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Microsoft Pushes Windows To Battle Linux In Africa
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:49 AM
from the roll-the-windows-down-if-it-gets-hot dept.
from the roll-the-windows-down-if-it-gets-hot dept.
ThousandStars writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been making a concerted effort to promote Windows in Africa, pushing Windows over Linux in very poor countries that haven't been locked into a single operating system. From the article: 'To that end, it has established a presence in 13 countries, donated Windows for thousands of school computers, and funded programs for entrepreneurs and the young. It also has used aggressive business tactics, some aimed at its biggest threat in the region: Linux ...'"
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Open Source's Battle In Africa 172 comments
eldavojohn writes "The BBC has more details about something we last discussed in 2008 — the showdown of open source versus proprietary software in Africa. When discussing the issue of cost, the piece quotes Microsoft's chairman on the scene, Dr. Cheikh Modibo Diarra, who alludes that open source continually costs you money by saying 'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.' On the other end of the story is Ken Banks from Kiwanja.net who has spent 15 years developing open source applications in Africa. His logic is that 'Today we're seeing growing open-source programmer, developer communities in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other African countries. Clearly, if you have this informal programming sector coming up, access to source code is almost critical if they are going to be able to take advantage of these new tools that are emerging.' Well, the battle rages on, hopefully the emerging African developers and users pick the tool(s) that suit their needs the best."
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Just like a drug dealer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just like a drug dealer (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I thought, "Wow, good old colonialism, just like the Opium Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_wars)!"
Move into a developing country, and get the masses addicted to something that only you can provide.
Parent
But with Linux ALL the hits are free (Score:2, Funny)
And then you end up addicted to freedom and all you can play is tux racer.
What a minute . . . (Score:5, Informative)
Don't worry... (Score:4, Funny)
It's Microsoft, nobody expects you to RTFA.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
More importantly, it's slashdot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, this is all the article I could get:
Re: (Score:2)
Is it possible to read the entire story without subscribing to the Wall Street Journal? How am I supposed to RTFA if I don't have a subscription?
I hear in Africa the Wall Street Journal is giving the article away for free. It's apparently doing this to combat its biggest competitor in the region: African talking drums [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
You must be new here, nobody RTFA.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I tried doing it once, only to discover that the nasty article just contradicted everything in the summary and the comments. NEVER RTFA, those things are lying pieces of shit.
Re:What a minute . . . (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
I know why.... (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... (Score:5, Funny)
...Microsoft is using underhanded business tactics to ensure that their operating system is the most widely used? This is new.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
but they are now willing to pay millions going after a market so poor they have little to no computer infrastructure. THAT is somewhat new to them. Typically, the left these markets alone and dumped billions into marketing to markets where there was a support system and more of a chance of an ROI out 5 years but probably under 10 years.
Sub-Saharan Africa? They're probably looking out 20+ years if even that. But mostly, I think what they are doing is blocking as many public successes of GNU/Linux in these areas. Did you notice how quick they got on the anti-OLPC marketing campaign? They dumped $25 million into Egypt alone so that they'd be a Windows-only government and there are dozens more around the world.
So this is somewhat new for them and it's probably costing them something close to $1 billion annually in these marketing/services/training/etc "partnerships". All to keep GNU/Linux from finding a home in a hut or two in areas like sub-Saharan Africa. IMO
LoB
Parent
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
So Microsoft aren't religious OS fanatics because they're doing it for a long term profit? Open your eyes.
Parent
Re:Underhanded? (Score:5, Informative)
Frankie70: the highlights? hiring relatives of government ministers, and offering $400,000 in "marketing funds" to a reseller in order to persuade them to replace Mandriva ($3 per machine) with Windows ($45 per machine) on a large order of Intel Classmate PCs.
Parent
WSJ gets it wrong again (Score:2, Insightful)
WSJ get it wrong again:
Wrong. Linux is not a Windows alternative. Windows is a poor imitation [microsoft.com] of GNU/Linux.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WSJ gets it wrong again (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm. I use both Powershell and bash, and Powershell is rather good ; easier to use than bash in many respects.
It does have it's downfalls ; because it's primary design is to pass objects and not bytestreams down the pipeline, getting the output formatted exactly how you want it can end up with you writing a little more code than you wanted, if you have strict format requirements.
