From: "Geo." 

Don't believe these bs pieces. If HP were serious they would just do it not
telegraph the move. This is a standard ploy to get MS to lower their cost
in order to keep them windows.

Geo.

"Ad"  wrote in
message news:45ef0e65{at}w3.nls.net...
> http://www.crn.com/hardware/197800591
>
> "Hewlett-Packard is closing custom deals for thousands of desktop PCs
> running Linux, which has the company assessing the possibility of offering
> factory-loaded Linux systems, an HP executive said.
>
> "We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and
> those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we
> are really looking at it very hard," said Doug Small, worldwide director
> of open source and Linux marketing at HP. "We are in a massive deal right
> now for ... multi-thousands of units of a desktop opportunity for Linux.
> That's an indicator." He declined to give details about the Linux deals.
>
> Though HP doesn't offer a specific SKU of a notebook or desktop PC
> preloaded with Linux, several of its notebooks are certified to work with
> Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system and with Red
> Hat Linux. The Palo Alto, Calif., IT giant also provides Linux-loaded PCs
> for custom orders, such as large enterprise deals.
>
> HP has preloaded PCs with Linux in previous years, but the market
> acceptance wasn't there to do that on a broader scale, according to Small.
> "Frankly, we did that in the past and didn't see the results for
it," he
> said.
>
> While no tier-one vendor currently provides a factory-loaded SKU of Linux
> desktops or notebooks, the marketplace chatter is increasing.
>
> Besides HP's custom Linux PC orders and overall rising interest in desktop
> Linux, Lenovo certifies some of its systems for SLED 10, and Dell said
> it's poised to do the same. Just days after launching an online suggestion
> Web site for customers, tens of thousands of people wrote to Dell saying
> that the company should provide Linux as a PC preload. "
>
>
> adam

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