Bonum Certa Men Certa

Leaked Microsoft Memo: How Microsoft Changes the Prices at OEMs to Block GNU/Linux Sales

Summary: Antitrust exhibit shows how Microsoft changes its pricing to suppress interest in Mandrake (GNU/Linux)

SOME PEOPLE wish to know why certain shop cease to sell GNU/Linux-powered computers (or sub-notebooks with GNU/Linux), or in some cases no longer make available GNU/Linux with comparable hardware. The truth of the matter is that Microsoft systematically sets the prices to deny GNU/Linux entry into the market.



We have just pulled an antitrust exhibit which shows what Microsoft is doing. As far as we are aware, this exhibit was never published or used by the courts before. The full exhibit (2003) [PDF] can be found as text at the bottom of this post. Here is the gist:

From: Brad Beadles Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 4:31 PM To: Dale Watanabe Co: Bret Arsenault; Scott Johnson (DENVER); Tim Schmidt (DENVER); David Brandt (DENVER); Ann Nicholson Subject: LDS Church - Hewlett Packard Importance: High

[...]

Outside of the hardware they are considering alternatives to their current standard of Windows O/S and MS Works on the desktop in these local units. They are considering Mandrake, Debian, Red Hat and Open Office because of their upfront costs. HP is quoting their system to include both the Windows O/S ($80) and MS Works ($15) for an overall software acquisition cost of $95 for the O/S and Application Suite The Open Source alternatives are $8.50 for the O/S of choice which is currently Madrake (Open Office is $0.00). As you can see, we have a price delta of $85 between the MS solution and the Open Source solution.

Is there anything we can do with/for HP to lower the O/S cost to become more competitive? Dell is quoting $30 for the O/S and the MS Works product team is giving us $25 for MS Works for a price point of $55 for the Dell software acquisition costs.


Microsoft talks about becoming "more competitive". To understand what Microsoft means by that, this antitrust exhibit should be read.




Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft - exhibit px08618, as text








From: Date Watanabe Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 3:59 PM To: Rick Wong; Rob Young (OEM) Cc: Kurt Kolb Subject: FW: LDS Church - Hewlett Packard Attachments: RE: LDS - Open Source - Quick Update; RE: LDS - Open Source - Quick Update

I took this offline with our guy, Brad, but I think we should be concerned that they are breaking out the OS separately.

Dale

From: Dale Watanabe Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 12:09 PHM To: Brad Beadles C€¢: Bret Arsenault; Scott Johnson (DENVER); Tim Schmidt (DENVER); David Brandt (DENVER); Ann Nicholson Subject: RE: LDS Church - Hewlett:t Packard

Brad, 1.. OEMs should NOT be quoting separate prices for OEM versions of OS and applications. If they are, they are violating their licensing agreement with us. 2, Given the fact that the prices that you quote from the OEM are no where near their true price from us, then the above is probably not a really issue, but the end user customer perception ends up getting skewed. 3. OEM OS prices are uniform based on volume, Anyone can figure out from IDC data, etc. that HP’s and Dell’s volume are virtually the same. We do not have any flexibility to change prices on a deal basis. But I don’t think that is the real issue here.

Please give me a call. Rather talk through this with you.

Dale 425- 706-8 796 Cell: 206-953-2233

From: Brad Beadles Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 4:31 PM To: Dale Watanabe Co: Bret Arsenault; Scott Johnson (DENVER); Tim Schmidt (DENVER); David Brandt (DENVER); Ann Nicholson Subject: LDS Church - Hewlett Packard Importance: High

Hi Dale,

Bret asked me to ping you with a competitive situation we are having with The LDS Church here in SLC. To net it out, HP and Dolt are their PC providers of choice. The Church has asked them to come back with systems that are under $500 for their local area offices and units around the world. This constitutes approximately 25,000 PC’s.

Outside of the hardware they are considering alternatives to their current standard of Windows O/S and MS Works on the desktop in these local units. They are considering Mandrake,

MS-CC-RN 000000784853 HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL




Debian, Red Hat and Open Office because of their upfront costs. HP is quoting their system to include both the Windows O/S ($80) and MS Works ($15) for an overall software acquisition cost of $95 for the O/S and Application Suite The Open Source alternatives are $8.50 for the O/S of choice which is currently Madrake (Open Office is $0.00). As you can see, we have a price delta of $85 between the MS solution and the Open Source solution.

Is there anything we can do with/for HP to lower the O/S cost to become more competitive? Dell is quoting $30 for the O/S and the MS Works product team is giving us $25 for MS Works for a price point of $55 for the Dell software acquisition costs.

