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Dell Customers Want OpenOffice

Computer assembler Dell has launched a new site for collecting customer feedback, called Idea Storm. (The name’s a bit hokey, but the intention is good.)

Users can submit their suggestions or ideas, and other site visitors vote on the ones they’d most like to see implemented. It’s a good way to get a company’s most passionate users really communicating with each other and with the company itself.

Unsurprisingly, this site has shown as untrue earlier claims by Dell (and other hardware makers) that there is no demand for pre-installation of Linux and open source software on the machines they sell: a user suggestion that Dell “offer the 3 top free Linux versions for free pre-installation on all Dell PCs,” has received over 62,000 votes in the past five days.

That’s cool, but something even easier to implement has come in at #2 in total votes cast: pre-installation of OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a bevy of other FOSS desktop applications on top of Windows. In three days, this idea has garnered over 37,000 votes.

Many other open source-related ideas have filtered to the top of the list. (While it appears an MS astroturfing campaign has begun in the comments section of these ideas, they cannot reduce the votes that have been cast in favor.)

If you’re a Dell customer, or potential customer, let them know what you want!

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