--- Colin Brace <cb at lim.nl> wrote:
> Wojtek et al,
>
> It appears FWIW that WalMart sells a PC with
> Linspire installed:
>
>
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3762912
>
> Certainly the price is right: $348. I wonder how
> many of these things they sell.
[WS:] That is really interesting, especially in the light of a conference paper that a colleague of mine recently shared with me.
In that paper the author argues - to make a long and convoluted story short - that Walmart prospers mainly because other retailres profiteer by increasing thier prices way above the inflation rate. Walmart undercuts them basically by not being so greedy and not using such high markup rates, and by so doing creates public benefit of keeping the otheriwse rampant retail price rise in check.
The paper did not factor in the negative externalities of Walmark behavior, such as low wages, or inadequate health insurance that burdens the taxpayers - which was my main criticism, but that is beside the point. The main point of the paper is that Walmart is the nemesis of other "brand name" reatilers rather than that of the consumers. Its pricing puts a brake on how much "brand name" reatilers can fleece the consumer by their price gouging. This has certainly been noted by the local press here http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-te.bz.walmart03feb03,0,2384696.story
Offering a Linspire machines instead of overpriced Micro$uck ones certainly fits that business model. This also suggests that any large discount reatil chain with suffcient share of the retail market that offers a non-M$ machine can effectively undermine the M$ cartel. What holds that cartel in business is its brand name recognition, as I gather from other postings in this thread, beyond which M$suck has little to offer. Even if a non-M$ platform is not fully compatible with M$ formats, that is not an issue becaouse most "normal people" do not need that compatibility, but they can easily be swayed by a lower price.
Wojtek
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