M$ Squeezes OEMs at Robert Pogson

HP is bargaining so hard with OEMs that some are refusing to supply machines to HP. This is because M$ rakes in far too much for software licensing. The margins of manufacturers are just too thin. It is the end-game of monopoly when suppliers no longer accept the dictates of monopoly. They can make other products and sell to other customers. Once the monopoly concedes to the first OEM, there is no place to go for licence fees but down. In 2009 that process started with netbooks. Now mainstream products are affected. That $100 that M$ routinely shares with the OEMs has become a huge chunk of the low-end PC. Low-end is becoming mainstream. Stuff just works too well to pay a higher price for other things. M$ had a go at “up-selling” but that has failed. The world wants small cheap PCs and the world will get them from M$ and the OEMs or ARM and other OEMs.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.