French court says non to pre-loaded Windows on Acer laptop

PC World would love that

...You loaded an operating system on to your laptop?.... Sorry your warranty is void

Freedom of Choice on its way???

Wouldn't it be great if this actually turns out to be the thin end of the wedge and we get to order-to-order where software is concerned. It's ridiculous that most machines are preloaded with stuff a lot of us can do without. And the biggest capitalists don't blush to force this crap on us. None of the ideological BS about freedom of choice and flexibility when it comes to this crunch. Anything you like - on our terms and selected by our criteria. You get what we want you to get. I have no trouble imagining it actually being made illegal to sell a computer without an MS operating system, but this decision and the determined resistance over many years of the best and brightest in the computer community make it less probable than it might otherwise have been. Yay!

Anyone wanna try?

It would be perfect to test the waters, besides showing up MS in true light and their licensing models. Would open floodgates, I guess.

whhhhhaaat?

'No choice' - wtf = don't but it?! Hardware manufacturers should have to supply a blank device with no OS? Surely the device was clearly advertised as such.

The french courts are clearly as mad as a bat or, as I suspect more likely, you've not explained the case for plaintiff very well.

Excel?

Hi,

That's really great news, and I suspect loads of french customer will now ask their money back...

How 311+500 (nearly)=2*599 ?? ;-)

Imagine buying this from PCWorld...

>> You have installed an OS on this hardware and that would ivalidate your warranty sir. Sorry, we cannot replace broken hindge....

I would love...

..to be able to buy a machine with *just* the operating system on. No extra crap or anything...just the basic OS.

Ok - if they want to bundle some apps - give us the CDs etc. and we'll put them on ourselves.

And you - over there, hugging a tree with your beard - you can shut up about linux.

Common sense at last?

Death to the Microsoft Tax!

Another victory for stupidity

I think I might just go into a car dealership and ask to buy a car without the wheels because I might want to buy different ones, screw the engine (the bundled one isn't up to my liking) and I'll take it without paint please because I don't like the standard colours. Oh I also expect Peugeot to cover it under warranty if it starts to rust early or the engine doesn't work as well as I'd hoped.

Europe really is full of morons. Why cases like this even go to court and even worse get resolved in favour of the plaintiff I will never know.

Step 2: ISP bundles

Now, Qwexx and Comcaxx need to be taken to court for forcing M$ and McA AV/AM garbage down our throats.

M$ = 1) Manufacture 'accidental' flaws, 2) Offer service to plug horrific holes, 3) add marginal profit therefrom to the huge stack you made cutting back-door deals with the feds and content mafia.

McA = 1) Over-publicize your under-developed 'security' product, 2) cut deals to make sure it's on a huge number of machines, 3) add marginal profit to the huge stack you made on back-door deals with black hats, since that's the only way to keep them from hacking this pile of crap into the dust.

I can't believe I am saying this but...

Well done that Frenchman!

I hope and pray that this gets the crowbar under the edge of the Micro$oft control of hardware vendors where their volume license rebates depend on the proportion of WinDOS they ship, this is why so many vendors have to charge more for a box without OS or with a free OS such as Linux, every non MS box they ship hits their rebates more than the cost of OEM Windows.

If they think that OEMs should only pay $30 for a copy of XP / Vista then that is what it is worth, add $10 for a retail box, not $170.

Don't get me wrong, I am no Linux fanboy, I am using WinDOS XP here connected to Windows 2003 servers, I just want to see Microsoft have to cope with competition on a slightly more level basis. Whenever the Redmond dominance has been challenged (Netscape etc) they have pulled their fingers out and improved their product to compete, that is good for everybody.

Re: Another victory for stupidity

"Europe really is full of morons. Why cases like this even go to court and even worse get resolved in favour of the plaintiff I will never know."

Ah, Daniel van Niekerk, who's the moron here?

How about you STFU about things you plainly don't understand?

Obviously you don't get the important thing here do you?

What if I _don't_ want a PC with windows?

What if I just want a PC, and not all the fancy crap they force down our throats?

Care to direct me to a store where I can buy a naked PC? There's none, the MS tax is everywhere.

Why should I have to pay the stupid MS tax in the first place?

