Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 07 October 2008 17:01
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Now, MSI isn’t giving up on Linux – far from it – but in its current form, Linux has resulted in a lot of returns that couldn’t be making MSI’s Chief Financial Officer very happy, whoever he or she is.
Laptop Magazine asked Andy Tung why many (but clearly not all) retailers have shied away from stocking netbooks, “at least until now”, with Tung responding that: “Retailers have been hesitant to bring netbooks into stores because at that moment they were afraid that the netbook category would eat at their notebook sales.
“They were also only selling the only available product from ASUS, and sales were only okay, and they struggled with return rates, especially of Linux systems. But now it has become more of a trend and these retailers just have to be in this business.”
When further probed about return rates being high with the Asus Eee PCs, Tung is asked if that has been the case with the MSI Wind as well.
Tung responds: “We have done a lot of studies on the return rates and haven’t really talked about it much until now. Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux.
“People would love to pay US $299 or $399 but they don’t know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it’s not what they are used to.
“They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.”
Four times higher! At least. That's a startling figure, especially for Linux versions on netbooks that were designed to be as easy to use as possible. Of course, we can see that XP netbooks were returned too, and while the reason isn't stated, perhaps consumers were trying to do more with Windows XP than a netbook made comfortable. Who knows, they may also have returned it to get a Linux version instead.
Anyway, Laptop Magazine, a publication that you’d think would have its fair share of die-hard technology fans, and at least some with a lot of Linux experience, then made the admission that: “Interestingly enough, we struggled with the Linux version of the Wind U90.”
So they asked Tung “Are there plans to tailor a Linux OS for the Wind?”.
Tung's answer and my thoughts are on page 3...
