buying a new desktop any time soon.

What I do care about is that they put the squeeze on hardware manufacturers to play nice with free software. That means drivers and specifications.

HP has a ton of purchasing power. If they were ever to hint that vendors with Linux support would be more likely to sell their products to HP, it would mean a massive increase in hardware support in the linux kernel. And as an Ubuntu user, I would benefit from that, whether I buy HP or not.

Nikron
March 8th, 2007, 04:18 AM
Like this will ever happen. :-?
Alright, maybe I'm being too pesemisstic, but unless Dell gets on the ball and starts pre-installing Linux, I don't see HP doing anything more than talking big. I imagine this only came up because Dell was considering it first; it's all about competition.

Well, it'll happen if the certified ones sell briskly. They're gonna take baby steps; Dell and Hp are waiting for the consumers to pull out their wallets to show that pre-installed linux will sell. And that means the blank but certified machines have to sell.. and well

SunnyRabbiera
March 8th, 2007, 04:29 AM
I don't even care if they sell Linux or not. I'm not buying a new desktop any time soon.

What I do care about is that they put the squeeze on hardware manufacturers to play nice with free software. That means drivers and specifications.

HP has a ton of purchasing power. If they were ever to hint that vendors with Linux support would be more likely to sell their products to HP, it would mean a massive increase in hardware support in the linux kernel. And as an Ubuntu user, I would benefit from that, whether I buy HP or not.

Well they have done some of this already, on some of thier desktops I have noted the pre installation of open GL (modded by HP of course), thier hardware is nostly stuff that is usually good around linux (some of the nvidia's they use can be tweaked under linux)
I have seen thier audio frivers, thier hard disks, mother boards and other stuff that is either fair or moderate on linux.
Basically what I see is that HP is already supporting open source, secretly yes but most of thier drivers are availible to us.
I think HP might be more genuine then dell is, for dell it was a decision made in the haste caused by all the crap microsoft was pulling, but HP has been a sponsor of linux in the past and still is.
I think HP is one of our best bets for the commercial market now, thier track record so far with open source and linux has been very fair.
Now even if HP never pushes linux onto its desktops I can still see it using stuff that linux might be able to work on... this is more then i can say about most companies.

Polygon
March 8th, 2007, 05:02 AM
this is good news :D

even if its crappy at the start, it is still a start! HP is partly doing this cause dell is doing it, and eventually other mass computing companies like gateway and others will have to start offering this or they will be left behind. companies will start competing and start outdoing each other, as if they dont take it seriously, and charge like 50 dollars more for a computer without windows then one that does include windows, then the company that does get it right will get all the business

soon, companies will be battling it out over the preinstalled linux computer, and in the end, the consumers win.

some_random_noob
March 8th, 2007, 05:07 AM
Wow... HP rocks. Their printer support for Linux is great too. I'm buying HP from now on to show support...

kevinf311
March 8th, 2007, 06:34 AM
I do not currently need a new Desktop, and would only like to have a laptop but it is not a necessity

I willing to go as far to say that if HP or another major computer vendor test batches a pre-installed Linux desktop or laptop(especially) and I have the money to purchase one, I will.

I will do my part to show that there is demand for open computers, bank account willing. ;)

There was talk of Canonical selling Ubuntu desktops/laptops (really an idle poll as to whether or not you would buy one) earlier and I said that I would buy a preconfigured laptop hands down given my new career at a commuter college. The same goes for any other vendor.

chaosgeisterchen
March 8th, 2007, 07:35 AM
With Linux ever getting into big business it's most assuredly SuSE Linux, which will be preinstalled on the machine, as one has to notice. With Novell, they have a rather big enterprise behind the operating system and therefore system admins seem to be more comfortable with it than with - for instance - Ubuntu, the (almost) fully community driven project.

Adamant1988
March 8th, 2007, 12:01 PM
Sorry, guess I was wrong, for some reason I thought I had read somewhere that Microsoft owned a part of Novell. A quick google search reveals they do have some sort of deal going on, obviously not a bad thing in by itself.

There is a lot of FUD that is in circulation throughout the community because people are unhappy with Novell's deal with Microsoft.