Just because some suckers like you are not skilled enough to install OpenSolaris, BSD or a linux flavour doesn't mean everyone should pay the MS tax.

[Sentence removed by Reg moderator]

Common sense, really.

Except brainfarts from Ameurrican "Concerned Representatives" about how "competition has been mortally wounded" tomorrow. When they are not out-naziing themselves about Ahmadi's latest speech, that is.

About time

Well I for one welcome the idea of buying a computer, desktop or laptop that is blank, and if Joe Public knew he had a choice and how much he was going to pay for that choice then he just might try an alternative to MS Windows.

and yes I know you can build your own, etc, etc

Common Sense????

So he goes into the shop.. or online.. sees Windows Laptop with X software, pays for it, then sues??

Common sense, the mans an idiot, as is the court.

Pardon my stupidity but why didn't he just NOT BUY IT??? I can think of a dozen shops around here that will sell a bare bones system with nothing on it. So if thats what I wanted, I'd go buy it and have done in the past.

Are they really saying that Acer didn't advertise that by buying the machine you were getting all this software? I doubt it. i.e. didn't it say "Windows Vista Laptop with Office, McAfee etc etc"?

Unreal. The guy should have been charged with wasting the courts time with his stupidity.

Someone else used a car as an example.. would this guy go and buy an Astra VXR, then sue and say actually I didn't want alloys, air con, power steering etc etc.. what I really wanted was the basic model, so its Vauxhalls fault.

@Daniel van Niekerk

Actually its more like turning up at the car dealer to buy your car and finding there is a 100+Kg thug sitting in the driving seat.

When you ask the dealer can you have a car without a driver as you want to drive it yourself they refuse.

Title

A few years ago I bought a computer from Dell that came with a free printer. Maybe I can sue them for that.

I have Pirelli's because I didn't want Bridgestones

"I think I might just go into a car dealership and ask to buy a car without the wheels because I might want to buy different ones."

1. European court of justice has already ruled that Windows is an illegal bundle. Microsoft lost, and lost the appeal too.

2. I ordered Pirelli's on my Ford, rather than the bridgestones it came with. Do you object to me having the choice in that? Or do you only object to people being able to refuse that Microsoft stuff?

3. Why do you object to other people having the choice of buying an unbundled machine? Acer can simply list the cost of the software bundle and people can buy it or not, up to them. If you want to buy it, up to you. Why should I have to buy it when I want Open Office Firefox and Ubuntu?

Apple?

I wonder if in Germany you can demand a MacBook without MacOS at a discount? That would be entertaining...

re: Daniel van Niekerk

I'm not sure where you are from, but to equate an engine in a car with software on a pc means it's presumably somewhere without either.

The 'engine' in your PC is the CPU, the software is a consumable, would you expect to purchase a Ford and have them dictate where you can buy replacement tyres, or which petrol station chain you have to use to fill up?

The trouble with laptops...

... is that they quite often have quirky if not proprietary hardware in, then do the drivers themselves. Yes, looking at you, Sony.

Thus just sticking a vanilla Linux (or even Windows) install on doesn't always enable all the features on the laptop.

Microsoft Tax

I actually cheered for a second when I started to read the article, but now I've thought about it for a few minutes I realise that all the respondents foretelling the end of the Microsoft Tax are unfortunately deluding yourselves.

Based on what we know about M$ business tactics, the end of 'bundled' Windows WON'T mean you stop paying the M$ tax when you buy a bare machine.

The OEM license that the vendors have with Redmond mean that they have to pay a fee for every machine they sell no matter whether it has Windows on/with it or not, if they want to sell Windows at all.

This means that whether you order a bare machine, a machine with Vista install media or a machine with Linux install media - the machine itself will have had a Windows 'fee' added into the price.

It is that very business tactic (the 'lock-in' OEM license) which should be tackled, then unbundling by vendors will follow soon after. THAT is why consumers have no 'real' choice.

Unbelievable!

Surely if he didn't want MSXP then the onus is on him to check what he buys! Not go "oh i've bought the wrong thing - I'll sue the manufacturers!"

also, from the linked ruling, there is no way the stuff was worth €311.

