Dell buys stake in Red Hat, offers Linux pre-installed

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

What a difference 13 months makes.  On March 9, 1998, 
Ralph Nader and I wrote Michael Dell, asking that they 
offer Dell computers with alternatives to Windows, 
including Linux as a pre-installed option.
(http://www.essential.org/antitrust/ms/dell.html)  
At the time, a lot of people thought this was absurd.  
Today Dell announced it was purchasing an equity stake 
in Red Hat, and shipping Dell computers with Linux 
pre-installed.   Jamie


http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/060418.htm

April 6, 1999

Dell throws its support
to Linux

ROUND ROCK, Texas (Reuters) - Dell Computer
Corp. , the top supplier of corporate personal
computers, Tuesday became the latest computer
maker to throw its support to Linux, an alternative to

Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.

In a series of announcements, Dell said it had taken
an equity stake in Red Hat, a leading supplier of
Linux software, and was now offering to install
Linux on a number of its computers. Dell is the
world's No. 1 direct supplier of personal computers.

Dell said it was now offering factory installation of
Linux software as an option on selected server and
workstation personal computers (PCs). Servers are
computers used to manage networks of other PCs.
Workstations are powerful PCs used by researchers
and designers on data-intensive tasks.

......
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http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/060418.htm




-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org