Dell IdeaStorm

Dell Tells Linux Users Where To Put It

Holy smokes. As Dell’s sales slump and stock remains flat, the famously unimaginative company is trying to tap into the Mob for ideas about what new shade of grey to deliver its hardware in next. And what did the Dell IdeaStorm mob say?

“Give us Linux!”

“Give Us OpenOffice.”

And how did Dell respond?

No. No. And, No.”

John Naughton reports on the story for The Guardian, explaining:

more than 85,000 people took the trouble to register with IdeaStorm in order to tell Mr Dell that they wanted him to ship his computers with Linux pre-installed. Moreover, 55,000 revealed that they would like the free open-source office software suite, OpenOffice, pre-installed on their shiny new Dell machines.

And all Michael Dell could say was that there are too many variants of Linux. Of course that doesn’t explain why the company, who’s biggest contribution to the technology world was an online store that allowed customers to chose computer configurations from a dizzying array of options, doesn’t simply allow customers to buy their PCs with no software at all.