Regards,

Brad D. Beadles Microsoft Corporation 801.257.6400

Utah Events and Information http://microsoft.com/usa/offices/saltlake.asp

3/10/2005

MS-CC-RN 000000784854 HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Silent Layoffs (PIPs) Have Allegedly Accelerated Since IBM's Stock Cratered
"IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
Being Pro-Slop is Death Knell to One's Credibility
It's not hard to see Ubuntu users resisting and antagonising this
The Slop Bubble is Killing the Planet, Not Just the Economy
The chatbot/LLM speculation bubble not only causes a health crisis, a mental health epidemic, and climate change; it's also crashing the economy on several levels
 
Daniel Pocock in Mainstream Media Again
AFR wrote an article today. It is about Pocock and another contender.
Millions of Daily Requests
4.5+ million requests in 4 days
In statCounter, a Lot of "Unknown" Turns Out to be GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has more than doubled
3,500 Active Gemini Capsules Soon
How much longer before 3,500+ active? A month?
Gemini Links 26/07/2026: European Eclipse, Writing About Writing, and Comments on Formatting Gopher Posts
Links for the day
Stigma of Being Laid Off by Microsoft
One might call this the "curse" of having worked for Microsoft
Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It's Turning Out to be a Total Disaster
RIP, Fedora?
Gemini Links 26/07/2026: Beach Day, CAs, and Plaintext
Links for the day
Sweden Needs GNU/Linux and Free Software, Not GAFAM
home of IKEA and ABBA
Maintenance Today
Preparing for more mass-publication activities
Links 26/07/2026: "Zelenskyy Says Russia Wants To Bring North Korean Troops Into Ukraine", Muslim Van Ramming Attack on Berlin Pride
Links for the day
Centrica fraud exposed: worse than Palestine Action 'terrorists' with cardboard placards
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 26/07/2026: "Nate Silver Discovers the Educated Poor" and "India’s “Cockroach” Protest Movement Faces State Repression"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 25, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, July 25, 2026
IBM Hammers a CoI Into a CoCed Fedora, RIP Fedora?
Also in the "Fedora is dead" dept. today
Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Zoo, MUD, Literature, EMF Camp, and e-ID
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Solution of No Choice: A Shortlist of One
deployment of the "shortlist of one" by Campinos
Wife of Dan Williams Has Explained Mental Factors Leading to His Death
"We need to be open and honest about mental health," his wife pleads
Several New Series Coming Soon
we'll publish 8 series in tandem, in parallel
Insolvency as the New Norm in the United States' Economy
this is vastly worse than then 2008 subprime mortgage crisis
IBM's CEO Might 'Retire' or 'Step Down' by Christmas
PIP the CEO
Misleading Articles About YouTube and Google Financial Performance
The future of Google is self-serving monopolisation and destruction of the Web
Microsoft Cannot Survive the Fall of Windows
It has amassed way too much debt
Links 25/07/2026: Hong Kong Squashing Criticism/Dissent, Mirror Caught Breaking Into Voicemail
Links for the day
PIPs Are Shrinking IBM and "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
IBM is going down the drain
IBM is Killing the Fedora Community, Replacing It With LLM Slop From IBM Staff
Krishna buys companies only to gut them. They've all learned this from experience.
Give Me Your "Dumbest" (Devices)
Why can't people accept that a "modern "smart" "phone" isn't necessary to check the time (overkill) and playing social control media "on the go" is far from necessary?
Earlier This Year Dan Williams Prepared for Scenario Where Linus Torvalds Dies
He had only just started a job at NVIDIA
Links 25/07/2026: Data Breaches Abundant and Attribution Imperiled in the Age of Slop Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Poetry and Plaintext Pages
Links for the day
What is Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
In many cases, the acronym became a misnomer
IBM PIPs Continue Until Morale Improves, Silent or Quiet Firings at IBM Explained
IBM is a dying company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 24, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, July 24, 2026
Gemini Links 24/07/2026: Animal Friendship, Squirrels, and Lagrange
Links for the day
Links 24/07/2026: IOC Drops Russia Ban, New Internationalist Raises Money
Links for the day
Poor Piece From Valnet: Microsoft Keeps Sabotaging GNU/Linux, So You Should Quit Using GNU/Linux
Really awful take
We Need More Encryption, Not Less of It
Use Free software and use encryption to ensure sources are fully protected
At 3PM on a Friday The Register MS Collects Some 'Pyramid Scheme' Money From Communist China (ZTE)
This won't age well for The Register MS
