[Am-info] An excerpt from an email sent by Dell to all of its customers:

[Erick Andrews]

On Tue, 13 Aug 2002 14:56:42 -0700, Mitch Stone wrote:

>I haven't seen the contract between Microtel and Microsoft either, but 
>based on Microtel's product offerings, I can make an educated guess about 
>what at least one provision requires. Conspicuously, they do not offer any 
>models which are configured in precisely the same way except for the OS. I 
>suspect Dell cannot take advantage of this "loophole" because they permit 
>their customers to configure their boxes themselves, and Microtel only 
>sells them preconfigured.
>
>Granted, as conspiracy theories go, this one isn't as juicy as Microsoft 
>simply telling OEMs that they can't sell computers without Windows 
>installed, but it does illustrate how subtly Microsoft can manipulate the 
>market, and the kinds of far-reaching effects those manipulations can have.
>
>Mitch
>

Yes.  And these days with XP, .NET, Passport, License #6, and stuff, it is
difficult to be objective without theorizing conspiracy.  Probably viruses
as well.

I'm sure MS's OEMs think it, too, hamstrung that many are.

-- 
Erick Andrews