Microsoft Denies Sabotaging Mandriva Linux PC Deal

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has denied sabotaging Mandriva's deal with the Nigerian government to supply Classmate PCs from Intel along with a customized Mandriva Linux operating system. 'From Microsoft's perspective it's a matter of choice. In the statement sent to InternetNews.com, Microsoft said it believes individuals, governments and other organizations should be free to choose the software and other technologies that best meet their needs. "We are seeing strong market demand for Windows on low-cost devices to help governments in the areas of education, local innovation, and jobs and opportunity," the Microsoft spokesperson said in the statement.' The company's denial is in response to Mandriva's CEO Francois Bancilhon expression of disappointment with Microsoft."

Slightly funny

[udippel (562132)]

"Microsoft has a strong relationship with the government in Nigeria and will continue to partner with government and industry to help meet their needs,"

How about "Microsoft has a strong relationship with the government and people in Nigeria and will continue to help meet their needs" ?

Maybe cynical - but history shows...

[dna_(c)(tm)(r) (618003)]

"Microsoft has a strong relationship with the government in Nigeria and will continue to partner with government and industry to help meet their needs,"

How about "Microsoft has a strong relationship with the government and people in Nigeria and will continue to help meet their needs" ?

I suppose by "their needs" they mean "Microsoft's needs". And the government has money and power, the people don't.

Re:Maybe cynical - but history shows...

[Chemicalscum (525689)]

Actually senior government officials in Nigeria need large amounts of cash stuffed in large envelopes and handed to them in cafe's in Switzerland. Of course this practice is not unique to Nigeria at least one former prime minister here in Canada have been known to indulge in this.

Re:Maybe cynical - but history shows...

[ehrichweiss (706417)]

WRONG!! I've got an official in Nigeria who's giving me 47 million dollars in exchange for me helping him secure an inheritance that he's taking from another official....

Re:Slightly funny

[HangingChad (677530)]

How about "Microsoft has a strong relationship with the government and people in Nigeria and will continue to help meet their needs" ?

Should read: "Microsoft has a large bank account and will continue to slip cash to certain government officials in Nigeria." There, that fixed it.

Re:Slightly funny

[Jedi Alec (258881)]

We both know Microsoft will continue to endeavor to maintain maximum synergy with the various heavy users of e-mail throughout Nigeria. A spokesperson was quoted as saying "We believe Exchance is the perfect solution forr the bulk amounts of e-mail commonly found in Nigeria's main industries".

You can have any OS you like as long as it's ours

[linuxci (3530)]

"Microsoft said it believes individuals, governments and other organizations should be free to choose the software and other technologies that best meet their needs"

That choice is Vista Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate. Microsoft will do anything to make sure that they get a stronghold in emerging markets, they don't care what's best for the user (of course sometimes windows is the best option, doesn't mean it is all the time)

Re:You can have any OS you like as long as it's ou

[arivanov (12034)]

12 or so years ago the days I sysadmined in an educational/research outfit in Eastern Europe. There was a 100% correlation between the so called local Microsoft rep for Education knowing about a shipment with Unix kit and the kit stolen at the cargo terminal. This was before the days of CCTV in the cargo areas at Sofia Airport so the interested parties had on the average between 2 and 12 hours to deal with all interesting containers and packages before they went through customs. In order to do that they needed one thing - to know which container is interesting.

Once we made sure that the aforementioned individual no longer had any information the shipments started arriving unmolested (not counting a dent or two in transit).

On top of that the aforementioned rep was handing out cracked copies of MSFT products the way drug dealers hand out cocaine laced candy to kids to anyone who wanted them.

This all continued until the country economy picked up enough. And then, you know the drill... Bill Gates having a meeting with the president on the subject of rampant software piracy and so on. The rep went to work elsewhere and claimed that he never ever had any relation with Microsoft. And so on...

Nuff said. No further comment necessary.

Re:You can have any OS you like as long as it's ou

[Jugalator (259273)]

How many companies out there care for what's "best for the user" if it doesn't involve their products?

how about

[XTbushwakko (535540)]

"Microsoft has strong (relatively cheap) relationship with the government in Nigeria and will continue to give them cash."

Standard business in accordance with the law.