While *nix does have shells that can use objects (because they are Python flavoured), it doesn't have anything quite like Powershell. IMHO the syntax is easier to grok than bash, and you don't have to learn at least one text-processing language (sed, grep, awk) to make it useful[1][2], because the data you want is most often accessible as a property.
I find *nix to be a far more flexible and powerful operating system than Windows, it beats it on plenty of criteria, but Powershell is not one of them.
[1] although regular expressions are useful to learn, as they are for most shells. .NET programmers in particular can leverage their existing knowledge of the .NET APIs
[2]
Parent
Dear poor schools..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sell your MS licenses and most of the other tech on ebay. then use that money to buy books and pay for teachers.
It's far more important to teach basics like math, reading, basic science, hygiene, and life skills, than how to move and click a mouse.
What is it with people thinking that what the 3rd world needs are computers? What they need is clean water, learn better agriculture, and to get an education that will allow them to live a better life.
Re:Dear poor schools..... (Score:5, Interesting)
What is it with people like you? Have you been there? no!
The reason for poverty is not lack of resources, it is lack of a legal structure that delivers contract enforcement. This means that it is impossible to ahve organisations bigger than a small family with any degree of confidence, except by the use of force.
This is a cultural problem. (Helped immensely by the spread of Christianity and democracy).
Computers are immensely powerful in the 3rd world becausee the enable family-sized organisations to do massively bigger projects.
Parent
Re:Dear poor schools..... (Score:4, Informative)
The speaker begins by noting that technology has marginal impact where schools are already good, but huge impact where schools are bad or non-existent. He then discusses how his work shows that children collaborate in learning.
Also http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html [ted.com] which in addition to some super cool eye candy graphs, points out the growing convergence of first-world and third-world problems.
A big ask where respondents are notorious for not RTFA, but I found both talks fascinating and hope that you do too.
Parent
Mandriva in Nigeria (Score:5, Interesting)
Later on, the article covers the Mandriva / Microsoft in Nigeria battle that was covered here before:
"TSC approached Mandriva SA, a French company that sells a Linux version. Believing Microsoft had offered its $3 package, Mandriva proposed a $3 price for a Linux operating system, plus about $2 for other software, say people familiar with the situation. In August 2007, TSC issued a purchase order for Mandriva Linux, and the laptop's Taiwanese manufacturer began loading it.
Microsoft continued to push Windows. It offered its XP and Office software for about $45 per machine, says Nyimbi Odero, then TSC's chief executive.
Mr. Odero says Microsoft wanted TSC to delete Linux from the initial shipments of Classmates. He says Microsoft proposed a way to "make it worth your while" through a joint-marketing agreement. According to a draft agreement Microsoft sent to TSC last Sept. 13, Microsoft would pay TSC to fund "certain marketing activities to encourage the sale and distribution" of Microsoft products. Mr. Odero says Microsoft made it clear that TSC wouldn't really be expected to market the products, but could keep the money as an incentive to replace Linux with Windows."
(for anyone who doesn't know, I work for Mandriva).
The Apple ad (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait to see how Apple takes advantage of this:
PC: (pushing computers into African kids (starving))
Mac: Oh that's nice PC, I see you're donating to the needy in Africa
PC: Uh, yeah (suspiciously). This has nothing to with Vista finding a user base that is happy to have it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mac: Don't you think, they'd rather have.... an apple? *tosses a shiny red apple to PC and walks off screen*
What is Microsoft's intent (Score:2)
A fight in Africa, huh? (Score:3, Funny)
"My name is Ballmer. Just...Ballmer. From God, to Gates, to Ballmer. I am his right hand, and I have a task for you. This is Stallman. He has caused the Corporation much grief. His views do not coincide with ours, and that makes him dangerous. Silence him."
Re:p00r Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Less like "gas" but more like "milk powder"? (Score:3, Informative)
And so MS is doing just like the gas companies: make the world addict to their product, brignin' the price VERY high, and when everybody is thinking about alternatives, lower the price or, in the case of MS, paying people to use the product.
I would have thought it's more like when Nestle pushed milk powder in Africa. [man.ac.uk] (see second item) and here [blogspot.com].
Re: p00r Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is like the electric car, not a chance and only in a few places..
Well in this case, Africa might be just one of those places. I mean ,what is MS going to do? Give away Windows licenses for free, and throw in Vista-capable PC's as well? (sorry, didn't read the TFA).
