[geeks] Vista cost

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 @ 13:51 -0600, Bill Bradford said:

> On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 02:28:46PM -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#response
> > People with nearly brand new machines are finding that encrypted HDMI
> > either isn't supported or has very high resource costs even on new
> > machines.  Evidently this stuff is already being enforced, despite
> > rumors that it would be years before we saw DRM becoming serious.
> 
> You know what else sucks?  We went out last night to buy Amy a new 
> laptop.  Almost NONE of the stores we went to (CompUSA, Best Buy) had
> ANY laptops in stock, or only had the loss-leaders with 15" screens 
> (bigger than what we want).  CompUSA even had tons of signs "Available 
> for purchase after January 30th".

I just got back from Best Buy in Newport News, and they still have all
of their XP machines out.

However, they stopped carrying certain machines weeks ago.

You live in a much larger retail market, so they probably do things
differently there. 

I think around here they are just letting stock run out, because what I
see here in stores is mostly uneven supply, not deliberate culling.

Just a different technique for the same end goal.

> Even if we'd *WANTED* to come home with a laptop last night, it was
> just about impossible to buy something nearing the config we wanted.

That sucks.

> This is all because no retailers want to have laptops with XP preloaded
> for sale or left in stock after Vista comes out.
> 
> We're going to end up buying something after the 30th, blowing away 
> Vista, and putting XP SP2 on it...

...and you'll be paying $N for something you won't need as a "Microsoft
tax".



-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["And in billows of might swell the Saxons
before her,-- Unite, oh unite!	Or the billows burst o'er her!" -- Downfall
of the Gael]