Make Dell Ubuntu PCs available to businesses and non-profits

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Make Dell Ubuntu PCs available to businesses and non-profits

7380 points posted to Linux, Sales Strategies, Small Business by wyleyr 06/20/07 **UNDER REVIEW**

Dell is apparently not yet willing to sell Ubuntu-based PCs to business users, non-profits, or other organizations larger than a "home office." See this Ubuntu forum thread for more:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=478975

If Dell is serious about offering "choice" to consumers -- the main reason that they're offering up Ubuntu -- they ought to offer it to all their customers, including commercial and non-profit organizations.

Perhaps the greatest barrier here is that these other customers often require different support contracts than home users. It wouldn't be necessary to offer the same support options to organizations that purchase Ubuntu PCs as are offered to home users, or to organizations that purchase Windows PCs. (Perhaps Dell doesn't need to offer any support at all, except for hardware; as long as Canonical can support these organizations.) But they ought to at least have the option of buying the boxes, even if they have to get support in a different way.

badsquishy 06/20/07	If you really want a product to fail you should place a limit the customers you will sell it to, create an arbitrary "type" of customer that is the only type you will sell the product to and you limit the available customer base, thereby limiting sales, limiting profits, and in a year or two you'll wonder why that product didn't sell so well. I think Ubuntu is a great product for businesses, I am working on setting up an Ubuntu server in my office right now. It is a good deal because I can set up the entire system without having to pre-pay for the software or support, but if I run into a problem at any time I can call up Canonical with the trusty business credit card in hand and get some help. Other Linux vendors require you pay for support (you may never need) when you purchase the "enterprise" version of the operating system, or provide for free only the "community" version and offer no paid support for that version at all.
maco 06/20/07	The support options are already all "support contract with Canonical," so Dell doesn't actually have to do any of the support as it is. It just means Canonical gets more business in the form of support contracts. It also means Dell has a bigger market to which they can sell.
jaybird 06/20/07	I would think that this would certainly be a significant part of the potential Ubuntu market. This certainly does not appear to be a technical limitation and I suspect a business could order a system online using any credit card they want. I suspect this is more of an issue with the sales departments not wanting to go out of their way to allow for this.
ptevans 06/20/07	I'm disappointed, and for once actually surprised, to find out today that I will not be able to buy PCs from Dell w/ Ubuntu. I am the Desktop Support Manager at a medium sized business that runs Ubuntu on about 50% of our PCs. I was really really looking forward to that first purchase of say 50 of these machines. The fact that I could get notebooks and desktops just sweetened the pot. As it stands now I have to buy desktops from local vendors or face the Windows tax from major vendors. The worst part is that I now have to disappoint the CTO and CFO w/ the news that this business of Dell selling Ubuntu machines is just a load of bunk. I assumed, wrongly, that Dell would be selling to businesses. Something in mind equated the return of Michael Dell as CEO to you guys growing a spine and doing something aggressive in the marketplace. Oh well.
kuriharu 06/21/07	Does any of us actually plan on BUYING one of these Dell PCs? Don't tell them to sell to businesses unless you actually plan on buying them for your business.
lonelovetenerife 06/21/07	Two articles about this: The original in ubuntu http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=478975< The http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=40472
sumyunggai 06/23/07	It does indeed appear that Dell (maybe at Microsoft's behest?) does want this to fail. Therefore, I would recommend the following http://www.zareason.com/< will gladly sell you Ubuntu PC's, no matter whether you're a home, business, educational, or any other kind of customer. Dell should do the same.
reg 06/24/07	I Like Puppies. http://www.puppylinux.org
gamejunkiejim 06/26/07	Absolutely ridiculous. If anyone needs a stable OS it's businesses. This absolutely must be offered.
smah 06/27/07	I wonder if this is a Dell's salesperson thing. ie. the Dell salesperson acting in the interests of their own personal commission rather than acting on Dell's behalf. I have seen this behaviour before when trying to order from Dell. The possible explanation for this is the conflict between salesperson's internal commission efficiency and Dell's profitability. Maximising the salespersons commission efficiency means turning away customers who are going to require more time than average sales time per dollar. This means telling customers who want more information about a product (Linux users fall into this category) or who asks for information the salesperson dosn't know straight away to effectively are told to go buy from another company, because the salesperson doesn't want to spend the time. Another form of this "efficiency" is to not refer the customer to the section of Dell that sells a product. I presume that this is what is going on here. Dell Business division does not sell Ubuntu desktops, meaning that the salesperson working in this Dell department (possibly with the approval of his/her superiors) tell the customer to effectively take a hike rather than finding out and conveying what is offered by the Dell private sales department, or even referring the customer to that department. This sort of behaviour is very familiar from my past dealings with Dell staff, and I suspect that this is what is going on here. The "don't sell if you can't get good commission efficiency" may be good for the salesperson's commission, but it is very bad for Dell's profitability, and Dell should look into this. First, it kills sales that the salesperson is too ignorant or lazy to pursue. Second, the response of customers who are treated like this is something like: "Dell don't want me as a customer, OK I will go to a company who does", and won't bother coming back for other orders, even if these are easy to sell. Doing this to a business customer (who is likely to need to order IT equipment on a regular basis in future) is suicidal from a business point of view. Dell needs to look very at their sales staff. I think there is a major problem there, one that has been there for some time, and something that hasn't been fixed.
sumyunggai 07/08/07	@Smah, you may have something here. If indeed Dell works on this business model, it is quite flawed. At Microsoft, we never, ever would do something that crazy. Windows NT and "consumer Windows" (i. e. 3.1 and 95) were handled by Business Products and Consumer Products, respectively. That mattered for tech support, but it didn't matter one doggone bit for sales. If someone wanted Windows NT instead of Windows 3.1 or 95, then by God, we'd make sure that they got Windows NT! We'd also talk to them and make sure that they had the right hardware to run NT. Why? It's a sale; it therefore made all of our stock go up. We never, ever turned away a sale! For ANY reason! And Microsoft still operates on that attitude. If Dell is not using a similar strategy, then it should start. Now. Make it worth their while to sell any box, because a sale is a sale. If that means you've got to actually train your employees on your entire product line, then so be it. Ido not recommend Dell to any small business at this time. And this is a big reason.
zuzuzu 07/19/07	WE WANT IT!! WE WILL BUY YOUR PCS BUT LISTEN US! supported by Free Penguin - Free as in http://www.freepenguin.it/index-en.html
dell_admin1 07/20/07	Changed status to UNDER REVIEW.
patsoe 07/25/07	Great! While you're reviewing it, please consider certifying Latitude's for GNU/Linux too (I'd get one).
sumyunggai 07/25/07	Amen, patsoe! I've had Latitudes from the CPi (yep, that far back!) all the way to my current D820, and every single one of them has run GNU/Linux very well. All you need to do is make sure you have Intel (or other GNU/Linux-friendly) wireless. Intel 965 video would be a good idea, too, since Ubuntu Feisty now has a FOSS driver that supports the i965 in 1920x1200 wide-screen mode! IIRC, the driver's in the "universe" repository. Works great. Let's go, Dell--quit wasting time! I already know one company that would start buying them Right Now...and they're not small.

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