Dell Slowly Embracing Open Source
As part of an open letter to Michael Dell earlier this month, The VAR Guy strongly recommended that Dell focus on the open source community to jump-start sales. Plenty of people are now echoing that advice.
In fact, Dell has received 1,800 requests for open source solutions from customers and partners in recent weeks. As a result, Dell may seek to certify OpenOffice and Novell’s SuSE Linux to run on selected desktops and notebooks. The VAR Guy hears that Dell is also considering relationships with MySQL, the open source database provider.
Dell’s decision to explore the open source market could provide new opportunities for VARs. Imagine Dell servers running the Asterisk IP telephony system configured by VARs, or Dell notebooks running open source productivity suites and Web 2.0 applications configured for university students.
Microsoft still strongly influence’s Dell’s direction, but Michael has to keep an open mind because of sagging profits.
strange how dell innovated the early pc market but has completely missed the boat on open source and was very late to amd market. they remain too “wintel” focused. that’s fine for 80% of customers but the other 20% are looking for new options
Rather than innovate, Dell typically waits until a market reaches critical mass–then jumps in with a high-volume solution. That appears to be Dell’s strategy with Linux on the desktop. The company’s server strategy could be far more interesting to watch, now that MySQL and other open source apps are gaining critical mass.