MS Works costs £8 THAT'S EIGHT POUNDS for an OEM copy like Acer would have bundled - so that should have only been €12 - NOT €40!

And in no way is a guy ghosting 20 hard drives at once then having a cup of tea in the meantime worth €49.90!

If the guy wanted a blank laptop he should have piped up BEFORE he handed over his cash; and he shouldn't have got that hefty a discount. The appeals courts that acer will surely go to should definitely reverse the decision.

Lets think this through shall we....

can you imagine wat would hapen if PC's came without software at all....

I work for a PC retailer, and you would not belive the number of my customers, that complain to me or refuse to purchase a machine from me, just becasue it dosn't come with office pre installed..... most people who read theese pages are to a oint PC savey, and we know that there are choices, we can make as to what OS and what software we can have, at the same time most of us, are compitent to install theese choices, if we so desire...

However you only have to work with PC's and the general public to know, 90% of them don't know about theese choices, and don't have a clue how to go about installing them, if you don't belive me, come and have a look at some of the mess ups sitting on my repair shelf at work...

So we give all those customers the chance to buy a cheap machine, with no software. or even god forbid no OS and they will bite our hand of... the public likes a cheap price, you should see the crap they will buy if you lower the price.....

However they then find they have to buy software, this will no doubt cost the twice as much as the OEM version that would have been bundled with the machine, they then screw something up, and come back to me demanding that the machine must be faulty, and I charge them another £30 to solve the problem....

Result One fed up customer with a machine that has cost more than it should have, who purchased software, that barely does the job he wanted it for, and a PC that seems to rendomly crash, or run slowly as he did not install the sofware corectly, and didn't see the need to get any anti-virus software....

Customer choice is good, but only to those who are capible of making those choices

Final Thought....

For those of you who think that this will stop MS having a monopily on the OS market, think again, some of like to use alternatives to Windows, on a machines, but at the end of the day most PC users, will carry on using it, as it is what they know, and understand, the only diferance is that if system builders, stop using OEM versions, and customers have to buy the operation system in sead, most will simply have to buy retail versions instead, putting the cost of there PC up by a couple of hundred quid, and making a mint for microsoft, I don't understand why they havent thought of it already.... LOL

Reminds me of the Ford Model T:

You can have it in any color you want, as long as its black.

Congrats to monsieur Gutzwiller. This has been a problem from the major OEMs for far too long. One can only hope his victory will inspire folks in other countries to file the same kind of suits.

One alternative which does spring to mind, however: Try to buy computers from local shops! Small businesses need your patronage just as much as big ones do, and being able to deal directly with the person who will be constructing your computer is much more reassuring than buying something from a big-box store. All the parts are warranted through their manufacturer anyway, so a mom-and-pop store can fix problems just as cheaply as the big boys, too. And usually with faster turn around time.

nice move nutters!

What a load of rubbish, it was sold as a bundle deal the laptop and the software! only in europe would this be upheld in court. this can only be applied to laptops because if it was to apply to any purchase like the car example it would be so crazy it just couldn't be done. so now the french courts need to start working through on a product by product basis.

ok pencil with attached rubber? ... non

next

bread with garlic ...er wei

next

and so on.

common get real this might go a againt MS and some people might like it for that but lets not pretend this isn't totally loonacy

The Cube - you nailed it

You're bang on the money there. The whole point in not bundling the OS is the imbalance between the OEM cost and retail boxed price. There should be no difference in price between these two other than the packaging/distribution.

And 'Upgrade' OS pricing? Okay, so the OS pre-loaded PC owner has thus far only choked-up the OEM based pricing for the OS, no problem for M$ because they can just shaft the customer on the upgrade cycle. Sweet.

Car analogy

"I think I might just go into a car dealership and ask to buy a car without the wheels"

It's more like buying a car without the tankful of special hundred-buck-a-gallon gas which they "bundle" by default. I only need enough gas to get to the gas station on the corner. After that I can fill it up all by myself.

A computer without an OS is a fully functional piece of hardware. The only software I need preinstalled is the BIOS.

I'm not sure it's quite going to work like that...

If the PC manufacturers can't pre-load apps from <insert umpty-seven software vendors>, then they're going to miss out on Quite A Lot Of Revenue from those vendors.

