Ubuntu commercial support is the same as Vista Ultimate?!?!

[Seth Gordon]

Grant M. wrote:
> Matt Shields wrote:
> 
>>So by your reasoning, 
> 
> <..snip..>
> 
> So by your reasoning, only smart, go-getters should use Linux, and
> everyone else should buy Windows? ;-)
> 
> I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I do note that you seem
> hostile towards the very folks that are making Windows the winner in the
> desktop wars. I would point out, that I also believe that Sun Silver
> support is the best damn support I've ever dealt with, and although it's
> a level of support that everyone _should_ have, I know not everyone is
> going to pay that kind of money for something that they might only use
> once in a year.
> 
> So you can be the Linux elitist, and say that 'newbies need not apply',
> or you can step up to the plate and offer a solution. I just think that
> anyone who wants to beat Microsoft at their own game has to offer more
> for less.

I can think of several reasons why this might not be true.

(1) For some products and services, customers believe so strongly that
"you get what you pay for" that you can *lose* customers by lowering
your prices--people will say "well, if they can sell it for so little it
must not be so good".

(2) When competing with Microsoft, to "offer more for less" is to invite
Microsoft to "offer even more for even less".

(3) If you're spending *less* for the actual code of a Linux
distribution than you would for a Microsoft OS, and the two OSes are of
comparable value to you, then you can afford to spend *more* on support
contracts.

(4) I suspect that Linux distributors' support contracts are being aimed
at corporate customers, not home users.  Companies are used to spending
a certain amount per seat on desktop support, so they won't blink at
spending the same amount on Linux as on Windows support.

A perceptive reader may observe that all of the above reasons *can't* be
true at the same time (certainly, they can't all be true for the same
customer at the same time).  Basically, IT pricing is a black art and
the guys running Linux distribution companies, as much as they look
forward to world domination, are not eager to price themselves out of
business.

> Grant M.


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