The Linux market started on the server and it’s stayed on the server, he told a select group of journalists in London. All our desktops can run Linux if you want to, we see this as more of a demand issue than a supply issue.
While all of the Round Rock, Texas-based company’s desktop products might be capable of running Linux, the company does not offer or support Linux on its Dimension or OptiPlex desktops, preferring to focus Linux on its Precision workstations.
Even then, a potential Linux desktop purchaser is faced with multiple notices telling them: Dell recommends Microsoft Windows XP Professional. However, Dell dismissed the idea that the company and the PC industry at large could be doing more to encourage users by presenting them with more choice on the desktop.
We have maybe 150 different product platforms. Should we test and have Linux drivers for every different model we have? To support it on every single model, every single configuration? No, we’re a for-profit business, he said.
Dell’s relationship with Red Hat appeared to have been strengthened with the news last week that Michael Dell’s investment company, MSD Capital LP, had invested $99.5m of the Dell chairman’s own money in Red Hat’s January 2004 private debenture placement.
Dell played down the investment, however, saying that while he meets with MSD’s management once every couple of months, he is not personally involved in its investment choices. I didn’t know they had made this investment, he said. That’s not the sort of thing we talk about.
