Re: Why hasn't anyone brought this up yet?

[John Robert BEHRMAN <jbehrman@netropolis.net>]

  The Gray Market is here in Houston. It wholesale and retail "parts"
  outlets that sell just the sort of computers you describe, albeit not
  machines with proprietary hardware. They also sell MS OEM software. The
  interesting thing about it is the decline and volatility of hardware
  prices. MS software is more like a tax than a price.
  
  Dana Newman wrote:
  
  > I have read just about all of this list for the last three weeks,
  > and haven't seen anyone bring this up yet.
  >
  > Here's a for-instance:
  >
  > Go to any Best-buy and tell'em you want to buy a Compaq Deskpro.
  > Tell the store manager you won't buy it unless the disk is "clean" and
  > you
  > want a discount because it doesn't have any software on it.
  > You get two answers:
  > 1. They won't do it
  > 2. They will tell you you can delete the software after you buy the
  > machine.
  >
  > Call the Compaq corporation at any 1-800 number you can find,
  > and request the same thing you did from it's retailer(s)  (ie;
  > just a machine, NOT the software).
  >
  > Just like their distributors:
  > 1. They won't do it.
  > 2. They will tell you that "software is a value added feature,
  > not included as a cost of the machine".  This is to infer that
  > the Microsoft Windows 95 software they are forcing down your
  > throat IF you want to buy the Compaq MACHINE... doesn't cost
  > you anything.
  >
  > Bullshit!
  > I'm mad as hell... and I'm not gonna take it anymore.
  >
  > As a consumer I do still have a choice.  That choice is
  > to not purchase the Compaq machine I wanted, but to
  > purchase a machine I don't prefer from another vendor.
  
  
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