Car Companies Fail Because They Don't Manufacture What Costumers Actually Want
They try to impose their dumb vision on purchasers
What Freedom Does Not Mean
Tell Warren Buffett to go skiing; he'll soon understand how much freedom he truly has
Linuxiac is Plagiarism
We won't link to it, we're done [...] If you wish to support journalism about GNU/Linux, do not visit or link to slop
Verizon is Over 200 Billion Dollars in Debt (US Telecoms Collapsing, Wrapping Up the Failure in "Hey Hi" Clothing)
They will tell us this is "innovation", not a failure, and that only "Luddites" would oppose this
You've Been Conned If You Ever Believed That MElon (MUSK, Elon) Was a Trillionaire
Connected to corrupt officials
The People Who Tried to 'Cancel' (or Deplatform/Censor) Daniel Pocock Are Annoyed That He's Mentioned in Dozens of Press Articles
If Pocock's words did not matter, there would not be such a huge effort to silence him
Cybershow Explains Why Only Sociopaths Gravitate Towards Leadership Position in 'Tech'
The general thesis is a familiar one
Speeding Up 'Down Under': Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania...
As things stand, the best we can do is let people retrieve pages within less than 0.1 seconds since a request is received
Google's Debt Trebled in Only 9 Months and It's Not Even the Full Picture (There's Secret Debt, Too)
No wonder there are so many layoffs and workers try to unionise
Links 24/07/2026: Mass Layoffs at Patreon, Netflix Deemed Bad for People's Brains
Links for the day
Microsoft Layoffs in India
it's about cost-cutting
Deregulation is Blowing Up the Economy, Which Has Become a Multi-Level Scheme or Pyramid Scheme
Why did only Japanese media call out the BS; is that so hard to figure out and properly report on?
Google Spreads Misinformation, Google's Slop Makes Stuff Up and Calls That "Intelligence"
Google very well understands (and even publicly admits so, albeit only for legal reasons) that the slop does not work
Daniel Pocock Proves Wikipedia is for Rich People or People Who Work for Very Rich People (the True Owners of Wikipedia)
It's for billionaires and their faithful boot lickers
GNOME: Your Personal Opinions Must Overlap GAFAM's (Otherwise Those Opinions Are Impermissible)
Get well soon, GNOME
Making Excuses for Stressful, Unrewarding, and Immoral Jobs
excuses for difficult and/or barely-rewarding jobs. [...] People in tech must not be evaluated (or have their "worth" assessed) based on remuneration
US is Insolvent, GAFAM is Buying Time by Hiding (Not Disclosing) Its True Debt Which Explains Never-ending Layoffs (Unrelated to Slop or "Efficiency Drives")
Five Tech Giants are Hiding $1.65tn in AI Debt, Using the Trick that Toppled Enron
Almost 5 Years Without Social Control Media ('Mind Prison')
Life is too short to be stuck inside a skinnerbox
Linux Must be About People (Humans), Not Bribery From Slop Companies Trillions of Dollars in Debt and in Pursuit of Positive Press
We've lost Williams
John Dvorak Understood That "MSM" Was a Vehicle of Censorship
Independent publishing, which obviates the need to censor (influenced by existing advertisers or lookout for prospective advertisers), is the only credibly thing out there
To Understand Why Linus Torvalds Became a Boot-Licking Booster of Slop Look at Another Operative of 'Linux' Foundation, the "Mentor" of Clickfraud SPAMnil (According to SPAMnil Himself)
it seems like SJVN does not give a full disclosure
Blaming "Computers" Instead of Blaming Microsoft
Blaming Microsoft is "hate"
"Online We Are All Refugees" and Slop Pushers Are the Oppressors
They basically resort to nationalism and racism to distract from their commercial failure and fraud (pyramid scheme)
PIP Apocalypse (PIPocalypse) at IBM, CEO Promotes Vapouware (Lying to Shareholders)
Companies get to shrink while lying about it to the public, even to shareholders
GNU/Linux Soaring in Antigua And Barbuda
GNU/Linux is internationally approaching 8%
Calling Out the Worst Culprits in "Linux" Slop (Slopfarms That Manipulate Information and Engage in Plagiarism)
Once they're gone (offline), the slopfarms cannot carry on for much longer
Defying Discrimination
Rianne's birthday is exactly a month away
Dan Williams Represented Real Diversity in Linux
Williams probably understood based on personal experience what it was like to be marginalised and discriminated against
The First Point About Software Freedom is, You Must Understand What It Really Means (Not "Open Source")
Forty Three Years of Commitment to Software Freedom [...] Educating people about what Software Freedom actually means
Gemini Links 24/07/2026: Recovering From Broken Shoulders, Loss of Passion, and "True Hacker Versus Growth Hacker"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 23, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, July 23, 2026