March 24th, 2008
Sony “Sort Of” Removes “No Bloatware” Fee
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
You may recall that Jimmy earlier wrote about Sony’s $50 charge for its “no bloatware” Fresh Start Option. They’ve since, after an explosion of bad publicity, rescinded that fee. I personally felt that since, in order to get the “Fresh Start” option and no bloatware, you had to select Windows Vista Business, a $100 option, it was really a $150 option. And since they haven’t removed that requirement, the price is still a ridiculous $100 for garbage most people don’t want.
Sony is only offering this option on the VGN-TZ2000 and VGN-TX2500 laptops, and as you can see in the configuration screenshot above, you still have to choose that OS upgrade. Most sites and blogs however, are cheering over this so-called consumer victory, but why should anyone have to upgrade their OS at all? This should be a no-charge option for all systems.
It also makes me wonder if this was planned all along. I mean, Sony is getting a lot of good PR over this move of theirs, while in reality they still require you to up your configuration by $100. While it’s true that some would probably opt for Vista Biz anyway, quite a few would probably opt to stick with Home Premium, which is a fine option for many.
Of course, that would require me to imagine that a corporation might have a somewhat shady reason for doing things - to possibly increase their bottom line. Nah, right? 
I also understand that OEMs make $$$ off all the bloatware they install, and that by removing it they lose that money, but since corporations make tons off consumers, I really don’t feel much sympathy for them.
We Say: I’ll admit, it’s nice to see a “no bloatware” option, but it should really be an option on all systems and all OSes, not limited to those who upgrade their OS. For now, I still give Sony a failing grade.
LZW says:
I think I’m starting to understand how this works… Anyone can go to a company like sony and pay to have any thing they like installed on all new PC’s.
Then the customer could pay to have it removed, which is now counted as an upgrade…. So stuff can be removed from computers if the price is right?
Therefore, a company like yahoo could pay sony to make sure MSN mesenger did not get installed… They don’t even have to pay for their own product to be installed, (customers can find it on their own) but merely paying to have the competitors product removed would give them a more level field.
I wonder how much it all costs???
Suppose you wanted realtechnews.com added to the favorites menu of all vaio computers, how much would you have to pay sony?
How much would another web site pay to have them all removed?
Beyond hyprlinks, what would the same scenario cost for something like an instant messaging program? Or does the content not matter? Is the charge just item by item no matter what?
March 25th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Kevin K. says:
This is why, when you receive one of these computers, you save off the drivers (usually conveniently placed in a folder somewhere on the C:\ drive or on a drivers disc) and reload Windows yourself.
As long as you have the hardware drivers, you can do anything you want.
Of course, if you ever need to send the thing in for service, you simply use the restore disc to bring it back to factory fresh condition and off you go!
Since most manufacturers’ PCs come with no real software loaded, it’s easy to start fresh without losing anything in the process.
Save the $150 and just reload the machine when you get it. If you don’t have an installation disc, well, Add/Remove Programs usually is a good place to start.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:10 am