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Namibia Says "No Thanks" To Microsoft Donation With Strings
The Register posted an update about Namibia's SchoolNet, Microsoft "donations", and what looks like Namibia final decision. Apparently, MS's "donated" contributions would have been so small (and would have required such a large investment in OS licenses), that SchoolNet Namibia found it wasn't even worth bothering with. A very interesting article.
Microsoft will never give away valuable items. That's why they are giving away Windows.
Here is the letter itself...
--
In other news, linux gives nothing to Nambia.
Perhaps Microsoft got wind of the hundreds of millions in locked-up foreign exchange that I'm helping a Mr. Jomo Kenwatta get out of the country (for a modest few mill thrown my way for my trouble, of course.) If the Namibians have that kind of dough lying around, they shouldn't be grousing about a few bucks for licenses.
Namibia: I need a vehicle I could drive from home to work. Micorosft: I'll give you free floormats but you have to buy 6 cars.
Now, in addition to "jumbo shrimp," "military intelligence," and other legends, we have "Microsoft charity."
What is it with these guys? Are they crazy like a fox, arrogant, or just dumb? Is Microsoft really that worried about market share in impoverished Africa, and is it this inept at promoting itself?
Well, three cheers for Linux, which doesn't even have a promotional budget.
for Codeweavers' WINE and crossover office. Take the stuff from M$ amd use office in Linux or BSD.
In my ideal world, people throughout Africa, India, and Asia learn and become comfortable with open-source software. Then, US corporations get sick of dealing with Microsoft's heavy-handed business practices, and finally decide to switch to open-source alternatives. Where can they find qualified employees? Surprise, the "third world", where people have been using OSOSs (open-source OSs) since they were children. This, my friends, is globalization. I'm tempted to move to Africa to unionize their computer professionals.
On stereophonic equipment, the monaural sound obtained through multiple channels will enhance your listening pleasure.
Judging from this example it would appear that the obscenely rich Beast intends to use non-profit organizations in desperately poor countries to subsidize its promotional ambitions and its sales strategy.
This is preaching to the choir, and instantly earns the +5, Anti-M$ moderation. The word is Slashturbation. What good is this article on these geek media? Someone get this on mainstream news, puhleeze.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
This article mentioned something on the order of 20 *refurbished* PCs to 5 schools (100 used PCs + 5 new servers). Given that PC prices are so relatively low (I've recently put together an Athlon XP1800+ based PC for under $400) It's amazing that a billion dollar corporation is so insanely profit driven that they can't even do something out of *good will*. It must become a profit opportunity. I don't know what level of PCs these are, but the local computer show often has Pentium 233MMX machines, AMD K62/500s and similar for under $100 for the complete machine (memory, disk, cdr).
This is precisely the reason I don't use M$ products. I started using Linux for purely practical reasons, but now it's almost equally philosophical.
Microsoft recently offered to give me a free Xbox. My first response was "Sweet!" But I knew there had to be catch, so I asked the MS Rep what strings were attached. "None whatsoever," he replied, "all you have to do is pay for it."
This article made me want to send money to Nambia right now. How much would each slashdotter have to send to equal Microsoft's $2000 (if you ignore the $9000 debit for OS licenses)?
This space intentionally left blank.
The donation was for a usability aspect. The school couldn't afford what they were asking for. Rather than donate the OS, Microsoft chose to donate the office suite, meaning the school would have to buy the OS anyway. Yes, Microsoft didn't have to donate anything, but the fact that they were offering smething fundamentally useless to the school (they couldn't afford to run the software) shows something.
You see, they *could* have given the hardware and software. The cost to M$ would have been actually neglectable and they would still have achieved their real goals of locking down a poor country in their web for the future.
The scary part is that if they had done that, then, only us geeks would have been able to see the deception; the mass media would have played along (untwittingly or not) with the marketroids' plan and portrayed M$ as a savior of struggling countries whilst ignoring the dire long-term consequences.
Again, M$ stupitidy manages to cancel out M$ evil, and the world is a bit safer for it.
-- MG
Pssst! Hey, kid... c'mere!
Here, kid... have some of this...
No, I can't afford an MS habit.
Awww, c'mon kid, the first hits free!
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
You know what would be a good thing to do, it would be to get the Slashdot community together and help get these people some laptops, without continued community support these guys might fall to Microsoft in the end or just fall period. Open Source is about everyone giving a little, so it would only take everyone who reads this article donating a quarter or a piece of hardware. Anyone with me on this?
