Dell:
Dell provides hardware support only. Software support is available through Canonical and Linux Community.
Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 [Included in Price]
Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 with 30 days of Starter support [add $65 or $2/month]
Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 with 1 year of Basic Support [add $125 or $4/month]
Ubuntu Desktop Edition version 7.04 with 1 year of Standard support [add $275 or $8/month]
I cannot imagine anyone needing $275 worth of support for a pre-installed Linux distro as good as Ubuntu 7.04, but there are folks paying more than the hardware costs annually for support with that other OS so that number may appeal to those who want all problems to be solved by someone else. The 30-day number, $65, should comfort the timid but it eats up the price advantage that a Linux system should have. I have introduced hundreds of newbies to Linux and I doubt it took more than a few minutes to remind them not to double-click and so on to make the experience familiar. We just got on with the business of teaching/learning.
The support by Canonical is part of their service-oriented business plan and they are smooth and competent. I spoke with them at one point last year while designing an LTSP system. I did not need their support and our system was a little different from a desktop system and involved multiple servers so their programme did not seem to fit. As it was, I installed the system, acquainted users and coached a newbie sysadmin for a few days and left a manual. That was sufficient.
For Dell, Canonical’s participation is a marketable product and a comfort to customers who are not “enthusiasts”, the target in the USA. I suspect the “enthusiasts” tag was merely a smokescreen so that the move would not be highly visible to M$. No place to hide now, and the campaign has been expanded to Europe. Whatever sales of Canonical’s support Dell makes will in some measure replace lost revenue from added value from M$’s partners. We shall see in a quarter or two how it turns out.
Lenovo will provide its own support. They are less timid. They will support Linux themselves:
see Lenovo and Dell sneak Linux on to new PCs
“Lenovo will provide support for the operating system directly, the first time that it’s done so, it said, with Novell offering maintenance updates for the system directly to users. Previously, Lenovo had certified Thinkpads for use with Linux, but had not made the OS available directly to its customers. It announced neither pricing nor a specific shipping date.”
9507
8768
96
2
0
12860 
5778 
5743 
3889 
1637 
1558 
192 
0 
0 
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Ok, this is a bit late, but I just found your blog:
“[add $275 or $8/month]” – How does this add up? In my kind of math, $8 a month becomes $96 a year?
I would bet the Dell purchase is paid over three years so you pay $96X3 for $275 worth of service. To a business this is not as good as leasing but to an individual it just spreads out the pain like buying a car and paying over three years instead of cash. No doubt Dell makes a bit of money on the interest.
Interesting post, i have bookmarked your site for future referrence