Rabid Reseller: Linux sales are a lot of pain for little gain

Here at Rabid Reseller we've been getting customers asking for Linux instead of Windows.

We are not amused.

This is a shop. We sell stuff. We don't give stuff away, unless of course it's some junk that we got from a bankruptcy sale which we mark up 400 percent then sell for half-price on special. But I digress. We don't give away serious stuff like operating systems. Well we didn't until now.

If ever there was a Catch-22 in computing it has to be trying to "sell" Linux. For starters, we can only charge punters for the CDs, not what is on the CDs. And they all know you can buy blank CDs for 50c at the post office.

We can try to charge them to "install" the software but it does that by itself anyway. We can try to charge them for support calls but they don't make any. Instead they email other penguin-people.

We can't "sell" them any applications to go with their Linux because they're all open source and "free". We tried charging to set up the applications but so far every punter knows a friend who knows a friend who can do it in an hour for nothing.

So all we can do is sell them the physical PC, which everyone knows has bugger-all margins these days.

And let me tell you, you'd better be careful what you put in that PC if the customer is going to load it up with Linux. This isn't Windows, which knows about 99 percent of all the hardware you can find, with a driver on the CD for when Windows doesn't yet know about it.

This is Linux so you have to choose your innards based on what the rest of the geeks out there use and have written drivers for already. And that limits our choice of suppliers, which limits the deals we can get, which raises the price of the PC beyond the cost of adding Windows in the first place.

So hardly anybody wants to buy our Linux-ready PCs because they cost the same as our Windows-loaded PCs. Told you it was Catch-22. And don't these penguin-people whine? We haven't had this level of whiner since we stopped selling Macintosh.

First off they want to open the PC and stare at everything inside, just to make sure each component is the brand their geek friends told them to get. Then, even if it is the right widget, they want to know what revision of firmware is on the thing.

If all the parts are suitable, the next whine will be the way we arranged the cables inside the box. Honestly, if you want your cables in corn roll braids, take the thing next door to the hairdresser. We do our cables dreadlock-style. It's a religious thing, and we can't change it, all right?

All this inspection and interrogation takes about two hours, after which the penguin-person starts haggling about the price. I guess if the software is free they've gotta be thinking the hardware shouldn't cost much more.

Don't even try and sell Linux-lovers a printer. Let them ask you for the printer they want, because their geek friends will have already told them what works. You guessed it - the printer they want will be a low-cost, low-margin model that uses ink you can get from Bi-Lo. They're not going to buy any cables either, not at our prices, and don't even think about selling them photo paper. Never going to happen.

But the news isn't all bad. Since we started selling Linux PCs the shop is constantly full of geeks, which makes the place look busy, and they keep offering free advice to other customers which makes them think we have a staff of 15 people. That's helped close quite a few deals this week. And when they get bored the little geeks keep hacking in and fiddling with our file server and our website - which turns out to be a good thing.

The file server doesn't crash any more and the website really rocks and doesn't get hacked every night. Now we've also got a database with all our products and pricing, and a tracking system for all our orders and service calls.

I suppose the little buggers will expect me to pay for it soon. What's that? They did the whole thing using Linux and Open Source? No way! You learn something every day in this business.

Gotta go, customers waiting!

Rabid Reseller is a monthly column written by an anonymous, grumpy reseller who may or may not reside in Northern New South Wales. CRN accepts submissions from elsewhere in the channel.