This sounds like a good market for the
Solo computer
a neat ARM powered machine that used 8.5 watts all in (including monitor) and can be solar powered.
Instead of 500ish watts for a standard desktop.
No I don't work for ARM I just like their kit.
It looks like the ultimate silent pc - no noise even in the power generation.
Although RISC_OS isn't open source it is pretty solid and isn't part of the Evil Empire.
Now lets hope the money they saved from not having to buy windows licenses goes to help starving african children. In poor countries, every penny counts, and using linux could actually save enough money to feed a village for a year.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Actually the office software HAD to be worth more than $2,000. Most people don't realize that Microsoft makes A LOT more money selling Office than their OSes. One copy of Office Professional costs $560 (office max). (Yes I know that you get discounts when you buy in volumes)
50 laptops =
$28,000 for Office Pro
$15,000 for XP Pro OS
So actually, they were getting a better than getting the OS for free and having to buy Office.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
It says you give porn to charity?
sulli
RTFJ.
Greatly disliking Microsoft is one thing, but posting blatant propaganda that looks like it was written by a 12 year old on a 'news' site is not helping anything. The best they can do is make the entire anti-Microsoft cause look like it's run by a bunch of snivelling brats addicted to counterstrike.
This is an actual line from the article: "Now imagine the disappointment of learning that accepting the 'gift' would entail outlays of money in the range of fifteen times the value of the M$ Trojan horse."
Slashdot editors: In the interest of maintaining the integrity of the slashdot community (if there's any left...) please don't post propaganda as 'news.' It erodes the value of the community. It makes us no better than Microsoft and in the end. It is counterproductive. The Register should be spanked badly for this.
communist thieves who could care less about open source
First off, "communist thieves" is an oxymoron, and communists would likely strongly support open source.
A more accurate assessment of the Namibian government would be "thugs giving land and money to their cronies and starving the rest".
Dear Mr. Jomen,
I am an officer at a large American software company, in charge of shipping software to our customers overseas. Unfortunately, one of these customers, a US Special Forces Commando, paid a large sum for our Office 2000 product, but passed away without naming an heir to receive this valuable software. According to company regulations, I cannot keep this software for myself, but if a suitable foreign customer (such as yourself) is found, I will be able to transfer the sale to you with no cost, in order to meet our company's stringent quarterly profit goals. If you are willing to receive this software confidentially, we will both benefit, but we must act quickly to meet our sales deadline.
All that I need from you to accomplish this sale is the presentation of your Windows 2000 licenses, as the original contract requires. If you do not possess these, I can assist you in acquiring them for a modest sum.
Yours Truly,
Mr. Ferreira
Chief Ethics Officer
Foreign Floppy Disk Desk
Microsoft Corporation
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Not directly, anyway. You make them look bad, and hope they cave in to the bad publicity.
It isn't really the ethical thing to do. Just because Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, doesn't mean he is obligated to donate his money to whoever comes up and demands it. Despite what you think of Microsoft, "SchoolNet" sounds like a whiny non-profit who expects handouts spec'd to what THEY want, not to what the company doing the handing out is offering.
This is like a bum coming up to you on the street and asking for some spare change to buy food. So you throw him a buck. Well, a buck doesn't buy a meal. Most bums wouldn't throw the money back at you yelling its not enough! Why these people think they deserve more is beyond me.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
to me there's a Big Important Difference between free and Free.
I understand that difference. I find software under the the GNU General Public License to be Free because
Restrictions are restrictions, as far as I'm concerned.
Do you disapprove of a "restriction" on cold-blooded murder? I sure do.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's not just about that.
Microsoft wants it's foot in the door by donating Office. These people are working on a small budget, and absolutely cannot afford the infrastructure needed to even USE that software. It's hardly a "gift".
Given the amounts of money MS rolls out, if MS wanted a foot in the door in Nambibia, they could easily afford to network & outfit the entire country's school system.. THEN they would surely listen.
Maybe.
I can see why the guys in Namibia would be pissed off -- it sounds like they got jerked around.
It doesn't change the fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does an enormous amount of good in Africa and the rest of the world. Look it up if you don't believe me.
Bill Gates is the biggest philanthropist in the history of the world, and while critics can talk about soft donations of things like software licenses, in reality he does a lot of stuff like vaccinations and grants to develop basic infrastructure in the developing world.
