@Joe_0237 >I think Microsoft gives out licences to OEMs much cheaper in exchange for pretending that Windows is the only way to use a computer.
If I remember correctly, microsoft charges anything between $50-$120 per computer sold with windows - it's calculated via some method based off the sale price of the computer.

For many OEMs, in exchange for a slightly lower volume windows tax, microsoft demands payment of a certain amount for any computer that doesn't come with windows (ensuring that such OEMs primarily sells WCs and very few running GNU/Linux for example - and bean counters easily calculate that such arrangement leads to less costs if WCs are primarily to be sold, while not even considering that more profit could be made if the OEM stopped selling WCs (meaning no more massive windows tax) and sold general purpose computers that worked without proprietary shit (after all, one could easily make millions if not billions of sales selling computers that ran GNU/Linux and the BSD's properly)).

Like any parasite, microsoft takes as much as they can get away with, rather than just a small amount.

I believe DELL intentionally just jacks the price up, as the suckers just pay - although they don't exactly make good computers.