Dell hedging its bets. The laws of marketing in action

The Var Guy, a blog I regularly read, recently posted about discussing Dell's decision to not support the upcoming server version of Ubuntu.
You can read the report here http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/04/10/dell-no-plans-for-ubuntu-linux-servers/

The reason Dell is hesitating is due to the the law of the ladder. Law #7 of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing states that there are rungs on a ladder in the minds of your prospects and there is a brand associated with each rung of the ladder.

In the Linux market, the top rung is held by Red Hat

The next rungs down on the ladder are a little murkier. The category, following Law #10, the law of division, which states that each category begins to subdivide itself, finds that there are two separate categories...Desktop and Server

The story being discussed by the VAR Guy is about Linux on Servers, and here, the vendor on the second rung of the Linux Server market is Novell.

It isn't clear who is on the third rung.

What Dell is doing is hedging its bets by following the 8th Law of Marketing, the Law of Duality: In the long run each market becomes a two horse race.

Dell, looking at the market, realizes that Ubuntu has a very small chance of unseating either Red Hat or Novell in the server market. Thus, Dell makes a wise business decision to continue to back the two leaders and wait to see what happens with Ubuntu.