“Dell is bringing XP back,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News. “Amid significant customer demand, the computer maker said on Thursday that it has returned to offering the older Windows version as an option on some of its consumer PCs.”
Fried reports, “Like most computer makers, Dell switched nearly entirely to Vista-based systems following Microsoft’s mainstream launch of the operating system in January. However, the company said its customers have been asking for XP as part of its IdeaStorm project, which asks customers to help the company come up with product ideas.”
“‘We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings,’ Dell said on its Ideas in Action page. Users get to vote on various suggestions, and the notion of bringing back XP got 10,000 ‘points,’ making it among the most popular requests but well below top picks such as adding Linux or OpenOffice.org to its PCs,” Fried reports.
Fried reports, “Analysts say Dell’s move is not a good sign for Windows Vista. ‘That there is remaining demand from some segment of (the) consumer market points to the inability of Vista to resonate with consumers,’ IDC analyst Richard Shim said.”
“Microsoft product manager Michael Burk said in a statement: ‘Dell is responding appropriately to a small minority of customers that had this specific request. But, as they have said before, the vast majority of consumers want the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Windows Vista.’ The software maker has said it will stop selling Windows XP to large PC makers by January. Smaller computer sellers, known as system builders, will be able to sell XP machines for an additional year.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Vista’s reception is almost zunelike. Here’s an interesting bit of information: We went to Dell’s “IdeaStorm” website and checked it out. It seems that individual posts aren’t totaled together, so, for example the suggestion that Dell offer Windows XP is measured only by the post receiving the most votes. The post “Don’t eliminate XP just yet” has received 10,768 points, which seems to be the one to which Fried refers in his article. There are other calls for XP; they just receive less votes. Now, you can search the ideas, so that’s just what we did. We searched for “OS X,” found a bunch of posts asking for Dell to offer Mac OS X, and totaled them up. There are currently 7,751 votes for Dell to offer Mac OS X spread throughout Dell’s IdeaStorm site. That’s a story we haven’t seen covered; not that Apple would license Mac OS X to Dell, but that people are clamoring for Dell to offer Mac OS X.
One of the clearest posts also has a good number of votes already (440). It’s titled simply, “Add Mac OS X.” We wonder if any media outlet would cover it if that one got enough votes to move it up the “most popular” list?
Related articles:
Fortune: Michael Dell reiterates he’d love to sell Apple’s Mac OS X if only Jobs would license – January 22, 2007
PC box assemblers like Dell and others wish Apple would license Mac OS X – August 31, 2006
Michael Dell say’s he’d be happy to sell Apple’s Mac OS X if Steve Jobs decides to license – June 16, 2005
Fortune: PC makers realize Mac OS X is superior to Windows, they’re wooing Steve Jobs for licenses – May 26, 2005
Beleaguered Dell’s numbers don’t add up – April 09, 2007
Jim Cramer: Michael Dell is no Steve Jobs – March 30, 2007
Beleaguered Dell finds evidence of misconduct in internal investigation – March 30, 2007
Market researcher suggests that beleaguered Dell open high-end nightclubs – March 19, 2007
Beleaguered Dell slashes forecast for notebook shipments by 20-percent – March 13, 2007
BusinessWeek: Beleaguered Dell pulling out the pink slips? – March 08, 2007
Beleaguered Dell: Shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders – March 02, 2007
Beleaguered Dell’s earnings drop 33% – March 01, 2007
Beleaguered one-trick pony Dell faces unclear future – February 14, 2007
Biting words on Apple come back to haunt Dell – February 10, 2007
Dell faces investor lawsuit over ‘illegal Intel kickbacks’ – February 02, 2007
Michael Dell is no Steve Jobs – February 02, 2007
BusinessWeek: Welcome back, Michael Dell – don’t get too comfortable – February 01, 2007
Rollins out as beleaguered Dell’s CEO, replaced by Michael Dell immediately – January 31, 2007
Total eclipse of Michael Dell goes off as predicted – January 10, 2007
SEC starts formal probe of beleaguered Dell – November 16, 2006
Apple does it again: New Macbook Pros much cheaper than Dell – October 25, 2006
Dell feels the heat from Apple – October 04, 2006
The Motley Fool: ‘Intel to Dell: you guys stink’ – September 28, 2006
Beleaguered Dell’s OS-limited PC sales ‘declining rapidly below expectations’ – analyst – September 21, 2006
Fortune compares Mac vs. Dell: ‘you’ll get more for your money with Apple’ – September 11, 2006