(http://www.theregister.com/2006/02/08/dell_pre-loads_google_toolbar/ for an example - $1bn over 3yrs to have the Google Toolbar preloaded on Dells)

So if they don't get that revenue from the software, where are they going to get it from? Yup, they'll add it onto the retail price.

Oh - and to Daniel van Niekerk - you may like to rethink that analogy... If Peugeot don't paint the car, they won't offer a paint or anti-corrosion warranty, just as Acer/Dell/Etc won't support the OS if it's not pre-installed.

The difference being, of course, that the paint warranty might be useful in the first place...

Re: Another victory for stupidity

Now, Mr. van Niekerk, are you willing to pay $150 more for a DVD player, because its maker bundles it with 10 specific DVDs that don't interest you? Are those titles essential to the functioning of the product?

See, a car runs on gas, a computer on software. Without gas, the car won't move, but is still a complete product. Without software, the computer will do nothing, but, I think you have by now figured it out.

We dont want it because we are forced to pay for it.

I would much rather havethe option to buy a PC or Laptop with no OS rather than be forced to pay for the system with an OS installed. And I am not the only one. Every day I get customers calling me asking if they can have this or that pc with a different or no OS.

Think what it is like for a business with licenses. they are forced to pay for the preinstalled license then pay for a site license again.

Also anything that unbundles NAV or McAV is good in my book.

Go on that frenchman. I never thought I would say that.

foolish french

hang on a minute EVERY single new pc & laptop i've ever bought has required me to run through the installation of windows upon first booting...........

i can't ssay that i've ever seen a pc/laptop/palm for sale in the channel that does not state that the OS is included.

if the stupid man didn;t want that OS he should have gone elsewhere

law courts gone mad again.....i thought the french hated americans ?, seems they've taken the stupid lawsuit trend to heart just like the yanks

oh well

Another victory for stupidity - but extend your argument

You go into the dealership but they give you a car with a caravan hooked up with integrated electrics linked to the power and signalling on your car.

You don't want the trailer but they give you no choice.

The US may have the Sherman Act but in recent times it's been ignored, hence the EU having to look into competition law.

Of course, you can substitute insults for debate if you want... like shooting before thinking...

re: Another victory for stupidity

Daniel wrote: "Oh I also expect Peugeot to cover it under warranty if it starts to rust early or the engine doesn't work as well as I'd hoped.!"

Fail. Surely a manufacturers warrenty is applied to the hardware? I suspect Acer do not say "warrenty void if not running MS Windows"

They might say "add a noisey exaust and silly spoiler at your own risk".

The "me too" people

Why is it that almost every person that's commented on this story has gone on about Microsoft and so on? Surely if the man was told that he'd get loads of rubbish when he bought the product then that's his problem?

Re: Another victory for stupidity

Wrong analogy.

If we use car dealership analogies the following will be the right analogy will be buying the car:

1.Without obscene mandatory financing at 15% APR with extra penalties if you drive it too much.

2. Without mandatory RAC subscription at the highest rate available

3. Without mandatory servicing package at 4 times the average market price

4. Without mandatory Trafficmaster subscription so that BIG BROTHER can know everything you do

5. Without mandatory ...

That is actually the norm and frankly if I buy the car this is exactly the way I like it. Without all such bundled sh***. Cash and carry.

@Daniel van Niekerk

You might actually manage to achieve that from a car manufacturer as a special order. You'll get charged for a customised version but unlike your average PC vendor, the car dealer would probably do his best to provide you with what you want, and would probably even offer to fit your choice of wheels before delivery.

The car would cost more because it's a significant extra to customise from standard, whereas an OS-less machine ought to be cheaper because you're omitting a step from the process by fitting a blank disk instead of one with software pre-installed. The minimal admin charge for handling the paperwork should be negligible compared to the cost of the software.

Re: victory for stupidity, tree hugging

The OS is not part of the PC. Nor will it do any harm to the hardware if I install Ubuntu rather than Windows. Therefore this is not equivalent to buying a car without paint ... but having said that, if it was, it's a self-defeating argument anyway; if I buy a new car, I do actually get to choose the colour, wheels, and other extras, and hanging my furry dice on the rear view mirror won't void my warranty. Generally speaking quite a few modifications (e.g. custom paint job, aftermarket wing mirrors, etc.) will leave my warranty intact.