Another thing Linux has going here, is that it is -relatively- easy to produce local versions. I mean, does there even exist Windows XP or Vista in Swahili? If not, that may be just what Linux needs to get picked over Windows (or other candidates). And let's not forget the educational aspect: having a system where you can see how it works, how it's put together & how to adapt it to your own requirements, is great when you're in a place where the IT industry is often just starting.
Parent
Re: p00r Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Well in this case, Africa might be just one of those places. I mean ,what is MS going to do? Give away Windows licenses for free, and throw in Vista-capable PC's as well? (sorry, didn't read the TFA).
What is MS going to do? Bribe high-ranking government officials, that's what. Sorry to say this, but I think MS is going to have a very easy time in most african countries, to have Linux replaced by MS in all schools and government institutions.
Parent
Windows problem: patches (Score:4, Insightful)
We had a guest speaker here at my university just last week talk about this. He's setting up wireless mesh networks in rural Zambia. It's essentially the only communication system they have. Cell phones cost 66 cents/min and the locals make $1/day..
Anyway, they have very limited internet access, with a few hundred machines behind a 128 kbps link. They pay $1100/month for it. No way in hell are they gonna keep downloading all the patches needed on Windows. As such, a Windows machine is only useful for about two months (tops) before the worms eat it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, does there even exist Windows XP or Vista in Swahili?
Yes, there is. [microsoft.com]
Re:The Microsoft ads did say they were PCs... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I think they already know, that's exactly why they're going there.
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Steve Ballmer's got balls because he's got monopoly money to spend and he knows exactly what Ubuntu is and where it came from. He also knows that when that monopoly money runs out, they are in deep Elephant dung because their products have always stood on emaciated legs.
He also knows he's got more money than Mark Shuttleworth.
LoB
Re:The Microsoft ads did say they were PCs... (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking at some Microsoft dlls you can see they're signed by Thawt which is the company Mark Shuttleworth sold for millions, so in a round-a-bout kind of way Microsoft funded the ability for Mark to start Ubuntu which is now competing with Microsoft in Africa. Woops.
Parent
Full Article here (Score:5, Informative)
See full article here
http://www.mediainfocenter.org/story.asp?story_id=122760705 [mediainfocenter.org]
Parent
Re:Full Article here (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody wants to use Windows. It just comes "free" with the computer, just like MS-DOS before it.
The 90s? You mean back when Windows literally was just an MS-DOS shell?
It's almost the "teens" here. It's time to update your FUD.
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I tried installing redhat a few times back in the 90s
Replace redhat with Ubuntu, and 90s with 2008, and I think you'll have a much different experience.
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Thank GOD I had a working Ubuntu partition that could actually communicate to the ethernet card so I could actually search for the proprietary Windows drivers on the net.
Have you ever actually tried to get a Windows installation to work without the benefit of the proprietary driver discs? Starting from the same clean slate (an OS ISO), I'd wager you'll have better
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do know there is a lot of hardware supported out the box with Linux, and some that isn't.
You tend to have more success when you buy hardware that is supported.
(assume samual jackson voice)
Did your computer come with anything that said it was designed to work with Linux or any particular version of Linux Brad? No, So why did you decide to treat it as if it was.
Now Brad it said designed for Windows Vista, didn't it Brad and when you gave it Vista it ran perfectly fine, now why are we not surprise
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Yeah, it's really a shame that they can't sell it [amazon.com].
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Re:For all the slamming of M$ (Score:5, Interesting)
I have yet to see Linux platform DELIVER ANYTHING the entire world wants to use, in an easy to manage, easy to interact with format. I tried installing redhat a few times back in the 90s and after banging my head a few times to actually get it working I thought to myself "Oh. Sweet. Free Civ and data management I DONT NEED."
The 90s? That is relevant how? It is about as useful as my telling you that Mandriva 2009 is much better than Windows 3.1. What is relevant is how current Linux versions compare to current Windows versions.
There is a lot of software for Linux, and obtainning and installing it is much easier and faster than for Windows.
I guess what Im really saying is, most Linux/open source advocates do it for the rebellion not because they have a better product to promote
Wrong. Most Linux users use it because they think it is better. Those who want to use open source have good motives to do so (avoiding lock in, auditable security). The biggest advantages of Linux are that it is easy, and that it is flexible. All your software is managed an upgraded using a single GUI interface, some distros can even do major version upgrade with a few mouse clicks - try upgrading from XP to Vista that way!
