Wal-Mart: Linux PCs Off the Shelf
by Mike Gunderloy - Mar. 11, 2008Comments (5)- Related Blog Posts
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You may remember the hoopla in the open source world when Wal-Mart started putting the Everex-built, Linux-powered "gPC" on store shelves at the start of November. The desktop systems carried a price tag of only $199, which grabbed many headlines, but a number of poor reviews appeared. There's going to be considerably less rejoicing in those same circles today, as the company has announced that the product will no longer be available in stores: it's been banished to web-only sales.
What happened? The retail giant is notably tight-lipped about the details of its business, but we know that every square foot of shelf space in a Wal-Mart store must justify itself in terms of actual sales. According to a store spokesperson, "This really wasn't what our customers were looking for." That presumably means that they decided they could maximize profits in-store by swapping the $199 gPC for something else - say, additional boxes of Everex's Vista Home Basic offering at $79 more.
Linux advocates are pointing out that the gPCs in stores did sell out - but the more important question is how quickly they sold out compared to Windows PCs. Not quickly enough, apparently.
Expect Microsoft to quietly point out to other retail outlets that a copy of Windows has a perceived value of at least $79 to consumers. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart continues to sell Linux PCs in their online store. But that's not really news: they've been seling boxes without Windows on them (either bare or Linux-loaded) since at least 2002. It's a lot easier to service a niche market online.