AP: Time to think different, Apple Mac beats Dell on price, software compatibility, and more – August 23, 2006
Dell profit falls almost in half; announces informal SEC probe – August 18, 2006
Dell cannot compete with Apple’s new Mac Pro price or feature set – August 15, 2006
Bear Stearns: Apple’s new Mac Pro, Xserve pricing well below comparable Dell systems – August 09, 2006
Dell warns of earnings miss; shares plunge 15% – July 21, 2006
Survey shows big jump in consumer interest in buying Apple Mac; Dell takes steep slide – July 06, 2006
Dell warns 1Q earnings will miss mark; shares tumble – May 08, 2006
Apple passes Dell in market value – May 02, 2006
InformationWeek: Apple Mac run Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux; Dell and HP should be concerned – May 01, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Apple Mac is #1 in European education market, pushes Dell down into second place – February 03, 2006
Steve Jobs emails Apple team: Michael Dell not the best prognosticator, Apple worth more than Dell – January 16, 2006
“7,751 votes for Dell to offer Mac OS X “
That’d boost Apple’s sales from about 5% of US market to 5.02% this quarter if they all actually brought and weren’t just Apple Fanboys posting on the Dell site.
Clamoring indeed.
Looking at the “Dell to offer Mac OS X” headline or punchline, whichever you prefer, to me it seems more likely that Dell could just be another reseller for Apple hardware & then OS X software to go with that hardware.
Would that undermine Dell’s own product line? The line that the public already know to suck big time or would it be of yet another case of OS X to the rescue and save Dell from financial collapse?
I don’t want Apple saving Dell’s sorry butt. Let them sell an outdated, crappy OS on their cheap, low quality plastic boxes.
Mac OS X is for Macs. You want it? Get a real computer.
Ideastorm? Are you friggin kidding me? Funny how Apple has been doing such a thing for years without some goofy contrived name and Dell has to make it some sort of novelty.
Ideastorm? Here’s an idea. Shut down the company and give the money back to the shareholders.
“”Beleaguered” must be MDN’s favorite word or something”
They use it sort of as a slap in the face to everyone who called Apple ‘beleagured’ back in the late 90’s. You couldn’t read an article about Apple without it leading off with the words “beleagured Apple’. MDN is just very casually saying ‘how’s that crow?’
“I think it will eventually happen once the Mac reaches about 10% of the market.”
Then you would be wrong. Apple isn’t going to give up the lions share of their business in order to sell more boxes of OSX.
Besides the bigger factor is keeping control of the user experience, which they would be relinquishing if they allow third party hardware makers to install it on their crapware.
Leave this one alone. Who the hell wants OS X on a Dell? That’s like a rusty 30 year old F-150 carrying the statue of David in the back with bungie cords while shooting black smoke out of the tail pipe.
Even for the sake of manipulating the media into talking about OS X, I can’t do it. They’ll have enough to talk about when Leopard makes it’s way.
As a windows user it must be tough to choose between different levels of suck when shelling out a couple of grand for a new machine.
This week I got to see Vista and Office 2007 at a meeting I went to. One of the attendees had his machine setup with the new M$ wares.
Aero is a visual blitzkrieg. There is so much going on in the interface especially in Office 2007, I can see how someone could get lost. Since he was using a laptop it looked like 35″ screen worth of eye candy crammed into a laptop screen. You know your OS interface and window decorations are the cause of problems when they take sizeable percentages of workspace away from the user. I hope Apple keeps the interface clean and simple in Leopard.
Just my $0.02
Look, I enjoy vote rigging as much as the next Bush supporter in battle ground states (he, he). But why bother?
Rock on Steve!
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Man, this is so funny…
M$ takes 5 friggin years to deliver a new OS and people want the old one back. Talk about being funny. M$ is a comedy show.
XP works fine…why hassle with an upgrade to Vista???
Yup, just like Bush rigged the 2000 elections in Florida, right? (Funny, all of the counties that reported voting irregularities were Democrat strongholds, with Democrat electoral boards. You know how contested elections usually work? The aggrieved party demands a recount and then recounts until they get the result that they want. And Al’s still mad that his shenanigans were discovered before they produced the expected result.)
idiot, haven’t you busted your own skull yet? take your poly-tics (from the greek for many bloodsucking insects) somewhere else.
