Soleron on 18 January 2009
What I really want is for the EU to tackle MS-OEM deals where OEMs pay for every computer sold regardless of whether it has Windows or not. If they don't comply, MS raises the price of WIndows and reduces the "marketing money" they get (i.e. a rebate). This means it is never economic for OEMs to preload a free OS, because if they do they have to pay for a Windows license anyway but don't recieve the rebate funds. So they computer ends up more expensive with a free OS. See: Dell's Ubuntu PCs.
Here's an example. The costs are arbitrary but illustrate the point. You can see that if an OEM sells many more Windows PCs than Free OS PCs, it is cheaper to go with the contract deal and the monopoly is perpetuated.
| Windows Cost | Marketing money | PC Hardware Cost | Cost of OS | Total PC Cost | |
| OEM is not under contract, installs Windows | $100 | $0 | $500 | $100 | $600 |
| OEM is not under contract, installs free OS | $0 | $0 | $500 | $0 | $500 |
| OEM under contract, installs Windows | $50 | $15 | $500 | $35 | $535 |
| OEM under contract, installs free OS | $50 | $0 | $500 | $50 | $550 |