He's done far more than anyone else, certainly more than me or anyone slamming him here.
i find it very funny indeed that countries who have in a way been "behind" technologically have had the unique opportunity to see how the market played out before they were able to enter it.
:)
:)
it seems they were watching closely, and made some very good decisions
this sort of factual and witty approach to eroding M$'s façade of being a people-oriented company (to use the politest terms i know of to describe the lecherous and filthy backstabbing techniques that have become the hallmark of their business practice) could very well pursuade governments all over the globe, even those that have, due to misfortune, been into the technology game the whole time - and playing happily by M$'s rules.
and as a side note, did any of you check out Math Boxing? great little game
It's ARM. Install linux. (ok, hardware drivers may be an issue, but that's just a small matter of coding:)
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
The Register should be spanked badly for this.
Is it so bad that The Register makes their takes on stories so obvious, and makes fun of things they believe are amazingly stupid? That's what I've always liked about them; they don't pretend not to have a viewpoint, and it's quite obvious what their views are. It's really easy to read past that, and it's often funny even when I don't agree with them.
Seems to me The Register wouldn't be who they are without ripping on people once in a while (every day), so I'd say you should choose to read them or not, and not worry about things like that.
then their locked into the MS Office monopoly. Plus when Office whatever comes out and won't run via wine they'll go to back to windows.
Much better to stick to native software like OpenOffice. Wine is a crutch that keeps you locked in a windows world. The more you use wine, the less incentive companies have to build native apps.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
No, but if you offer to give the begger a dollar as long as he first pays you 10, the begger is free to tell you where to stuff that dollar--and probably WILL tell you to.
Good for Namibia. Poorer people can sometimes be taken advantage of, but often they are very frugal and logical when it comes to making good financial decisions because they don't have money to flush down the toilet on mistakes.
Flawed analogy. You don't stand to make any money in the future by hooking the beggar. Now, if you were a liquor store owner, then it might behoove you to pass out free booze. If someone complains that it's practically vinegar, do you look down on them for rejecting your charity? NO! You give them the good stuff. Once they're addicted, they'll take anything you have to offer.
MS is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. MS is giving them their first hit for free (metaphorically).
I think it is important to at least consider the % of one's icome or worth to figure how charitable one is being. Bill can give away a billion dollars as easily as one of us pays for a weekend out of town. Would it change his life in the slightest? Also, many of us question the way he came into those riches -- that monopoly thing.
Considering how much more he has than he could possibly use, and the PR problems he faces, I view his charity with some skepticism, as much as I welcome it. (Yes, he could do nothing, but we don't have to flatter him for merely being more than a complete Scrooge.)
Maybe there are too measures of charity -- how much good it does for others, and how much good it does your soul.
All that aside, what MS did in the present discussion sounds like just plain old bad attitude, not parsimony.
yup then how much does your monitor use? 150 watts?
150+350 = 500 n'est pas?
Also the rating of 350 watts is meant to be the output of the supply - not what it draws, and I think pc power supplies are less than 70% efficient, so your 350 watt power supply might actually draw 400 watts and give out 350watts supply and a fair bit of heat. (Ok it probably isn't on full load most of the time..)
Yes I know you could get a
C3 based
machine with an LCD screen, but even this would tend to use 200-300watts. (But I still want one, if anyone wants to do one for me in a 1:12 blue mini-cooper body)
These Solo machiness use 8.5 watts all in including monitor.
When struggling countries like Namibia are motivated to avoid Microsoft, the same motivations are coming soon to a computer near you.
We all know it is possible to use Linux as an alternative to Microsoft. Most of us are accustomed to tolerating the Microsoft OS in order to get the functionality of their office apps. As time goes by, Linux has narrowed the gap to the point where the most cost-conscious users (schools and government) are ready to jump ship. The next wave will be home users, then small business, ultimately big business.
Ironically, conquering the piracy problem is what got the ball rolling. If Microsoft turned a blind eye toward piracy in certain key markets, they could have prevented Linux from establishing market share. Sure, they need to collect money from those who have money, but they also need to give away product to anyone who can't or won't pay. If you can't get the customer's money, you have to at least stop them from using the competitor's product.
Microsoft talks a good game about dealing with Linux as a competitor, but look at their actions. Higher prices, "software assurance", increasingly obnoxious EULA's, all the things they might be expected to do if there was no competition. The handwriting is on the wall -- time for Bill to cash in his chips and retire.
