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Nigerian Government Nixes Microsoft's Mandriva Block
An anonymous reader writes "After trying to bribe a local supplier with a $400,000 marketing contract, Microsoft has still apparently lost out in trying to woo Nigeria's government to use Windows over Linux. Microsoft threw the money at the supplier after it chose Mandriva Linux for 17,000 laptops for school children across Nigeria. The supplier took the bait and agreed to wipe Mandriva off the machines, but now Nigeria's government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal."
I'm dying to hear what do those people that tried to defend M$ on the last story about this subject have to say. And you also owe apologies to Mandriva CEO, too...
Just an hour back there was this story about MSFT including some game vendor's malformed copy protection driver for six year into every damn computer in the world. What percentage of them played that software? Why a corporate server that might end up in a blade rack without even have a dedicated monitor or mouse got this driver? Why are the corporations not demanding full disclosure of what dlls are needed and what are not? Why isn't there a third party service that will advice corporations which components of Windows could be safely removed by looking at the company policies and use patterns?
As long as the customers accept everything dished out by MSFT patiently, there is nothing we can do to make it change. Education of the customers is the most important thing if we are going to rescue computing from this monoculture.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Nigeria's government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal.
I am not a lawyer, in Nigeria or anywhere else, but is this deal really "dirty"?
The article tells us little:
"After public statements from Mandriva officials implied the marketing deal is legally questionable, Microsoft said last week that it complies with international law and the law of the countries in which it operates."
Mandriva can "imply" that the deal is "legally questionable", but this tells us nearly nothing about the actual legal situation.
Setting aside reflexive Microsoft-bashing, this may be a case of business as usual, legitimately within the scope of the law.
Until someone clarifies the matter by citing actual law, "dirty" seems like an overstatement to me.
-kgj
-kgj
It takes a thief to spot a thief, I suppose.
Now that the dirty deal is uncovered, the first question is:
"If this were done in the US, would it be considered illegal?"
The next question would be:
"If yes, then should Microsoft be prosecuted?"
Further:
"If not, then why not?"
And for all the Microsoft apologists:
"Is this sort of behavior acceptable from your favorite software vendor/publisher/distributor, business partner? And if so, why is it acceptable? If not, please elaborate?"
The Nigerian officials are just upset the supplier is the one being bribed and not them :)
No "bribery" here, just two companies making an agreement. Sure, Microsoft's motivation is to move more software over a competitor, but why is that a problem? If Microsoft wants to discount its software or given the company some other benefit, then whatever.
It's called "dumping", and in the U.S., is illegal when conducted by a monopolist. It also tend to violate a variety of world trade rules.
Furthermore, even if one can construe a scenario where it is legal (international run around the law?), it is extremely underhanded and a waste of government resources (they'd be paying for Windows and Linux).
As such, here are the issues:
1. It's probably illegal, and should be, but I'm not a lawyer.
2. Even if its not illegal, its shady business. And it demonstrates more and more than no sane company should get into bed with Microsoft, because Microsoft will do anything and everything to screw you.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
In fact, the statement "Microsoft complies with law" is demonstrably false. The courts have spoken.
Your statement so wrong. From the Article:"In fact, Intel has tested and certified three operating systems for the Classmate PC: Mandriva Linux, Metasys Linux and Microsoft Windows XP Pro." So it has been tested and it works. Mod me down if you want, but your statement will still be wrong.
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I must admit that I thought corruption was a problem of the 3rd world alone. But now, we see that a [major] US corporation was perpetuating corruption.
Finally got tired of living under a rock, huh?
Why is this even a story? Oh, because it's Microsoft trying to outcompete a Linux supplier, therefore, it's intrinsically evil.
Evil, NO. Unethical, YES. No one likes a cheater.
What is your definition of competition? A kickback or bribe includes any item intended to improperly obtain favorable treatment. Why didn't Microsoft just lower the per unit license cost to match Mandrakes? Are you saying that on a level playing field, Windows looses to Linux?
From the article:
Mba-Uzoukwu wrote that Microsoft is still negotiating an agreement that would give TSC US$400,000 (£190,323) for marketing activities around the Classmate PCs when those computers are converted to Windows.
Where have I heard this before? Oh Yeah, the anti-trust hearing:
In addition, Plaintiffs are concerned that there is some confusion among OEMs relating to the application of certain portions of the MDA to OEM advertisements for computers containing non-Microsoft operating systems. Pursuant to the MDA, Microsoft provides marketing funds -- in the form of discounts on the price the OEM pays for each copy of Windows -- to OEMs whose print advertisements and websites promote Microsoft's operating systems in a manner specified by Microsoft.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f205700/205751.htm
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
"That's not really a bribe, it's just business."