As for the loading of Linux on desktops, I figure it will be Novell as the forerunner for pre-installation. They've got the reputation and they're good enough to do it. I hope that Red Hat is really kicking themselves right now for leaving the desktop market.

chaosgeisterchen
March 8th, 2007, 12:14 PM
As for the loading of Linux on desktops, I figure it will be Novell as the forerunner for pre-installation. They've got the reputation and they're good enough to do it. I hope that Red Hat is really kicking themselves right now for leaving the desktop market.

SuSE is a very good Linux distribution and good enough to convince users when it will come preinstalled.

And Red Hat has seriously missed big business. I think that it was good for Novell to do the Microsoft deal, it increases the acceptance of Linux overall.

billdotson
March 8th, 2007, 06:20 PM
As this does not affect me directly because I build my own PCs any pre-installation is good.
If Linux pre-installs on HP or Dell PCs they are going to have to do it right. What I mean by that is they had better not have a machine with "x" specs running Windows being cheaper or even close in price to a machine with the same specs running Linux. If they charged more for Linux I would be incredibly angry.

Also, as GNU/Linux is not Windows.. people are used to Windows.. so the distro that is pre-installed must be already set-up for the user with everything they will ever need software, etc.-wise or it will have to be easy for a user to do things. Thus although I have not tried any other distro other than Ubuntu with the exception of Puppy Linux and Knoppix I do not know about RPM or slackware based distros.. but I hear they are much harder than Debian-based distros.

The distro that is installed does not matter as of right now. Granted the distro needs to be user-friendly it generally does not matter. If pre-installed Linux desktops and/or laptops sell well.. which will only happen if they are cheaper than PCs running Windows and the fact is pushed that all the software for it is legally free. Also, since it is free the point needs to be driven that money does not always = quality. GNU/Linux is very good quality but does not cost anything. The point that it being free will also make some people think that there is a catch and this needs to be clearly stated.

If Linux desktops/laptops sell well then Linux will most likely begin to see commercial software be made for it. While FOSS software is in very many cases capable of doing what you need to do there are some apps that are irreplaceable and they are only on Windows. Apps that do your taxes and other critical things are hard to trust if you do not pay for them (if you pay for a product you can blame someone if something goes wrong)

So any pre-install of Linux is good. I have heard that if Linux gets 10% of the desktop market then commercial programs WILL be made for Linux. PC games coming soon...? (those are the only apps that are irreplaceable for me)

Adamant1988
March 8th, 2007, 07:43 PM
SuSE is a very good Linux distribution and good enough to convince users when it will come preinstalled.

And Red Hat has seriously missed big business. I think that it was good for Novell to do the Microsoft deal, it increases the acceptance of Linux overall.

Really, I've only had SuSE ever fail me in one area, and that's package management. With the release of 10.2, that seems to have stopped.

dyous87
March 8th, 2007, 08:34 PM
Unfounded lies don't help anyone, Microsoft doesn't own any part of Novell.

The guys like HP and Dell will back Novell or Red hat because they are the Linux providers will all the balls and the rock solid reputation and support structure., they wouldn't even consider canonical/ubuntu, canonical is a fly compared to Novell or Redhat. Sure ubuntu as a distro is just as good as anything novell or redhat can offer, but in the world of enterprise nobody cares about the community distro, novell can do a far better job backing linux than canonical.


Actually that's not entirely true. In the Dell commentary in the situation they had said that they were looking into all the Popular distros including Red Hat, Suse and Ubuntu.

Adamant1988
March 8th, 2007, 08:49 PM
Actually that's not entirely true. In the Dell commentary in the situation they had said that they were looking into all the Popular distros including Red Hat, Suse and Ubuntu.

Would you like to show me where Ubuntu is mentioned in their response? Because in the 9000 times I've seen it posted, I've never seen them mention it by name. Perhaps I missed it.

dyous87
March 8th, 2007, 08:58 PM
Well I can't remember if I had read it on Slashdot or Digg but i found this MadPenguine article just now were Ubuntu, Suse and Redhat are mentioned all though the writer doesn't exactly give a source for his info:

http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=7770

Adamant1988
March 8th, 2007, 09:10 PM
Well I can't remember if I had read it on Slashdot or Digg but i found this MadPenguine article just now were Ubuntu, Suse and Redhat are mentioned all though the writer doesn't exactly give a source for his info:

http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=7770

There isn't a statement from DELL in that post that says they're looking at Ubuntu.