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11 Mar 2008
Wal-Mart is dropping the $199 Everex Linux Green gPC from its stores, despite selling out in under two weeks.
The world's biggest retailer was the first to stock Linux PCs on its shelves but now claims that the devices were not popular.
Wal-Mart will sell the PCs online but those without an internet capability will lose out.
"This really was not what our customers were looking for," a company spokeswoman told Associated Press.
Wal-Mart stocked the gPC, built by Everex of Taiwan, in 600 stores and all the systems sold out. But the firm has decided not to restock the computers.
Everex said that selling the PCs online was significantly more effective than retail sales.
But the move will raise the fears of those in the open source movement that they are not playing on a level playing field with Microsoft in the retail arena.
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Do you agree?
"Not popular" but sold out...
Not that I doubt Wal-Mart's management, but it does seem counter-intuitive to stop carrying a commodity that sold out because it wasn't popular. I don't know, maybe MicroSfot bought the gross majority of the very-low powered (read "cheap", as well as in-expensive) computers to remove them from the market? I heard that the more powerful Windows version (twice the memory) was a better deal, provided you wiped the ham-strung Vista and put a proper Linux OS on the box. Possibly the profit margin wasn't high enough? Maybe they can go to even cheaper (read "cheaper", not "in-expensive") computers out of China... with lead-based paint, no doubt, and get a few more cents-per-sale.
Posted by: Marc 11 Mar 2008