Dear OEM: Ditch the crapware, you'll make up the revenue elsewhere
Ed Bott is the picture of PC bliss. He got a crapware free Sony laptop and you'd think the guy is in heaven.
For the past two months, I’ve been using an astonishingly light and agile Sony VAIO notebook and loving every minute of it. The best part of all was that this machine was absolutely, completely, unequivocally crapware-free, which meant I was able to be productive within a few minutes of unboxing.
First reaction: That's great that Sony is moving the needle on the crapware-free march. My second reaction: How sad is it that it takes the removal of something that shouldn't be on a new PC anyway--CRAP--to make a customer happy. A few questions:
- Shouldn't a crapware free PC be expected?
- Wouldn't any PC manufacturer that made life easier for users be sell more units and offset any crapware revenue?
- Why aren't all PC manufacturers doing this?
The answers: Yes, yes and it's the money stupid.
We'll never know how much PC manufacturers make by piling on promotional icons on the desktop, but it has to be material enough for these vendors to willingly annoy customers. Unfortunately, there aren't any "crapware" lines embedded in the annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission or we'd know.
Sony is making a nice start by allowing customers to pick a crapware-free option on laptops, but that setting should be the default. Nevertheless, Sony has made appearance on my list of laptops I may buy (Dell and Apple are the two leading contenders). And all it had to do is offer a crapware free version. Just imagine if Sony went all the way and banned crapware forever.