Bundled Software: Reward or Burden? - The Solution
(Page 4 of 4 )
Instead giving us a variety of gimped software, half of which we probably won't use if we even use any of them at all, I think there should be a new method of including software. How about a more a la carte type of offering? Either when you customize your computer online, or if you buy it in a store, when you connect to the Internet, you get a list of all the software available and pick and choose perhaps five that you wish to have.
The people that have used computers before and know what the software does, will know what software to select. Those that don't have a clue could be offered a wizard to help them choose which ones would suit them best. If you are going to have a digital camera and want to put your pictures on the computer, maybe a photo editor and organizing program would be wonderful for you.
Sony took another approach to people complaining about software pre-loaded onto their computers. They had at one point the option of having a computer come clean of any extra software besides an OS. The catch was it would cost you an additional $50. Yeah, that’s right; you have to pay not to have software installed on your computer!
People saw this, and though it was a good idea, PR had it off their list of computer options the next day. They did offer it for free for about two more days and then gave up on it altogether.
The first attempt at a clean OS install has failed from Sony. I hope to see more companies offering to not put on the software when you order your new PC, and hopefully they don’t plan on charging you for it either.
Conclusion
People that buy computers have been in for headaches for years now. The preinstalled software is usually stuff you don’t want or need. To make matters worse, getting rid of it is no easy task unless you reformat. Not only is this software not what we want, but it slows our computers down as well. If you do happen to get software that you want to use, chances are that it will only do a handful of things that you want it to do, and the rest is locked until you buy the full version.
I hope things change. I would love to see an a la carte type offering of full software that we would actually use. Any chance of this changing any time soon? I would say it is slim. Until something does change, we will continue to be stuck with lackluster, performance-killing software.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
