Dell, Linux and OpenOffice: from personal use to business use

Michael Dell, Chief Executive Officer of Dell, was recently told to run the last release of Ubuntu, coming with a flavour of OpenOffice.org on top. The quantity and purpose were clearly for personal use until today, when Canonical and Dell announced a partnership to offer Ubuntu 7.04 on select desktop and notebook products.

Talking about pricing Jeremy Bolen, Dell’s spokesman, said that it’s too early to talk about price and which models will carry Ubuntu.

Jane Silber, Director of Operations at Canonical, said:

It’s the same Ubuntu you get from downloading it. The advantage is the preinstall option — you’re not buying software you don’t actually want.

Dell likely will give its customers the opportunity to buy support for Ubuntu from Canonical through its Web site, a quite different approach from the Microsoft’s one.

Nick Selby, from The 451 Group, is told to have said that:

[there’s the chance that] Canonical might walk into something it’s never experienced before, which is consumer dissatisfaction.

I don’t know if he is right, but I wish to add my congratulations, you reached a very important goal indeed!

What’s next? by Ayoumali

Technorati Tags: OpenOffice, Dell, Ubuntu, Canonical, Silber