Open Source Blog

As noted in this post on LXer, “the IdeaStorm interest in Linux, while relatively high, consists of less than 1% of the market compared to Dell's Windows client/consumer systems sales”.

The poster “Aladdin Sane” claims to have some internal knowledge of Dell. Whether that is true or not, his above statement stands up to scrutiny:

Number of promotions for “Pre-installed Linux” between February 16 and May, 3:
133,529

Number of PCs shipped by Dell in Q1, according to Gartner:
8,692,000

Even assuming all those people promoting the idea that Dell pre-install Linux acquired one of Dell’s new machines, that would still only represent 1.5% of its shipments in the first quarter.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t money to be made here somewhere. As Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth noted this week:

“We have to peer more deeply into the data and see whether underneath that vocal component is also a commercial component, folks who would genuinely vote with their wallets. Based on the numbers it appears that there is that underlying commercial level of demand, and what we're about to do is step up to service that demand.”

It is still not clear which Dell laptops and desktops will be pre-installed with Ubuntu and – perhaps more importantly – whether Dell will actually promote them. What chance the page that offers them being emblazoned with the legend “Dell recommends Windows Vista™ Home Premium” just as the page for “Open Source customers” currently is.

As soon as Dell asked its potential customers what they wanted via its IdeaStorm website the delivery of desktop Linux machines was inevitable: give Linux supporters a chance to vote for Linux and you will instantly be inundated.

Given that Dell’s request for feedback was done in the open, it could hardly ignore the results.

For Linux supporters, getting Dell to pre-install Linux on its desktops was the easy part, proving that it is a sustainable market will be considerably harder.