Comments on: Department of “Never mind!”

By: SamChevre

SamChevre — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:41:02 +0000

Adding voice, not info: it’s as stupid as it looks–but it is a legal stupidity, not Dell’s stupidity.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:28:06 +0000

It is as stupid as it looks. If you import controlled technology, you are prohibited from re-exporting it, even to the country of origin.

By: DK

DK — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:04:09 +0000

There’s nothing stupid about Dell here. They are just being a typical cheap manufacturer, like most other American manufacturing.
The stupidity is in the US export control system, which is still based on the geopolitics and the computer technology levels of the 1970s and early 1980s. Most cell phones and cameras today have more computing power than the computers we originally refused to export.

By: Geoffrey Kimbrough

Geoffrey Kimbrough — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 20:58:21 +0000

You don’t understand. By “forbidding” export of Windoze, the Chinese are fooled into pirating and running that OS, rather than, say, the freely available (and much more secure) Linux, giving the US government an easily exploited trojan horse into the chinese economy. I nominate Michael Dell and Bill Gates for the Medal of Freedom. It’s brilliant.

By: Jay C

Jay C — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:36:09 +0000

On the other hand, it’s also possible that this is precisely as stupid as it looks.
It’s Dell. Precision is what they do.

By: red_neck_repub

red_neck_repub — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 14:35:29 +0000

The Chinese (and everybody else) have gazillions of pirated copies of the un-named OS (Windows) so this export restriction is just rubbish.

By: ploeg

ploeg — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:16:02 +0000

The paperwork is outdated. You may have heard of Levono, the company that currently makes IBM ThinkPads under license. Levono is partially owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (that is, the Chinese government). They assemble the laptop and preinstall the OS in China and ship the laptop directly to customers via UPS.

By: Frank Schmitt

Frank Schmitt — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:18:51 +0000

Mass-produced CDs are made more like records than tapes, i.e. they’re mechanically stamped rather than recorded to. So apparently it’s as stupid as it looks.