It's Microsofts standard way of bribing, you mean. Offering 'marketing incentives' is the way they've done everything from get people on certain ISO boards to making sure PC makers dont install Linux.
They seem to get away with it on some technicality, even if they couldn't get away with giving actual money directly.
In the end it's a legal grey area. For some companies and some situations it would be perfectly fine, but in the case of the convicted monopolist, I dont think there's any doubt that it's their practice of getting around legal language prohibiting certain anti-competetive behaviour.
And morally, it's reprehensible and easily equatable with bribery. Both for those accepting the money and for those giving it.
Not only is it illegal in business, but taking a bribe often results in you being professionally incompetent.
If you worked for me, and i gave you the task of "Book me the best value business-class flight to australia"...
Let's say the best value would be Qantas, and they would fly me direct to australia business class for $4000...
But you received a bribe from United, who paid you $1000 to buy a ticket from them instead...
Their ticket costs $6000 and has a stopover half way, and thus takes longer.
You would benefit from the $1000 bribe, United would benefit from a sale. I would lose out on my time and $2000, because you used my money to buy me an inferior (slower) service that costs more.
You didn't do your job properly.
You wasted my money for your own personal benefit, you effectively stole from me and gave it to United, in exchange for a cut of it back.
Taking a bribe to spend someone else's money is fraud, and should be prosecuted accordingly. Also whoever actually took the bribe is not doing their job properly regardless of the law, and should be fired.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
This is bizarre, particularly considering the history of monopolies in the US. In a monopoly situation, the customer simply has no choice. The market no longer moderates "what's fair" and "what's not fair".
There are other forms of anti-competitive behavior that are also in the "what's not fair" even if consumers may not be aware of it. Price fixing and dumping come to mind.
The perfect market you seem to have in mind doesn't exist and cannot exist.
Microsoft controls somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of desktops worldwide. That's a textbook monopoly, and the rules changes for monopolies. Note that merely being a monopoly is not in and of itself illegal, but it does mean that the allowable range of actions changes. If Apple has a secretive, closed development model, it's not creating problems for consumers, but when Microsoft does, it does effect consumers.
Now go back to Redmond, you pathetic Microsoft shill.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What world do you live in? People sell top secret information on nuclear weapons systems for far less money than that. And if you think $400k to an individual is peanuts, you're already in the top .5-1% of the world's incomes and have no concept of how the rest of us plebes live.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
But that's the reason bribery has such a stronghold. "Everyone does it, so I must do it myself."
XP is fairly stable on its own. From the point of view of a regular user, it's not too bad.
/etc, a package list, and off you go reinstalling quite easily.
The problems I have with it are more of a technical point of view, about how it's not very solid, hard to troubleshoot, how to cure it if it gets borked (especially by spyware or trojans), and how stupidly hard it is to reinstall and make the new install workable. The inability to transfer software from one installation to another is very annoying. The way everything is stored in monolithic files which can only be edited through the MS interface (the registry) is a constant issue. If it gets corrupted or deleted, you're fucked. There are ways to recover, but it's not simple, and doesn't always work.
Comparatively, on a Mac OS X machine, I can backup 3 folders and I get everything: apps, data, configurations. If a pref gets hosed, it's a single text file which I can consult, edit, or delete (similar to how it is on Linux which I also like a lot). I can rebuild an OS X machine in little more than an hour, whereas Windows reinstalls take easily 3 hours including the entire patching process (which even starting from SP2 is over 100 updates now), and most software isn't even installed at that point, where with OS X, 99% of the software that I backed up is functional.
It's not quite as good, but almost on a Linux machine. grab $home,
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
The thing is, in rich countries like the US (especially the US), bribes are essentially standard, except they're called tips, golfing trips, expensive dinners, payola, campaign contributions, plane tickets to Hawaii. It's hard to get anything done in some countries (US included) without at least small "incentives". What generally makes news is when the bribes are discovered by the western press, resulting in scandals and "tighter legislation". That doesn't change the fact that almost every business that works there is going to get dragged into that "incentive" system in one way or another if they wish to operate. Try building _any_ structure on the East coast of the US.
The really big surprise isn't the "incentives". It's that the American government intervened to *stop* the "incentives". Now, that could just mean that they didn't get their cut, but...
there... just adding some perspective...
Hehe, I had a Nigerian colleague once, and after some talks with him I told my Dutch friend who lives in America that bribery in America might even be worse than in Nigeria. "Yes," he told me, "but here it's legalized!"
-- Cheers!
It's a "Very Bad Thing" because it restricts overall economic activity, which prevents development which keeps Africa dirt poor. Endemic bribery might be the norm in large parts of Africa, however that does not make it a good idea.