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Linspire CEO Offers S. Korea To Replace Windows
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,'"
He's going to provide support for 50 million computers at 10 cents each? Would be quite tough.
If there is no support involved, I'd like to provide South Korea with Linux for 50 million computers in the form of either CentOS, Fedora or Ubuntu for free and free with "community support".
What's the deal?
Banu
That's my experience, too. Even if they don't require ActiveX, very few Korean websites will actually display properly in another browser - even fewer if you use a pop-up blocker. I don't think that anyone tests on anything else.
Korean computer culture seems to be even more homogenised than it is in other countries. Everyone uses Windows; everyone's on MSN Messenger; everyone has a Cyworld Mini-hompy[1]. My iBook received interesting responses: those that had heard of Macs thought that they were tools for graphic artists.
In addition, there's a big limitation in that SEED, a Korean 128-bit encryption system used in online banking since the days of US 40-bit-only export restrictions, is only supported in IE; although there are moves to port it to Firefox, it hasn't been completed yet, as far as I know.
1. Mini-homepage, a sort of personalised blog/music/photo-sharing site. They are literally miniature, too: even on a large monitor, the 'mini-hompy' is limited to a few hundred pixels in each direction in the centre of the page.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
It's an interesting dilemma for the S. Korean Govt. Giving in to Microsoft would be like negotiating with terrorists - if you cave in to them, it sends the message that blackmail works, and they'll do it again.
Consequently, South Korea's might feel their best interests like in making the switch, trading the short term inconvenience of the migration against getting out from under the thumb of one of the planet's more rapacious corporations.
This could get very interesting :D
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
All my male, teen students do in their free time is play Starcraft. When I go to a restaurant near lunchtime, the TV is always on OnGameNet (AKA 24 hours CS / Starcraft). The female teens all play MAple Story (online MMORPG). The young adults that I know spend their evenings playing Kart Rider (online racing). Everybody wants to be a progamer when he or she grows up.
As much as I want Linux to succeed here in S. Korea, HanSoft's 3.2 version is already free, and it isn't doing their market share any good.
Not a chance of this happening in the private sector.
Put identity in the browser.
This is not funny. This is true. You can joke all you want, "Starcraft kekekeke," but it doesn't change the fact that computer games are a major part of life over there, and even after all these years, Starcraft is still king. If Microsoft pulled out of Korea, their popular culture would be sent reeling.
Well, for about six months. After six months, all the game manufacturers start pushing Linux in a big way, since there's no way any of them would leave Korea of their own free will -- and they sure as hell won't let Microsoft pull them out without a good fight.
South Korea's got some 17 million PC gamers. How many does America have? If you count consoles, it's probably no contest, but I'm under the impression that PC gaming is a bit of a niche market in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if South Korea has more PC gamers than the entire US, even with only 1/6 the population.
No, the day Microsoft pulls out of Korea is the day that Blizzard and NC Soft shift focus to Linux. Once that happens, the hardware vendors start writing decent drivers for Linux, and all of a sudden Linux doesn't suck as a gaming platform anymore, and Windows becomes an "also supported" platform.
This is a bluff, and Microsoft stands to lose a lot from it. They've set the charges and are pushing the plunger from inside the parking garage.