[clug] Windows Tax refund and ASUS

[Andrew Janke]

On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 22:41, Nathan Rickerby<rickerby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1...Buy only from a supplier who is prepared to negotiate on price.
>> 2...Be prepared to walk away from any purchase where price is not
>> negotiable by at least -15%
>> 3...Be disciplined with regard to your buying policy and never compromise
>> 4...Be prepared to spend as much time securing the best possible price
>> as you would researching the best product to buy.
>
> Given that the people who try and get refunds, usually go to a lot of
> effort and the refunds are only for a small amount, I don't think they're
> doing it because they want $COST_OF_OS off the purchase price.

<tick>  For me this part isn't about the money, it's about letting
manufacturers know that there is a demand for this. Sooner or later
they might weigh the cost of this against their OEM contracts.  Mind
you of course I imbibed in haggling for the purchase of the machine in
the first place!

> Negotiating the retailer down may allow the buyer to believe they haven't
> paid for a copy of Windows but MS will still get their money for it.
> The retailer is the one who will lose out and that doesn't really help
> the situation much.

+1

> What would be much better is supporting anyone willing to market a
> Windows free machine.  I would happily pay more for a computer if I
> knew the manufacturer had not bought a licence for it.

And they do exist (metabox for one) problem is they didn't have what I
wanted at a reasonable price point. I too would pay (slightly more)
for a machine sans OS even though this seems completely non-sensical
if only to support the companies doing it.


--
Andrew Janke
(a.janke at gmail.com || http://a.janke.googlepages.com/)
Canberra->Australia    +61 (402) 700 883