At yesterday's press launch of Dell's new line of PCs for small businesses (25 or less) in San Francisco, the company execs confirmed that they will not rule out shipping the Vostro PCs with Linux.

A similar answer before their decision to ship the consumer focus Inspiron line with Ubuntu Linux. Inspite the fat that the new Vostro PCs are actually "re-looked" Inspirons, we really liked some of the software and services included with the new small businesss PCs. Notably:

- the 30 days return policy with no restocking fee. Dell has to do this in order to entice small business owners to try out their PCs. According to Dell execs, once customers try a machine, they most likely keep it!
- the new no "bloatware" policy... when you order a Vostro PC you can choose not to have any trialware pre-installed, like an antivirus software/service or an ISP connection (AOL, Earthlink...). The Google toolbar is the only thing that comes pre-installed no matter what... not sure if it's a good thing or not;
- the installation and maintenance/repair software tools to help tune-up, update and fix machines;
- the 1 yr free 10 GB online back-up service. Afterwards it's $10/yr for the 10 GB option, up to $30 for the 30 GB one. A dollar a GB sounds a good deal to me.