The old situation with Windows bundled with every PC is actually more like if a manufacturer of expensive but very flaky gold paint arranged for practically every new car sold to have their crufty product smeared all over it, only for a significant minority of customers to sand it all off and put on good stuff in a colour they actually wanted.

And as for the tree hugging comment - wouldn't you hug a tree if it had your beard? :) Seriously though linux users are not tree hugging communists like people seem to keep suggesting. I use linux for all manner of purposes because it is relatively lightweight, stable and secure, costs nothing and is a developer's dream. The way I see it reducing licensing costs, maintenance costs, hardware costs and energy costs increases my competitve advantage in any commerical endeavour the machines support. It's pure capitalism, and I have no beard, and do not generally hug trees.

Pathetic

Where does it end?

Hi Mrs Bloggs.

What's that you say?

You want to buy a computer to speak to your grandchildren in Australia?

And you've never used a computer before?

Well, here's a nice one here.

Unfortunately, we can't give you one with an operating system on it, so you can choose between all the systems listed on this sheet.

You don't know what an operating system is?

Well, I don't think I should sell you a computer then, in case some jumped up obnoxious fifteen year old linux weenie accuses us of N0t b33ing teh l33t!!11!one! and takes us to court. Bye, now.

Show me

@ Dave Cumming

Please tell me where I can get a wide choice of completely clean retail laptops

@ Mr Clark

The reason for this is because Windows is the default operating system for new PC's and therefore, all the manufacturers have to do is provide drivers for Windows (in fact sometimes only drivers for that particular version of Windows (Philips!)), in doing so, netting themselves a great OEM support deal, whereby customers have to visit PC World and be insulted ;-o

@ Ian Ferguson

Or an iPhone without the network

I'm not pro-linux or windows, but I am pro-choice and against the thought that companies can muscle their way to the top rather than providing good product which sells itself

Do you Agree to these terms ....NO!

When you buy a laptop, and go through the M$ install it asks if you agree to the terms and conditions. If you choose NO, then you don't get Windows.

If you don't get windows you are entitled to a refund from the supplier for the software, as you are not using it.

Unfortunately, no-one (no matter what M$ thinks) can read the T&C's until they get to that point in the loaded software.

So, stupid stickers about opening the software means you agree to everything, don't count unless you CAN read everything BEFORE you open the packet.

In the same way that you can take back a car that doesn’t run once you have opened the door (as you seem to like the Car analogies) ;-)

Good, yet bad

As others have said, this judgment makes perfect sense to/for us. For the average consumer it could result in utter hell, though. Best case scenario is that you get to choose what OS to have put on your machine when you buy it, and have someone in-store handle it.

As an aside, I don't know why everyone here is cheering- we've known how to reformat all along, and could quite easily take the discount manufacturers like Dell get for bundling software without dealing with the pain of actually using it. Now we're just going to have to pay more instead.

This is not ACER's fault

The judgement is fair, not so far as it forced Acer to refund the user for the software that he did not want but rather it punished the company for dragging its feet in a simple consumer rights case, however this case highlights a very real problem in Europe regards the sale of both business and consumer computer equipment.

The reason that this is fair is that in europe we have laws that promote competition so it would be fair to say that Acer should really sell a version of its laptop without an OS however the antipiracy bunch say that this promotes software piracy and is bad so the manufacturers are in a way very much compelled to supply an OS on the hardware.

Now if you look at the PC OS market there are a dazzaling number of operating system flavours available, basically the various forms of windows from Microsoft takes a 90%+ stake and the rest is made up from a plethora of different Linux variations. To be fair, when the "no machine without an OS" policy is taken into account, what is being asked for is for manufacturers to make every model available with every possible operating system out there available to the consumer to buy which is just not feasable. If this was to happen the manufacturers would end up with an awful lot of kit that just would not get sold.

The consumer demands that they can walk into any computer shop and hand over their cash for their shiny new computer and go home, turn it on and it works. No messing around with disks and configurations and software etc. The want turn on put name in and internet within five minutes. They also expect their new shiny computer to be cheap also.

