[elearning] Acer Aspire One - Rudd money

[Roland Gesthuizen]

Mark is right, this is very odd pricing. The ACER Aspire one WIndows XP
version is priced at least $150 more on some of the overseas websites I
checked. The hardware is diffent but not remarkably so. From what I could
see, the CPU's are similar except the linux version comes with a more robust
8Gb flash memory drive with no moving parts and 512MB of RAM, the Windows
version comes with 1Gb of RAM.
     http://www.cnet.com.au/laptops/laptops/0,239035649,339290036,00.htm

If WIndows XP costs $250, does this make the laptops only $60? Whilst users
can still purchase a copy of WIndows XP from Harris Technology, perhaps Mark
is right to spot a goldmine for Windows XP licence purchases. Something
doesnt sit right and I am suspictious of what might be going on.
     http://tinyurl.com/5m8xj8 (Buy XP at HP)

I would hate to point the bone but if a seller is pricing the different
units much higher than is reasonable or fair (price gouging) or if they are
selling a product at very low price with the intent of driving competitors
out of the market or to create a barrier to entry for new competitors
(predatory pricing) then what they are doing is probably quite illegal under
anti-trust laws.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

"He who pays the piper can call the tune". In any case, users can pick the
cheaper laptop and still pick their own operating system, golly they can
even downgrade fr. Good competition drives prices down, not market
manipulation by an oligopolistic industry. We already have Linux running on
our OLPC, eeePCs and library terminals. Not a big deal, it works.

Regards Roland

2008/9/5 Donna Benjamin <donna at cc.com.au>

> On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 14:06 +1000, Mark Kelly wrote:
> > I trust discussion of Rudd money is at least partially relevant to your
> > eLearning plan, especially planning your implementation strategies.
> >
> > The panel UMPC from Acer is a cute thing - and cheap. You get lots of
> > change from your Rudd $1000.
> >
> > We got one to play with and see whether it can stand running Win Vista -
> > our standard platform in 2009.
> >
> > 6 hour battery life!  Not bad...
> >
> > Anyway, the interesting thing is the pricing:
> > $313 ex with Windows XP.
> > $469 ex with Linux.
>
> Ermmmm... are the specs on the machines the same?
>
> > Now isn't that really interesting - Linux is free, and Windows costs
> > negative $156 dollars!
> >
> > I'm gonna buy 10,000 copies of Windows and make a fortune...
>
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-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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