Personally, I get a warm feeling inside when I see “beleaguered Dell”.
@just wondering.
“Yes, I know what it refers to. However, I don’t believe it should give license to poor writing. I’m sure you are probably the author of this article because you respond so quicky to defend it.”
sorry i stopped reading there, as i don’t think i should give license to poor thinking. if you can’t deal with a running gag, shut up and skip the article.
I didn’t see this suggestion, so I posted it:
http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/66083/Shut_down_Dell_and_give_the_money_back_to_the_share_holders
MDN Magic Word: post!
Wow. I never expected this website to practice censorship. Especially since my post was a non-inflamatory opinion with absolutely no bad language. I guess I should view what I read here as it being half or less-than-half the full story. And I’m one of your more avid readers and Mac lovers.
Just amazing. When one of your largest purchasers doesn’t even want your new product…
Vista. Because it’s better than Bob.
The MS Battle Plan Revealed:
Secretly, silently and overnight, Vista will be renamed XP Plus.
That Vista is getting a “zunelike” reception, does not surprise me…
What surprises me is that people want to buy Dells with OS X….
OS X in a Dell is like a Ford with a Mercedes Engine inside… Sure, the engine will run fine, but it’s still a piece of crap Ford, with lousy build quality, typical electrical problems which will make the end package unstable and unreliable, thus degrading the reputation of the Merc engine.
One of OS X’s biggest strengths is that it coupled with a fine piece of hardware that matches it for quality.
Those who complain that Apple is often a few months behind the rest of the PC industry with the fastest CPUs, graphics cards, etc., don’t understand that Apple is being smart to release a limited selection of products and accessories, thus improving the reliability of the whole package, OS and hardware. This is especially true when it comes to graphics cards, as anyone who has spent months installing nearly daily driver updates from ATI or NVidia in search of stability and performance can attest.
What the folks who want to buy Dells with OS X don’t realize is that they will NOT be $300 machines. If Apple were to, in the unlikely event, license OS X to Dell or any other PC maker, they would certainly prescribe a lot of the technical specs of the machines… If I were Steve Jobs, I would insist on Apple having final sign-off, if not total control over the OS X machines design, and merely use Dell, HP, etc. to get cumulative discount component pricing. At best, Dell, HP, etc. would get a unique product line, such as a machine half-way between a Mac mini and a Mac pro… Smaller case than a Mac Pro but with greater expendability than a Mac mini. And of course, reserve the “Mac” and Macintosh” trademarks exclusively for Apple.
But, then again, with 30% year over year growth, why bother… Let Dell die it’s slow death.
Guys:
I’m a Mac addict. I’ve used them since the late ’80s.
Let’s cut M$ some slack here. Unlike OS X where Apple controls all of the hardware, M$ needs to write an operating system that can work with just about any hardware. That’s why M$ became the large company it did – it didn’t matter what hardware you ran, you could always run windows.
Now that there are so many hardware choices – and consumer desires – Vista is a product of its consumer base – be all things to all people. If OS X was licensed on to Dell or other manufacturers’ boxes, where Apple didn’t control the hardware, I’d argue that OS X would have may of the same problems Vista is having right now.
{makes popcorn}
“Let’s cut M$ some slack here.”
I’d rather not.
Microsoft stands convicted as a predatory monopoly in clear violation of the law. Its abusive practices continue unabated. It routinely eliminates competition through vaporware and intimidation. Its buggy, virus-prone, mediocre product is a blight on all aspects of computing.
“Now that there are so many hardware choices – and consumer desires – Vista is a product of its consumer base – be all things to all people. If OS X was licensed on to Dell or other manufacturers’ boxes, where Apple didn’t control the hardware, I’d argue that OS X would have may of the same problems Vista is having right now.”
If OS X was licensed on to Dell, the OS would only have to work on Dell Mac Clones, not every other PC clone in the world. Therefore it would run as well as it would on the “BMW” of computers – expect the hardware would be cheaper and expandable.
I can see why Apple would never do it… Why would you pay $600 for a Mini when you could get a Dell that runs OSX BETTER for less money, with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor (and you also would have the ability to upgrade video and audio)..
The fanboys who rant on here about Apple’s superior hardware have no idea what they are talking about… After the switch to Intel, it’s all the same junk.. Apple’s just costs a lot more.