On the topic of selling PCs with out an operating system pre-installed…
“We want to urge all system builders — indeed, all Partners — not to supply naked PCs. It is a risk to your customers and a risk to your business — with specifically 5 percent fewer opportunities to market software and services,” wrote Michala Alexander, Microsoft’s head of anti-piracy. source: zdnet
So let me see if I get this right… If I want to buy a new system I should have to pay the Microsoft tax even if I already OWN their latest OS? Or if I plan on installing an older version of their OS? Or if hey how about I want to install Linux, or FreeBSD… Why in the world do they say things like that? I’ll tell you why. People are sheep. If people read that statement they will think that “Microsoft is huge, they must be right. I should listen to them.” In this case they are dead wrong.