This is just an example of how Microsoft is ignoring all morals and what is right just to earn some money. Although this is an isolated case, their "Office XP for students" is a much more broad case of how M$ manages to ignore morals to earn money. Sure, it's cheaper than regular Office, but that's not saying much, as regular Office is already ludicrously expensive. The student edition costs well over 100 US dollars. Let me get this straight - something THIS expensive was intended for students? And this is considered amnesty? I find it disgusting.
Sure, there are other packages out there for students that cost a lot, like Mathematica, which has a student edition that costs the same as Office for students, but the regular edition is well over several thousand dollars. Consider that in a ratio. Moreover, while the essential features of Office have been claimed by other word processors, Mathematica is unparalleled in functionality by any other calculation package in existance.
In conclusion, this is predictable old Microsoft behavior - overlooking almost all morals, disguising it as an act of charity, while earning massive amounts of profit.
The article you posted does not support your assertion.
What is being proposed is forcible redistribution of land from white farmers to black farmers with compensation being paid to the white farmers.
Granted, this may or may not be a bad idea, but it hardly amounts to "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide."
Neither does it amount to communism, as in that system all the land would be owned collectively. They are proposing to settle individual families onto this land. Hence: not communism.
Lastly, you are trying to ignore the historical context of how this land was obtained. Do you really expect the native black farmers to ignore how all the fertile land was monopolized by Europeans at the beginning of the last century?
I'd say they are being a lot nicer than the Germans were when they were taking the land.
Your post is inflammatory and just plain wrong.
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
If a guy drops a dollar in a beggars plate and goes to remove ten dollars as change, the beggar has every right to throw the dollar back in their face.
These people are NOT beggars. MICROSOFT APPROACHED THEM WITH SPONSORSHIP of a school program. They alrady have a functioning system running superior products.
They were giving Microsoft a chance to SHOWCASE MS technology in the hopes of demonstrating that Microsoft had a viable alternative, and as it turned out, Microsofts alternative was a con. There's a surprise!
No warranty of any kind is offered as to the quality of this post.
Except that this donation doesn't cost Microsoft a penny more than the trivial cost of media. Schools in Namibia could never afford to buy Microsoft software anyway so it's not like Microsoft is losing anything by giving them this "gift". Even if Microsoft gave them a complete suite of Windows-equipped software including the OS for every one of those computers Microsoft would still come out ahead because of the gains in PR and goodwill for the company, and the exposure of all those kids to Microsoft's brand and products. So everyone would win because MS is getting good publicity and exposure by doing something that doesn't cost them anything but greatly benefits the public of Namibia. That's what corporate philantropy should be like.
But, Microsoft wanted more. They wanted to turn this into a sales opportunity as well and grab a chance to lock even some of the world's poorest into their exploitative upgrade cycles. Make no mistake, if these people had taken this deal, all that money would be pure profit for MS.
So, really, MS has no interest in making actual donations - they really just want to milk everyone while making it look like they are making a meaningful contribution. This "gift" was nothing more than a sleazy sales tactic and I'm glad that Nambia isn't "buying" into it.
Assuming the best case scenario where the school system asked for a donation and Microsoft offered a $2000 discount on what would be a $11,000 package, whoever was in charge of drafting that deal should have known that the offer was going to be refused. A nation that poor can't afford usual Microsoft prices.
In short, Microsoft made a very dumb decision making that sort of offer. As someone else said, it's like giving a homeless person asking for a meal a fifty cent coupon off a five dollar meal. Yes, you owe the homeless person absolutely nothing but making that sort of offer is verging on an insult, and at the very least is showing incredible stupidity.
If Microsoft had to give $2000 in free software, why not make it a smaller number of Office/Window packages? Instead of offering just Office or just Windows offer a smaller combination of both. Of course that still skips support costs and so likely would have been tossed out but hey...
In any case, it's not hard to see why Linux is becoming increasingly popular in third world nations. In those places you practically expect Microsoft to start promoting piracy of its software just to keep Linux from becoming more entrenched.
i am a grad student at cal state northridge, working on an MA in education. the ed dept. has a deal with m$ where by we can get office for $15-20 once per year. we must show our schedule to the bookstore manager, then we have to sign a sheet, they record the item number or something, then we get a cheap cd.
