Re: [tlug] PC vendors.

[Jonathan Q <jq@example.com>]

Erwan Loisant (loisant@example.com) wrote:

> I would like to know if the law in Japan is the same, and if it is easy to 
> buy a blank PC from these companies and especially from DELL which is the 
> leader.

I don't know what the law is (Frank may know that) but I've never
seen a PC that didn't come with an OS installed, although in some
cases the OS was Linux.

However, Japanese consumers seem to generally get less protection
than in either Europe or the US, so I'd be very surprised to
hear that there is any law about forced bundling.  Price
fixing is allegedly illegal, but you can go into two different
and competing major electronics stores located within 200 meters or
so of each other in Akihabara, and find countless examples of the
same name brand products tagged at either the exact same
price or within a few yen of each other.  In my experience, the
exact same price is the most common.

I get Linux on my PC the old-fashioned way: I build it from
parts and install whatever I want.  I think that's what most
TLUGgers are doing.

Cheers,

Jonathan