Wal-Mart finds it hard to undercut open source pricing

It has been able to draw people away from mom-and-pop stores and erode entire urban cores in order to buy cheap jeans, small appliances and even groceries, but Wal-Mart claims it was unable to find customers interested in PCs running free software.

The big box retailer said it will no longer sell Linux-based Green gPCs made by Everex of Taiwan in its stores, an experiment that lasted less than six months. You can still buy the machines through Wal-Mart online, just not on the shelves.

Analysts are already speculating as to what went wrong. Maybe the greeters didn’t know what to say when customers asked them about open source. Maybe Linux desktops just aren’t mature enough. Or maybe Microsoft sales reps are better at doing the Wal-Mart cheer.