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To: Alan Buckley who wrote (17120)	2/5/1998 4:35:00 PM
From: Justin Banks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Alan - Having MSFT agree to stop charging based on systems shipped doesn't have anything to do with resellers not being willing to sell a machine without a MSFT OS on it, if you ask me. Perhaps you have a different viewpoint. My contention is still that it's a problem. -justinb

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (17120)	2/5/1998 5:13:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

They likely have diagnostic and test software that runs on Windows, in which case it would be a royal pain to load Windows to verify the system works, then remove it for sale (at less money). Right, Alan. Is this the way it works? I only have a sample of one, but when my Micron PC came, it went through the whole install routine from scratch when it was powered up the first time. The install files were preloaded to the point that it could bring itself up, instead of shuffling floppies and CDs, but the machine sure didn't boot into NT. Had it been tested, followed by a reformat/reinstall? Somehow, I doubt it, and it wouldn't matter if the disk got erased in the end anyway. I imagine this may be a new innovation, to preserve the integrity and uniformity of the Windows experience. By insisting on this procedure, Microsoft insures that it owns the startup screen. Thus, their sacred intellectual property is respected, and slicing and dicing and fragmenting and fracturing is prevented. Not that there's any particular point in arguing, pin you guys down on one thing, and it's off to another little debating point. Nobody seems to want to take me up on the doubling of Win95 pricing for OEMs, while "Microsoft software prices are falling". Nobody seems to want to take on the old "giving the customers what they want" with that crummy old retail Win95 flying off the store shelfs either. Funny, that. Cheers, Dan.

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (17120)	2/6/1998 5:10:00 PM
From: Keith Hankin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Is it? It's my understanding that MSFT agreed to discontinue the practice of charging based on systems shipped (rather than OS copies loaded) in the consent decree years ago. Michael Dell was quoted at the time saying he'd sell OS/2 if enough customers asked for it to make it worth his while. I thought that this was the case also. But if you ask any of the top tier vendors to ship you a PC without Win95 pre-installed, they may do it, but they will not give you a discount for not receiving Win95. I also thought that the Consent Decree was supposed to stop this practice.