.ppt or .doc format.
what is most disgusting about this is that not only do they sell it for the mac, the professors require that we submit docs in
trying to promote open source software is so hard when "office is 20 bucks". let me tell you, it sucks. it should be so obvious what m$ is doing.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Looks like Microsoft has invented a new scam, coming soon to an email box near you!
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
It would have been interesting if they accepted the donation, and then just sold the copies of Office XP on ebay or something. They could have really outsmarted MS, if even just out of spite, rather than an intention of making a decent profit.
Is this one of those countries that refuses any form of help from anyone, even if say the EU were to donate several tonnes of wheat to help it's starving citizens? Basically taliban/N.Korean style. Or is it about money? I think if anything, RedHat should get off there arses and spread the word to 3rd world countries on open source initiatives.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
What did he expect them to get out of it, a warm fuzzy feeling?
Hmm. Let me think on this one... An orginization that works hard to scrape together resources to put computers into impovrished schools in east Africa. I don't know, sounds like a kick back job with a fat paycheck to me. I can't see why they wouldn't appreciate a US$2000 discount on a US$11,000 purchase they don't need.
By viable I'm assuming he means "continually effective" which leads up to the question: If OSS was so viable to them why did they contact MS in the first place.
Because it was brought to their attention that MicroSoft may be a potential source for resources they badly need. They looked into it.
Actually, for developing countries, tech work is a pretty reasonable field. It doesn't take a tremendous amount of experience to become a tech at the skill level that can command a salary these days. The market for IT workers in all these countries is just going to grow. As for software development, you don't need a huge amount of capital to develop software (well, I suppose it depends on your target market, but I can sit down with xemacs and gcc and and old computer and write marketable Windows or Linux software). You can also work remotely very easily, doing contract work for a company in another country.
It's pretty well recognized that India is heading to bypass the US in software development.
May we never see th
Maybye there is a niche market for Lindows after all!
Vaya con huevos, my darling.
CODA work with another UK charity, Computer Aid, who refubished the machines sent to Namibia. They're looking for donations of money but they're also looking for donations of old computers, and for volunteers to help refurbish computers (in London, England).
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Namibia, being a much smaller country and more homgenous than South Africa, enable a single person to get his voice heard. His seems like a voice of reason. South Africa, whose politicians are known to not be above taking the occaisional "motivational sum of money" gladly accepted MS's similar offer ($150 Million for a country of 45 million people with about 5 million kids in school does not work out to all that much, given that Office or windows costs a bit more than $3 per copy).
Good on Namibia. Fuck the corrupt bastards in the ANC.
How easy to forget that most schools in the US were there just a few short years ago (indeed, some still are!). The amount of $$$ MS receives from our public schools in completely astronomical compared to what it was just 5 years ago. Schools started with just a few here and there, then things grew. That was always the plan, and MS knew it.
Anyone who paid attention to the Universal Service Fund (it's that tax that's on every phone bill in the country to help schools get internet access) could predict how large technology in education would become, and MS did not miss that boat. A little simple math: 92,000 school districts in the US, x 20K each in software licenses (let's say for simplicity, that covers everything - servers, CALs, Office, Mail, kids stuff, etc.) Now keep in mind that some districts are very small and can be just one or two buildings, others like Las Vegas or Dallas can have between 200 to 500 schools in one district - so this is a very rough but fair number (We spend more than that and we are 12 buildings).
Unless you purchase volume licenses, you may not have noticed that during the Office 97 era, Publisher was a separate package and a lot of schools didn't buy it (we just used Word), then for 2000 when you licensed Pro it included Pub 2000 - Oh I thought that was very nice of them!!! Now comes Office 2002 (XP) - you got it, Publisher is back out and costs another $5 a desktop if you want to keep it. Major bait-and-switch game. We opted out and are back to Word only, even with a couple of angry classrooms who had integrated it into curriculum, which I'm sure MS was counting on. It may not seem like much, but $5 a desktop and 2000 computers = another 10K just for that.
MS planted seeds all right, and now the roots are starting to crush the foundations...
As far as I know, there is nowhere that MS Office only costs $20. Here at UNC-Chapel Hill, I can pay $20 for the "media duplication costs" at the Student Stores to get a copy of Office.
UNC, however, ponies up several hundred thousand dollars every year to pay for the site license that lets me do that. Sure, I don't pay for a license at the checkout counter: students pay for it in their tuition and departments see it paid for out of the university IT budget -- which I'd rather see spent on infrastructure than on pushing MS software!
Life is short: void the warranty.