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Posts in price
As you know, I am absolutely against making the same hardware cost the same with two different operating systems that don’t cost the same price. So if you take a given PC or laptop, put a free OS on one version and a commercial OS on the other and charge the same price, that is unfair. You may wonder why I am making such a big deal of the same hardware. Obviously you can’t compare across two different PCs, right? Well, apparently not.
A recent Techworld article is titled “Windows same price as Linux in new Eee PC.” When I read this, I thought “Ugg. Asus is messing with prices again.” Then I read the article.
If you look closely, the end of the second sentence says “although the specs are different.” That makes the story completely different and makes the title very misleading.
Just to make sure I am very clear, there is nothing wrong with selling machines with different priced OSs, if there is a difference in the specs that compensates for the price. Please, no more misleading titles.
Analyzing The Eee PC Windows Linux Price Issue
Note: Everyone that pointed out that it is really only a difference of $50 if right, however the basic point still stands, since $50 max difference is assuming Windows is free.
Interestingly, though, Orlando’s post suggests the the difference might actually be $150. I don’t know.
Also, every that pointed out the USB flash drives are quite different from SSDs is, of course, correct. I am, and was, aware of the difference, however I choose to use flash drives due to their availability.
Today the headlines have been about the Eee PC 900 with Windows being cheaper (at least in Australia) than the Linux version ($650 to $500). Additionally, the Linux version will not be sold in retail stores. The story gets even worse when you read some of what Asus has said. APC is reporting that ASUS said “Microsoft has been a longstanding supporter of Asus.” I suppose this could just be innocent press talk, but it sure sounds to be like there is something suspicious going on.
One element of the story, however, has not been reported as much. The Linux version comes with 20GB of flash memory, while the Windows version only comes with 12GB. At first glance, 8GBs of storage should not cost $150, but flash is expensive. Could 8GB more flash memory create a significant price difference?
The answer, in a word, is no. The evidence I can find all points to, not surprisingly, 8 additional GB costing far less than $150. Let me explain my reasoning.
First, there are two issues complicating what would otherwise be a very simple problem. First, there are not many consumer solid state drives. Instead I had to use USB flash drive prices. Second, 12GB and 20GB are both very unusual capacities. Here I had to use 8-16GB and 16-32GB.
I used three lines of USB flash drives. The Corsair Voyager (8GB, 16GB, 32GB), the Corsair Survivor (8GB, 16GB, 32GB), and the A-Data My Flash (8GB, 16GB, 32GB). I will not get into the math here (it is nothing more than subtraction, but it would take up a lot of space and be very boring), but the numbers come out to this. The average price difference between the 8GB and 16GB (an 8GB difference) model was around $38. The average price difference between the 16GB and 32GB (16GB difference) was about $86 (the largest difference was about $100). In other words, the price difference between the models should really only be about $50 at most, even if Windows was free.
In summary, although it is imposssible to have perfectly accurate results, it is quite clear that the Windows version is, in fact, significantly less expensive than the Linux version for what you get. This is unacceptable.