that $50 is roughly what it costs Dell for a Windows license. I think thats about what people get back if they make a fuss and ask for a refund for the license.

...or he's smirking behind Mark's back. This is, of course, referring to Mr. Mott's former life as both VP/CIO of Wal*Mart and Dell.

Of course, Dell is now "playing with the big boys" in retail. Wal*Mart is the TOUGHEST company to work with as a supplier: their low price promise is strictly enforced by POUNDING their suppliers to cut everything to the bone. And Dell will need to match up with Wal*Mart's supply chain - arguably the finest in ANY industry.

On the other hand, as an anonymous vendor rep once told me as I gave him a ride from Fayetteville to Bentonville one dark and stormy night: "Wal*Mart forces us to nearly lose money on everything we sell to them - but the VOLUME we do with them is so huge it is worth the loss of margin to maintain the relationship." Selling through the world's largest retailer does have some compensation: as Sam Walton once said "Sell 'em cheap and blow 'em out the doors!"

Either Dell is making some major profit on the Ubuntu boxes or they aren't paying much for Windows, vs. what you and I have to pay at our local dealer.

Any ideas when they'll be releasing the Ubuntu Desktops for UK / European customers?

OEM Windows was US$30 for Windows 2000 when I was building PCs as an OEM, and I rather doubt that's changed for XP. The wide variety of Vista options probably means the price point varies between $30 and $50 (but anyone buying Vista deserves to be gouged considerably more than that anyway).

...that the monitor is almost one third of the price of the $599... $409 is not bad for the machine. Just hope it does not fall apart or anything. The 2-3 year old Optiplex GX280 ones we have here in the lab are great. At least mine, running SuSE 9.2, because my friend with Win XP is suffering badly with lack of memory and general slowness (computers bought at the same time, both with XP, mine immediately reformatted...:-).

Does this mean in the UK dell will eventually sell through Asda?

Dell seem to be taking into consideration the fact that Ubuntu already just works on their systems and can be installed with less skill in less time than Vista. That was my experience anyway. So maybe the better Ubuntu system price allows something for more reliable software meaning Dell have to provide less support time.