Should Dell recommend five operating systems?
1170
points posted to Operating Systems, Sales Strategies by winoffice
06/18/07
By the time Dell began to offer Ubuntu on its computers, it began offering five families of operating systems on home computers (Dimensions and Inspirons): Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Ubuntu Linux. Also, on servers, it offers Windows Server 2003 and various editons of Linux/Unix (which editions and version numbers I do not know for certain), and now Sun Solaris. So why shouldn't Dell begin reccomending five operating systems -- three for PCs and two for servers? Maybe something like this (change all pages so that they have this heading next to the Dell logo and contact information):
Dell reccomends:
for PCs (desktops, all-in-ones, notebooks):
for Windows Vista: Ultimate edition
for Windows XP: Professional edition
for Unix/Linux: Ubuntu version 7.04
for servers:
for Windows Server 2003: Small Business Server Premium edition
for Unix/Linux: Red Hat Linux, Novell Suse Linux, Sun Solaris, or...? (See note above concerning Linux)
By the way, about servers, Dell does recommend some edition of Windows Server 2003, but this is often buried in the server configuration pages. I suggest that Dell should make the recommendation clearer and easier to find and see for customers, just as it recommends Windows Vista on PCs.
Besides, this way customers would be more informed about all operating systems, not just Windows Vista (this is not intended to suggest that I am against Vista, on the contrary I like it, but honestly, users should be more informed about everything that they may potentially purchase, especially if they made no "default" choice prior to looking for a computer -- or server for that matter).
jmxz recently submitted an idea concerning Sun Solaris and advertising it. There, he suggested that Dell should advertise Sun Solaris, and I agreed with him. So I decided to mention it by editing it. However, concerning Unix/Linux for servers, Dell offers multiple versions, and Ihave not used any and thus I cannot give a recommendation myself. So I decided that other members of the IdeaStorm community comment and tell Dell what version they would see Dell recommend.
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