[malkavian (9512)]

Well, they can't afford for whole countries to escape the Windows hegemony.. It makes "business sense" for Microsoft to 'gift' or 'donate' whole slews of Windows licenses to a government to keep them in the fold. So then everyone else will need Microsoft to interoperate with them.
Their whole argument of "people should be free to choose the best software for the task" is a little tongue in cheek. After all, the initial procurement was probably far more lengthy and in depth than the quick 'jerk' reaction to taking MS on board afterwards. They did probably buy what was best for their requirements in the first place.
It would be interesting to see what laws on software dumping are present in Nigeria (not many, I'd estimate), so yes, they're obeying Nigerian law. Not necessarily the law as applies to the country that any given reader may be in.
So, they can happily state that while engaging in business practices that are illegal in countries other than the one they are making that transaction.

This kind of U turn (and added expenditure, if obeying the normal laws of the Western World) is not really possible without "greasing the wheels"..

Smoke and mirrors once again, Microsoft.

Oh really?

[erroneus (253617)]

"We are seeing strong market demand for Windows on low-cost devices ..."

And so they respond with ending Win98 and WinXP while pushing Vista in spite of the fact that the vast majority of users don't want it?

Re:Oh really?

[erroneus (253617)]

I realize that my own local sampling isn't a large enough sample, but at my office, 4 people have purchased new computers with Vista on them. Of those, exactly 4 people wanted me to reload them with Windows XP. That's approximately 100% of my users disliking Vista and regretting their purchase decision when they expected to like Vista because it was newer and supposedly better.

Title is Misleading

[kripkenstein (913150)]

The title is misleading. Microsoft did not say it didn't 'sabotage' the deal, it said

Microsoft operates its business in accordance [...] with the laws of the countries in which it operates

In other words, Microsoft considers itself to be acting within the law. Since this is Nigerian law, I am not sure this is saying much (although perhaps the laws are enlightened but never applied - same result). Furthermore, even in US or European law there are plenty of legal actions that most people would consider unethical, and perhaps that is what happened here.

Yes, business can be cutthroat at times, but when you get a tiny competitor's product to not be used even after being ordered by the customer and yours to replace it, things seem highly suspect. Since this is in Nigeria I presume no anti-trust actions will occur, but the relevant officials should take note.

Re:Title is Misleading

[Plunky (929104)]

Since this is in Nigeria I presume no anti-trust actions will occur, but the relevant officials should take note.

Oh, I'm sure they already took plenty of notes..

Well if they deny it...

[Fred_A (10934)]

"Microsoft has denied sabotaging Mandriva's deal [CC] with the Nigerian government to supply Classmate PCs from Intel along with a customized Mandriva Linux operating system.

It's puzzling though, I really would've thought they had something to do with it.
But if they say it wasn't them, it must be one of those freak events we keep reading about in News of the World.

Anti dumping laws

[Alain Williams (2972)]

This 'deal' should be opened up and examined. If M$ is found to have provided the copies of MS Windows at below cost it should be taken to task using the anti dumping laws [freetrade.org] . All the financial aspects should be examined, including and 'free consultancy' and hardware donations/upgrades, ...

To an extent this is moot since the investigation will proceed at a glacial pace and by the time that it concludes it will all be a done deal.

You call thaT A DENIAL?

[John Jamieson (890438)]

Cmon, for a PR persn,that is effectivly an admission of guilt, with a statement of "too bad, it is not illegal" tacked on.

Obvious LIES

[Skiron (735617)]

"Microsoft has denied sabotaging Mandriva's deal with the Nigerian government..."

Then why is the Nigerian Government still paying Mandriva for the contract they was happy with (and still appear to be happy with it)? This is so obviously MS bunging them money AFTER they lost the fight, and telling them "Here you are, here is a few million to get rid of that and install Windows - we will pay for the loss".

Business as usual...

[glug101 (911527)]

I've been reading the comments here and the comments on the previous article, and I'm surprised to see something missing.

Show of hands:
1. Who knows that Nigeria is an oil producing nation?

2. Who knows the Nigerian people see barely a thin dime of the money?

The government of Nigeria has shown itself to be easily corrupted at the expense of the people. See wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and read the part about the government. It's not hard to imagine something crooked going on with this.

