“Sony has begun offering Fresh Start, a controversial practice to clean its systems of unnecessary software. Initially available only with the VAIO TZ ultraportable, the option removes both VAIO-specific programs as well as games and other trial software. The practice is meant to ‘free up valuable hard drive space and conserve memory and processing power’ before the system ever leaves the factory, according to Sony,” Electronista repots.
“However, the offer has already received criticism for its $50 cost,” Electronista repots.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, not only do the greedy bastards get paid to install crapware, now they can get paid to remove it, too. Get a Mac.
So you get a choice: bend over and get it in the rear, or…
So nice of them!
unfortunatly this has been going for awhile now… circuity/bestbuy/etc…. charges you to take it off and make a recovery disk cause Vista bought PCs dont come with a recovery disk, which is vital to any windows user cause you would use those at least a good 5 times before you get a new computer.
Does that include Windows?
The founder and longtime Chair of Sony must be rolling in his grave to see what his company has become. Once the epitome of innovation, fresh thinking, and quality. In many ways, the Sony of old was a practitioner of Thinking Different. No more.
It’s really sad.
Hold the lettuce, Hold the pickle. Have it your way at Sony King, but pay extra!
“Reason #64,237,938 to Get a Mac”
That number seems way too low.
The logical move would be to not install them the first time. But that makes WAY too much sense. Idiots.
Where can I get some Vista Ready stickers?
I want to put them on every dumpster I see.
@ TT & Ampar
LOLZ!!!
Viao stands for Vista Isn’t An Option! Ha ha ha!
In all fairness, Macs do come with extras installed. The difference is that iLife is a reason to get a Mac. And when reinstalling the system, it and others such as the Office test drive are entirely optional.
Sony should be ashamed to charge to remove the pre-installed crap and doubly so for charging $50!
Also in the news…
Volkswagen is running a limited time offer: For only $750, your new Volkswagen will NOT come pre-loaded with every inspirational hit by Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Add another $50, and you’ll get a stereo that you can actually turn off.
TT, hey I see what you did there,
niiiiiiiice!
This is a classic case of a consumer-centric (Apple) vs. partner-centric (Sony, MS) business model. With Sony, the business partners’ concerns come first: Load that sucker up with all your crap and give us a kickback. Right on! Revenue streams! Oh, and if the customers don’t like it, that’s okay, we’ll make ’em pay to get rid of it, so everyone wins. A lot like the Zune project, and all of MS’s little deals with labels and built-in up-sell ad-ware (exploding track squirting) so they can make sure the partners are happy. What do the customers want? WhoTF cares?! Dress it up and give it a snazzy name… The Social! Perfect! Now bribe Engadget and Ellen fans to go ape shit about it and we’re in business!!!
Here’s the preloaded software on the Lenovo X300:
Your choice of:
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate
Genuine Windows Vista® Business
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
Genuine Windows® XP Home
Adobe Acrobat Reader; Diskeeper Home Edition;
Microsoft® Office Ready 2007; Microsoft Windows
Live™ Toolbar & Search; Picasa by Google;
Multimedia Center for Think Offerings (Sonic Record
Now Business and DLA) (select models); Intervideo
WinDVD (DVD models only); Intervideo WinDVD
Creator (DVD models only); PC-Doctor diagnostics;
Norton Internet Security 2007 (OEM Edition) with 90
days of virus definition updates; Sun JRE; ThinkPad
Utilities (Power Manager and Presentation Director);
ThinkVantage® Access Connections™; ThinkVantage
Fingerprint Software; ThinkVantage Productivity
Center; ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery™;
ThinkVantage System Update; ThinkVantage System
Migration Assistant™ (license–CD not included);
ThinkVantage Client Security Solution
Here’s the preloaded software on the MacBook Air:
Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (includes Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools)
iLife ’08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand)
Do you see the running theme among many of the programs that are unnecessary on a Mac?
The Mac vs. PC divide can easily be seen by looking at the covers of MacWorld and MacLife and then look at PC World and the others. The Mac covers are always about doing creative things and getting more productivity out of your Mac. The PC covers are always about cleaning out viruses and tweaking things to improve your system performance.
So, which one just works?
To be completely fair to Sony and other mfrs of the other PCs, I think the $50 charge is NOT to pay for the removal of the crapware, but it is to make up for the loss of revenue.
It’s sort of like buying an unlocked iPhone. You pay more for it to be unlocked. In this case the crapware companies pay Sony to be on their laptops. That reduces the price, which Sony passes on to customers. Since that subsidy is gone, when there’s no crapware, the true price of the laptop is now shown.
A better conclusion is that when someone compares Macs to PCs in price, they have to factor in that PCs are subsidized by $50 for their crapware.
Song has become Sorry!
I remember when Steve stood at a keynote and said that they had modelled the new MacBooks on the Viao. I don’t think he would be saying that now! LOL!
Meant to say: SONY has become Sorry!
Sorry!
oops. I read the Lenovo specs wrong.
Your preloaded OS is your choice of:
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate 32
Genuine Windows Vista® Business 32
Genuine Windows® XP Professional
Additional OS options include:
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate
Genuine Windows Vista® Business
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
Genuine Windows® XP Home
I’d like to see someone explain the differences to the old couple from the Mossberg piece. Wait. No I wouldn’t. That would be mean.
@ Anonymous©
You’re right, of course, but don’t think that it’s a 1:1 ratio os subsidy vs. discount. I’ll bet you anything that Sony makes money on both sides of the equation.
ratio “of” subsidy…
ChrissyOne – the urinals in the men’s room at the IT dept. at my old job used to have “Windows XP ready” stickers on them.
Yet another hidden cost of PC ownership. In the past the PC manufacturers collected the money for installing all of that garbage and the user paid for it with hours of uninstalling (or wipe and load Windows) fun. Now Sony offer the option of bribing them not to install the garbage in the first place. That’s a step in the right direction because it reveals yet another piece of the true cost of PC ownership.
@ deef
I’d love to get a bunch of those stickers and put them on every sani-can I see.
Actually Vista computers do come with a recovery disk, and I havn’t had to use any in 4 1/2 years…
Also, that extra crap takes 10 minutes to uninstall if you know how to use a mouse with more than two buttons…