Brazil Moves Away From Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "Citing economic as well as social reasons, Brazil's government is opting to move away from Windows, opting instead for Open Source (read: Linux) solutions. Interestingly, Microsoft's representative in Brazil decries this as a movement away from freedom and choice..."

Comments

When should a stock holder start to worry

[Mrs. Grundy]

We have heard a lot of stories about people, states, and countries moving away from Microsoft. Is this a trend? If you are a manager of a fund heavily invested in MS, or an individual investor, when does this news begin to worry you. In the long run does MS really have a chance when competing against free, well written, well understood software?

Re:When should a stock holder start to worry

[ducomputergeek]

I work as a tech consultant. My degrees are in German and International business. When I spent a year studying in Germany, the college had 2 SuSE linux labs and one Windows lab on their campus. Most students had dual boot Linux and Windows laptops.

The main reason why Linux was being adopted outside of the United States was because of its cost, even with $2.50 per copy for Windows XP in 3rd world nations, linux decreases in cost per unit the more machines you install it upon.

The other reason was SuSE and Mandrake, both European and not from the United States. Which plays well in the EU. There is a mentality amoung many leaders in France and Germany that want to see the "United States of Europe" superpower and waining themselves from Microsoft could give Europe a leg up in technology as Linux catches on in SE Asia and the 3rd world.

Now with SuSE in the hands of a NA company, I wonder how that will impeed linux adoption. Oh course, IBM would love to see this happen as the premiums would return to hardware, not software.

I think Linux will be catching on internationally in the next couple years on desktops big time. It probably will be longer in the United States.

Re:When should a stock holder start to worry

[jsse]

I see this is a trend. A lot of people is moving away, if not moving to Linux, from Microsoft.

A friend of mine called last week asked me for my opinion on choosing J2EE and .NET. That really surpise me as he's working for a all MS s/w house, his entire team knows none other than MS's product, and he's a 100% Microsoft zealot. Turn out they were seriouly considering dropping MS deployment as "Microsoft Server is being too insecure".

I found it amusing: a company who work with Microsoft very closely all these years is being forced to switch, even when they must start from the beginning.

is this a threat to linux security?

[sbma44]

In recent years Brazil has become the home to a lot of crackers (I believe there was a slashdot article on this recently as well). Presumably moving the government's preferred software solutions will also influence Brazil's populace, through compatibility requirements and civil workers becoming familiar with OSS, then taking that knowledge home.

If Brazil remains a locus of "grayhat" activity, could this mean more resources will be put toward finding Linux exploits? Certainly on the whole Linux is more secure than Microsoft's offerings, but I imagine most would agree that its small userbase has played a part in limiting the number of exploits uncovered.

Well, of course governments are doing this

[cemkaner]

We keep reading about the yet-another-government that said "oh, dear, Microsoft is sooooo expensive, we should use Linux instead."

And then there's an item in the Wall Street Journal about someone from Microsoft striking a deal with the country's government. They get big discounts, free software, maybe some gifts for the schools, maybe even some investments or jobs.

So if you were running a poor country, why WOULDN'T you threaten to give Microsoft products the boot? It's a negotiation!

Re:Freedom and choice

[Zeinfeld]

I'd like some "freedom and choice" with those Brazilian ladies.

I am sure that if you went to one of the local 'Thermas' you would find both...

I went to Brazillia and watched the open source debate. I think folk in the US are completely missing the plot. First off the Brazillian govt is dependent on Microsoft in the way the US govt is dependent on Cobol, Windows is their legacy infrastructure.

Secondly the big issue for the country at the moment is the balance of payments. The government is calculating that they can get better prices out of Redmond if they apply pressure.

Finally there is a protectionist angle, keeping out big US software companies helps local companies - perhaps.

The software industry has become so melodramatic..

[JavaSavant]

It's odd how software has become akin to daytime television. Every time Microsoft loses a market lately, it's the result of some failure of democracy and Natural Law. If a gas station were to lose it's business to a competitor down the street, would he chalk it up to the oppression of OPEC and chime about how such competition is akin to the spread of fascism in Europe in the 1930's?

I think it goes more to show how Microsoft feels entitled to each and every market they enter, and that they're not trained to respond to the market around them as they're so used to controlling it. If they lose business in some market, it's not because their prices are high and their products are inferior, it's because some other market force "has it in for them."

Re:Theres a typo

[1u3hr]

"Interestingly, Microsoft's representative in Brazil decries this as a movement away from freedom and choice..."
I think the word they were searching for was "Ironically".

I think "predictably".

perspective: Free Trade Area of Americas

[TheUberBob]

Free Trade is a joke of course, but let's put this in perspective of the americas trade zone negotiations. Brazil wants to protect it's financial service and tech areas from U.S. domination/ownership (multinationals/u.s. investors). It wants profits to go to the local economy...it also wants to export agricultural products and protect its farmers. By focusing on linux and local tech, they can expand their influence in south america, and eventually (since lots of thrid world countries realize the inherent problem in giving money to the world richest country) grab IP rights of their own and export tech to the US...or at least drive ridiculous profits down...it's the natural reaction to the way US subsidies for farmers drive profits down worldwide and keep third world countries to a low growth rate (insuring a very very slow development process and much less threat of challenge to US interests/IP/capital from developing nations). The US wants to protect their farmers because it hurts third world countries profits andhelps big business reap the benefits of tech and financial services (third world countries don't have the capital/resources to compete)...so brazil wants their farmers to benefit and to not allow the invasion of US tech and financial services. So the current talks, detailed at BBC, will probably fall through. And since the US is pursuing deals with individual countries, it's in Brazil's best interest to develop their own tech/keep US tech out, independent of the trade agreement. Of course, given the timing, it's a nice warning shot too.