Any word on how M$ is going to avoid massive amounts of pirating of software by unleashing their steaming pile of OS on a 3rd world nation? Or do they just assume that everybody there will pirate the stuff anyway so they just want to "sell" a few licenses in the process?

New definition

[MoogMan (442253)]

Brings a new meaning to the words "Nigerian Scammer".

It's just "good" business.

[vrmlguy (120854)]

I've seen cases like this before in the hardware business. Not very often, but it does happen occasionally. After a long hard sales cycle, Neal Nanotech decides to buy something from that hot new startup, Tyrell Corpration. The sales team from Cyberdyne Systems decides that they can't afford to lose NN as a customer, since they'll lose not only future sales and the income from the maintenance contract, but Tyrell will be able to use NN as a refernce in future ad campaigns. So, there's one last big push to a Senior VP, the President, or even the CEO. Typically, Cyberdyne offers a trade-in allowance for all of the Tyrell product at NN's full purchase price, while discounting Cyberdyne's prduct just enough to equal the trade-in. This way, NN isn't out any money (at least not initially) while Cyberdyne avoids violations of any anti-dumping laws. Cyberdyne then sends the brand-new Tyrell products straight to the recycling center. (Or maybe they resell it on eBay, with a good long offer period. "Look here, Mr. Potential Customer! How good can Tyrell's product be if people are dumping unopened boxes of it on eBay?")

Hope every MSFT customer demands the same deal

[140Mandak262Jamuna (970587)]

Well, if we generate enough publicity for this deal, may be all the customers of MSFT will start demanding equal treatment with Nigerian Govt. The would demand MSFT to sell its product at the same price Mandriva wold have sold their products. MSFT will tell small companies to just go fly a kite and will quietly cave in to big corporations. Mid level ones will get the deal or not depending on how tightly they are integrated with MSFT tools. But everyone will learn one cold hard fact. The only way to extract a good deal from MSFT is to be less dependent on its products.

How much Fear Uncertainty, Confusion, Extortion, and Doubt will be needed to maintain the revenue growth? (Someone please give me a good K-word to make a good acronym to upgrade FUD).

May I be the first to say

[kimvette (919543)]

BULLSHIT.

In one conversation I had with my Nigerian-born business partner (OK stop laughing I'm serious. He's been a naturalized citizen for ten years, is a Christian, the son of a pastor, and I know one of his brothers as well. He's good people.) I learned that it's very much like India multiplied in that no decisions are made without palms being greased. I also learned that Nigerians who come to America will not do business with other Nigerians due to the level of corruption. It's not that all Nigerians are corrupt, it's just that corruption is so pervasive that they don't trust one another.

(Interesting thing about him: he's very suspicious, is more pro-American than most native-born Americans, gets far more involved in politics than most of us do, and yet when he sees evil going on in this country he doesn't complain. He just laughs and says evil people will do evil things, and what can be accomplished by talking about it and then continues on with his work. As an aside, he's the most productive worker I've ever encountered as well.)

My guess? Some official initially chose Linux as the sensible solution, and then Microsoft's money greased a high-level official's palms. I don't think it's necessarily Microsoft that did it, but a third party (plausible deniability, elimination of a paper trail involving even swag, etc.) which somehow benefits from the sale of Windows rather than installation of a(n) (inexpensive|free)/free OS.

Re:May I be the first to say

[EvilRyry (1025309)]

It must have been Microsoft. Nearly everyone else in the economy benefits from having an open OS. An open OS allows multiple competitors to play in the same market place which drives innovation and fair prices, I'd like to coin this concept as capitalism. Having Linux around would allow for a Nigerian Linux start-up to emerge and take hold of a decent chunk of the local population rather easily; since the government already uses Linux in the schools the kids would how to use it and the governments information infrastructure will grow with Linux in mind. Linux in general would be a very viable OS in this type of environment. These local compan(y|ies) would provide jobs to the economy, reduce imports and dependence on Microsoft, and possibly even provide an exportable service. It would also be a nice gateway into the technology industry (not sure what they have currently in Nigeria). So in short with Linux, customers benefit, government benefits, economy benefits, everyone but Microsoft walks home happy. This deal was definitely rigged by M$. (Yes, the $ is appropriate in this context.)