14 DAY TRIAL // Dell continues the step-by-step approach to the Linux desktop by formalizing a deal with Novell, to ship Dell OptiPlex 330 and 755 desktops with Novell's SLED 10, to companies in China.
At this moment, Dell ships PCs pre-loaded with Ubuntu in the United States of America, targeting the normal users and the enthusiasts. The move towards the Chinese market will increase the popularity of SUSE Linux Enterprise Edition 10 among the most important vendors. Lenovo said earlier this year that it would pre-install some of their ThinkPads with SLED 10.
The customers from China will receive from Dell a year of hardware support for the systems and Novell will provide sixty days of technical support by telephone, according to the announcements made by both of the companies.
Although Dell took small steps in their actions, it was the first major company in recent years that began pre-installing a Linux distribution on-demand. There were other PC makers who offered systems with a Linux distribution pre-loaded a few years ago, but they have given up, considering the market of low interest. Lenovo is another company that is interested in pre-loading Linux on their computers, while HP wants to start a pilot program in the United States where some batches of PCs will come with a Linux distribution pre-loaded.
We could say that Dell tested the Chinese market from March, this year, when the company launched in China the Dell EC280 budget computer, with a starting price of $336. A better equipped computer, Dell Dimension C51-n, with an Athlon64 3200 processor from AMD, a 17-inch LCD monitor and a Linux distribution, had a price somewhere around $530.
A controversial aspect that connects once more Dell with Novell is their alliance with Microsoft, with the goal of providing interoperability and marketing support between Linux and Windows platforms.