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Upon seeing the news that Ubuntu was being sold in Best Buys for $20, I decided to go down to my local Best Buy and see what the box looked like and where it was.
The placement was fine, not great, not bad. It was no where near the big display of Vista, which is too bad. Instead, it was placed a few shelves under the few remaining boxes of Windows XP. While the placement could have been better, I don’t blame Best Buy at all. It would be surprising if it was displayed as well as Vista.
On the packaging side, I was very impressed. The package is sold by ValuSoft and is very good at marketing Ubuntu. Some of my favorite quotes from the box are listed below:
- “Unable to run Windows? Ubuntu is for you!”
- “The end of: -Spyware -Viruses -Crashes -Wasted Time”
In addition, there was a big table of all the software included with Ubuntu. I was also interested to see that it comes with 60 days of support, apparently from ValuSoft, though they might just be contracting Canonical.
And, of course, I took some pictures:
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@Roberto Millán
Of course you __can__ sell free software, hence the word FREE meaning libre and not meaning gratis.
Quoting the FSF:
“Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible — just enough to cover the cost.
Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.
The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software”, we’re talking about freedom, not price. (Think of “free speech”, not “free beer”.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.
Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.”
This is awesome! It’s about time Linux gets recognized by a major retailer as a viable product to be sold to the masses.
Were there any indications that people were buying the product?
Go GNU/Linux, Go Freedom!!
Shannon V.
http://healthysystem.blogspot.com
http://digg.com/users/bicep
Of course you can’t sell free software, hence the word FREE!!
But $20 for the pretty little Retail Box, and 60 days support, is fine!
I reuse the words of another post, it should be a DVD, and, 60 days..I kinda wish it was 6 months!
heheheh
But even I, a newbie in Ubuntu/Kubuntu (have them both, doing triple boot with XP)would not pay 20 dollars for it, since I can get them for free, and that’s why there are 20 billion Blogs out there, to get help! And yes… I agree, exposure in the Retail World, is a wonderful Idea!!
imho
ROM
If Linux is to compete it must be visible to people. As a satisfied Ubuntu user I am glad they are doing this. 98% of people think Microsoft is computers because when they walk into the store they see shelves upon shelves of products with Microsoft/Windows labels all over it. But you can download it free! Most good things in life are free but if people don’t know it exists it is useless, isn’t it. Having Ubuntu on the shelves gives people a chance to make a visual connection. You see, they don’t even have to buy it. I go home, might do a google search for that Ubuntu box I saw earlier, wow, I can download it now, well lets try. Bingo! See, Ubuntu/Linux is still a winner if the box is bought or not.
@Jeff: The F in FOSS means free as in freedom not free as in beer. I don’t see any problem in somebody selling a GNU/Linux distro, particularly if they offer support.
Is this in Canada Best Buy too?
Interesting…I saw Xandros at Micro Center in Cambridge, MA. They also had Suse in the book section.
Joel
Great to see it in a mass market retailer!
Maybe we can make some more converts.
I’m trying to do my part:
http://linuxlatitude.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-lattitude.html
Front cover 2 times Ubuntu, 1 Windows, 1 Linux, its really Linux distribution or Windows Theme?
This is fabulous for Linux! No doubt the hard-core FOSS disciple’s will be all over this for ValuSoft selling a free OS, but this is what is needed for Linux to appeal to a mass market. My hats off to ValuSoft and Best Buy for taking the small step in retail, but giant leap for Linux.
It’s good to see GNU/Linux slowly becoming more and more successful. I just hope people don’t mistake it for a Windows replacement. But then again, at $20 they don’t have a great deal to lose as long as they back up any important data before installing.
The pictures don’t reveal which version of Ubuntu this is. Do you know if it’s 8.04?
Interesting timing. I had been thinking this past week somebody should package OpenOffice.org for Windows (with maybe a few other goodies like Firefox and Thunderbird) and the “Ubuntu Security Suite” and put it on the shelves at Circuit City next to the new Microsoft Equipt packages (http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/02/microsoft-office-makes-bold-leap-into-online-services-with-circuit-city/). The front could say “Free Upgrades for Life – For Unlimited Home and Work PCs”. If I could package it myself I would try to get in on the shelves for $6.99 – 1/10 the price of MS Office for 20/10 the power.
What price is it selling for? Two months support is good, all any unexperienced user should need.
Ampers
Thats cool, but i’m not sure its a viable model. Almost everyone+dog in the developed world has broardband and CD-R these days…
that is awesome, nice pics btw
if it includes manuals and support the $20 is more than a bundle of any new user
i hope is a dvd version with as much software as possible so even users without internet can get started right away