As for the flexibility you can get distros for geeks (Gentoo, Slack, Arch), normal users desktops (Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSe), servers (Debian, Red Hat), old hardware (Puppy, Damn Small Linux).
Parent
Re:For all the slamming of M$ (Score:5, Interesting)
As a (primarily) Linux user myself, my best advice to you is that you shouldn't use Linux unless you can think of a reason to do so.
But please do not tar those of us who do use it as "rebels". I myself work for a telecoms company where Linux has "swept the floor" as the core OS for most of the telephony products that we sell. No, it hasn't particularly displaced Windows in doing so, more the commercial UNIXes like Solaris and HP-UX and, if anything, we use Windows to handle most of the client-side stuff for integration into corporate networks.
But please don't pretend to have any understanding of why people like me use Linux as their primary OS at home because your comments show your ignorance. I fully accept that Linux lacks a lot of the Adobe-type applications and other things that a lot of existing Windows people currently want to use but please remember that it is not Linux's fault that is the case - rather the Adobes of the world who just haven't decided to port those apps across as of yet.
However, for most users like me who just do a bit of photo and graphics work, The GIMP more than suffices. Likewise, I need to do a few relatively straightforward spreadsheets, documents and presentations so OpenOffice is good enough for me. Plus I'm a shell and PERL monkey so I have access to tremendous automation power at the Linux shell prompt which, even if I wanted to do something similar in Windows, would need a steep learning curve with VB, DotNet or something else, assuming it was even possible.
I also like gaming and there's plenty of Linux games that I play, thanks mostly to the Open Sourcing of games engines like Doom and Quake. Yes, I keep XP around to play some more modern stuff (and because sometimes I need MS Office also) but even if you look at my XP machines, you'll see most of the tools I use are OSS or free ones like Firefox, OpenOffice, PuTTY, WinSCP, The GIMP, Irfanview, ImgBurn, etc. etc.
Unfortunately, you've made two very obtuse comments which only serve to highlight your total lack of Linux knowledge:
1. Linux is a lot more mature now than the last time you installed it during the 90s (just like Windows XP is a much better OS than Windows 95 and 98 were), and
2. Linux is really just the kernel and most of the other nice useful bits that go into an average Linux distro also happen to have Windows ports as well - so choosing not to use free software on the basis that "if it was good you could sell it" is just doing yourself a dis-service, no-one else.
Yes, I'd love to be in a situation where one OS could do everything I needed to do but the fact is neither Linux or Windows fit that requirement at this moment in time. However, because I'm not a zealot and prefer just to use the "right tool for the job", I really don't give a toss whether an application needs Linux or Windows to run - I just get on and use whatever I need to when I need to, satisfied in the knowledge that most of the stuff I use is truly free to use, and the commercial software I use is fully licensed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the event you are actually ignorant and not just trying to pick a fight, I can assure you that as someone who hasn't run Windows in several years, and does most of his computing on Linux (along with OS X on a laptop), I am not doing so out of any sense of "rebellion", although I don't see anything wrong with that mindset under certain circumstances.
If your primary reason for using a computer is to play games, you certainly should just stay with Windows. If I wanted to play games I think I'd rather have
Re:For all the slamming of M$ (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried installing redhat a few times back in the 90s and after banging my head a few times to actually get it working I thought to myself "Oh. Sweet. Free Civ and data management I DONT NEED."
I tried installing Windows a few times back in the 90s, and after banging my head around the TCP/IP stack to actually get it working I thought to myself "Oh. Sweet. Viruses and an annoying paperclip I DONT NEED." It may surprise you to learn that computers have advanced over the last two decades.
And then Linux users go out of their way to do things like make World of Warcraft work on their PC. Look buddy. Ya great you got it working but you are very knowledgeable in Linux, which has a steep learning curve. And most users dont want to spend 2 weeks getting their drivers to work just right to play a game.
The thing is, it only took that one guy 2 weeks to get WoW working, and now hundreds of Linux users get it working with far less effort. Open source beats proprietary not because it's easier to make it work, but because only one person has to put in the effort for everyone else to benefit.
After all if your open source was a decent product, youd be able to SELL IT
People don't sell Linux, not because nobody is willing to pay for it (people pay millions for Unix), but because people don't _have_ to pay for it. Would you pay for a car, even a good one, if you could get it for free from a different dealership?
Parent