The AVERAGE computer user is a complete pleb when it comes to technical stuff and to be fair they have no interest in being any otherwise. What you must consider is that at leaset half the computer users out their are more of a pleb than the average one so the manufacturers make it as simple as possible.

The average computer user also wants windows, it is compatable with their software, their games, their hardware and they know how to use it. A very small percentage of customers may want to use something like Linux instead. It is true to say that they should not have to pay for windows but then the EU should force manufacturers to supply machines without an OS and this is not going to happen until either the customer base wants it or someone gets brave and launches a legal case to force the EU to make it happen.

Unfair

The cockup by the French court here is that the refund should have been the cost to Acer of the software in question, not the retail price.

Example: You purchase, say, a camera at a sale price of, say, 50% of RRP. It proves to be faulty and you take it back. You get a refund. Is that refund the full RRP of the camera? I think not. Would you get very far attempting to sue the shop for the full RRP of the camera? Again, I think not.

What's happened here is that some chiselling git has taken a load of heavily discounted, crap OEM software back and got the full, box-price refund. Under any other circumstances I'd call that fraud. In fact, it may still be. If at any time in the process he or his legal team mislead the court into believing that the OEM bundle was comparable to the retail version in value then I suspect he's up the creek without a paddle. It wouldn't be the first time that a successful civil claim has resulted in criminal charges against the original plaintiff. Acer should call the Gendarmerie here and make a complaint.

Oh and it's not going to make a blind bit of difference to MS, so the rabid, drooling MS haters can stop celebrating. And it's France, so you can stop talking about European legal precedents as the EU countries still get legal independance ragardless of what the Eurocrats may be smoking this week.

TeeCee

You CANNOT buy a laptop in the US without an OS

Just for the record, I went to Dell and tried to by a D820 without Windows, and I couldn't.

So you say... don't buy it, go somewhere else...

Ok, went to Sony's website, couldn't find a high end laptop without Windows.

go somewhere else...

Ok went to HP's online store, couldn't find a high end laptop without Windows.

Ok went to Best Buy and Circuit City. Also didn't find a high end laptop without Windows. Went to CostCo and Sams Club. Nope, the few laptops they had came with Windows.

So based on my rather large sample size (assuming the average consumer would only go to one store) it is IMPOSSIBLE to buy a laptop without Windows. So for all of you people saying he should've bought a different one, I bet Acer didn't offer that model without Windows. And in the US it appears to be physically impossible to by any laptop without an OS.

I don't anderstand the buy a laptop without Windows agrument, when you clearly cannot!

Before people keep on going on about this rubbish

I build my own PC and only install what I want on the PC.

But most people want an OS and so on. If this guy had taken Acer to court for not providing a bare product then I could understand as long as he didn't actually buy it. But he went out and bought something that he didn't want and then asked for money back for stuff he didn't want but then knowingly purchased. How is this right?

I'll sue Microsoft!

They have an unfair monopoly. Every time I buy a packed of floppy disks they come pre-formatted with FAT. Totally unacceptable.

Er, Ned

'i can't ssay that i've ever seen a pc/laptop/palm for sale in the channel that does not state that the OS is included.'

'if the stupid man didn;t want that OS he should have gone elsewhere'

If you've never seen a pc/laptop/palm that does not include the OS, where exactly should the 'stupid' man have gone?

M$ licence

I have a catch-all catch-phrase for people with complaints about choices that they make: "well don't then", This certainly applies to his complaint that he bought a laptop with Windoze on it, but he doesn't want Windoze, so he was a fool to buy that one. Fair point. To some degree.

BUT isn't it true that the M$ licence says "if you refuse these terms then you must return the OS to your dealer for a refund" ? Chances are the lawsuit was about Acer refusing to do that - or specifically refusing to refund a realistic amount, compared with the cost of a Windows disc set off the shelf.

IIRC that clause was the basis of the last tranche of "end the M$ tax now" activity, and it is the basis of M$s claims not to be a monopolist. In that by rejecting the licence and getting the refund, that's how you are entitled to buy a "blank" laptop to put your own software on.

So Acer was guilty of refusing to honour the terms of the licence of an item that it sold.