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Mandriva's Open Letter To Steve Ballmer
An anonymous reader writes "An entry on the Mandriva Blog, written by Mandriva CEO François Bancilhon, says that the Nigerian government, after ordering thousands of Classmate PCs with Mandriva Linux installed, has suddenly decided that they will instead install Windows. They will pay for the pre-loaded Mandriva Linux on the low-cost computing devices intended for children in the developing world, but immmediately replace the OS. The blog doesn't quite use the 'B' word but does suggest that this was not a decision that the Nigerian government made on its own."
but what is the "B" word? Blackmail?
Fishy things have been going on in Classmate PC Vs OLPC. Recently I read that Microsoft & Intel have already begun shipment to Libya of their classmate PCs. Libya had agreed to buy 1.2 million OLPCs but, of course, they aren't available yet.
... and not for the technological reasons that they should be concerned with.
What's really strange is I can't find anything on this from Microsoft or Intel. You're providing 150,000 laptops at only $200 each to a developing nation for the purposes of education and you don't have a press release outside of that country? Maybe they're just being humble? Or maybe someone was leveraging their ex-boss's many donations to African medicine & development to convince the Libyan government to take a different route?
You know, it's great that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is donating all that money to research and aide but if word gets out that they're using that to influence who those countries do business with, I don't think anyone's going to be impressed anymore. There's something fishy going on here, I'll bet you start to see many more countries make the switch to Classmate PCs over OLPCs
My work here is dung.
Shouldn't we wait for some more specific information/evidence before we accuse Microsoft of bribery? If Mandriva stops short of this, perhaps we should too - after all, it's a serious charge.
I'm sure Microsoft had something to do with their decision, but *maybe* it simply came down to convincing Nigeria that its product was better. It sounds like they are giving Windows out for free, that may have impressed the Nigerian government, and does not constitute bribery.