by Playfuls Staff |
26th February 2007
Surprise, surprise! One week ago Dell has launched two new
ways for customers to share ideas and experiences directly with their peers and
the company. Dell IdeaStorm (www.dellideastorm.com) and StudioDell
(www.studiodell.com) were announced during a presentation by [more] Dell Chairman and
CEO Michael Dell at a statewide education summit in Texas on February 21st.
But that’s not the surprise I was talking about. The surprise
(for some people at least) is that a few days later, the customers came up
with an idea for Dell to improve its products; they want computers preloaded
with Linux and other open source solutions. According to Dell’s Idea Storm there
are over 1800 requests for open source software. As a result Dell made an
official statement.
“It’s exciting to see the IdeaStorm community’s interest in
open source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice. Your feedback has been all
about flexibility and we have seen a consistent request to provide platforms
that allow people to install their operating system of choice. We are
listening, and as a result, we are working with Novell to certify our corporate
client products for Linux, including our OptiPlex desktops, Latitude notebooks
and Dell Precision workstations. This is another step towards ensuring that our
customers have a good experience with Linux on our systems.”
But when it’s about Linux, is hard to choose a distribution
and the IdeaStorm community suggested more than half a dozen distributions. In
response to this dilemma, Dell said: “We don't want to pick one distribution
and alienate users with a preference for another. We want users to have the
opportunity to help define the market for Linux on desktop and notebook
systems. In addition to working with Novell, we are also working with other
distributors and evaluating the possibility of additional certifications across
our product line. We are continuing to investigate your other Linux-related
ideas, so please continue to check here for updates.”
Along similar lines, thousands of users also recommended
that Dell pre-install Firefox instead of Internet Explorer on to its computers.
