Of course the Vista/Office delay is serious. From Phl Sim, Squash:
Is Microsoft stuggling with Vista? Abso-farking-lutely. Not hitting that pre-Christmas deadline is one of, if not the BIGGEST screw-ups in Microsoft history. You cannot possibly underestimate how much angst this is going to cause Microsoft’s hardware partners. You cannot possibly underestimate how much this is going to ruin Microsoft’s Vista marketing plans.
With this delay, Microsoft has pretty much single-handedly ruined Christmas for the PC industry. The single-biggest season for PC sales will flop because nobody is going to buy a PC when a new OS is just around the corner. I’m sure Microsoft and its PC partners will offer free Vista upgrades to people who buy Christmas PCs but that’s not going to be enough. Hell, do you want to go through that upgrade process when you can wait a couple of months and have it pre-installed. No way!
Dell in particular with the deepest Microsoft co-dependency will be raging. Impossible to contain their angst & fury to be told to walk away from Christmas 2006.
This is time for Dell people to strap on the trousers for the first time. The opportunity is perfect to announce a commitment to 2 or 3 leading Linux distros. The excuses Michael Dell has made lately about everybody wanting different distros and there being too many to support is delusional, utter chicken-shit!
If you need a template for your Linux division, go see our friend Lincoln Durey at Emperor Linux.
Dell: now's the time to Grow Up!
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