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Linspire CEO Offers S. Korea To Replace Windows

Posted by Zonk on from the who-needs-an-ms-product dept.

Spy der Mann writes "Noticing the Microsoft threat to withdraw Windows from South Korea, the Linspire CEO, Kevin Carmony, just offered to license every computer in the country with Linspire, for just $5m. This would be around 10 cents / person. 'South Korea could save around a quarter of a billion dollars. More importantly, however, it would break South Korea loose from the monopolistic grasp of Microsoft, which the country currently finds itself under,'"

5 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. A mixed bag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I'm sure the slashbots will shout and cry about the virtues of linux (despite being Linspire), it sounds more like a grab for attention than anything serious. While I'm sure Carmony could make a bundle on the deal, could he really support all of South Korea? I wonder if he even has a team of translators for the major world languages to begin with!

  2. Re:I've got a better offer. by imr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've got a better offer.
    What about they try to find a local solution that will be better localised, that will have local support, that will create jobs, that will keep their cash inside the country, all this meaning that it will help develop a local well adapted independant IT which will benefit their country as a whole?

  3. That is EXACTLY what Linux needs by RoLi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Linux needs M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G

    Just look at Mozilla and Firefox and you see what a difference a little marketing can make.

  4. Just this?!! by linumax · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This would be around 10 cents / person. 'South Korea could save around a quarter of a billion dollars.

    Right, and how much would be the cost of Win->Lin transition? Training thousands of people? Porting millions of lines of code? Translating all the stuff? and so forth. Whoever told this must take a look my signature!

  5. Free publicity, and not too shabby a deal by pvera · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It was a bold move, and it did not cost him a penny to do it. If he pulls it off he'll be 5m ahead of where he is right now, since his market share in ROK is pretty much zero. If he pulls it off he also gets to use it as a precedent to go country-by-country offering blanket licenses, which will make Linspire some good money and will royally piss off Microsoft.

    Regardless of the merits of Lindows v. all the other Linux distributions out there, this is all about marketing, and it was the right thing to do. Microsoft cannot even afford a counter offer, since this will set the same kind of precedent and every government in the world is going to demand a blanket license like that.

    --
    Pedro
    ----
    The Insomniac Coder