RE: Linux Demo Day

[SIMS, Paul, LCTL <nospam [at] lombard.co.uk>]

You seem to have missed the point entirely - why should they bother giving
shelf space to stuff on which they make almost zero profit when they can
rack the M$ stuff up high flog it by the cartload at a healthy markup.
John Winters co can do it because they are specialist suppliers who
believe in the product and whose initial motive does not seem to have been
profit but rather to obtain the product in bulk from the US for local
distribution at $-equivalent prices.

I doubt that you'd walk into PCW see a 8-foot high stack of retail Win98,
Orifice 2000, etc, without they were (a) actually shifting boxes and (b)
given incentives by M$ to do so. At the end of the day, the market is still
an M$-dominated one, no retailer is going to go against the market until the
alternative gives them a commercial advantage.

Meadowhall has Tiny, plus the (primarily) computer games shops who are not
averse to shifting the odd M$ product Tandy. At the end of the day, the
first stumbling block is getting permission to stage such an event in the
centre. Get beyond that I'll show more interest.

Memax was given as a workable example only - it's up to everyone to pitch in
ideas. At least I bothered.

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