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Nigerian Government Nixes Microsoft's Mandriva Block
An anonymous reader writes "After trying to bribe a local supplier with a $400,000 marketing contract, Microsoft has still apparently lost out in trying to woo Nigeria's government to use Windows over Linux. Microsoft threw the money at the supplier after it chose Mandriva Linux for 17,000 laptops for school children across Nigeria. The supplier took the bait and agreed to wipe Mandriva off the machines, but now Nigeria's government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal."
Microsoft really did try to Bribe them. That's crazy. I hope this makes the mainstream media.
And I thought they successfully bribed the government. :)
Heh, apparently there are still honest people in there!
Now just let's hope Mandriva doesn't screw it and their machines actually work
There goes 400k for bad publicity for M$.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Ever since the Lockheed bribery scandal, its been illegal for US citizens or corporations to bribe anyone, anywhere in the world, same as its illegal for them to engage in pedophilia abroad.
So, how much $$$ (campaign contributions - the only "legal" bribe) Microsoft is going to spend to "make this go away"?
Kevin Smith on Prince
Seriously, you have a very good point. That is the way business is done in some third world countries. They don't consider it wrong. Anyone with power expects to be paid, much like waitresses expect to be tipped here.
Microsoft apparently failed to pay all of the right people.
"'We are sticking with that platform,' said the official, who would not give his name.
The organisation reserves the right to choose whichever platform is best for Nigerian students, which could also include Microsoft's software in the future, said the official."
Does anyone else get the impression that's code for: "$400,000 would go a long way in convincing me that Microsoft's software is best for Nigerian students."? Sounds like Microsoft just forgot to include Nigerian officials in on the deal.
"If this were done in the US, would it be considered illegal?"
The next question would be:
"If yes, then should Microsoft be prosecuted?" Well, this is gonna be another slashdot bullshit claim with no backup because I am too lazy to go digging...
My understanding is that US law requires that US corps not do things in other countries that would be illegal in the USA. My belief is based on some news articles about a US company that was caught bribing foreign government officials in order to get contracts with them - might have been IBM in Brazil now that I think about it. Apparently what they did in the foreign countries was technically not illegal over there, but was definitely illegal here and they were being prosecuted because of it.
Anyway, maybe that's enough info to convince a studious classdot reader to go research the details and prove me wrong or write.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
These countries building their technologies need to try at least to understand the negative impact of vendor lock in. With open source the road is full bright and open, like a true vista. With windows you condemn your nation to Microsoft's spyware. (As Vista has 47 programs that collect information about you and send it back to Microsoft, not counting the WGA/WGN. This process is essentially the equivalent of say having Walmart coming to your home on any given Sunday morning asking to search your belongings to ensure that those items in your home that come from Walmart are legally purchased, just because you are a shopper at Walmart. Because Microsoft does it with hidden programs (or hidden cameras) makes no difference. You wouldn't allow Walmart to place hidden cameras in your home).
We all know about the vendor lock ins such as DirectX which keep you playing on and paying for Windows. With true OpenGL development you could find games on a number of platforms. There are many more lock in technologies and DRM was Microsoft's most important one until everyone revolted over it. It is still their number one hope to lock you into the Windows platform.
So, let's hope that Nigeria has the experienced personnel in the right positions of influence capable of understanding what is happening to ensure that it doesn't happen there. If so, let's hope other regional governments learn from the negatives of vendor lock in and the sometimes illegal influences Microsoft exerts.
90% of all people can benefit from Linux in that it does what those people need it to do, day in and day out. It is solid, safe, trusted, proven, performs very well, and is attractive. Most of the popular distros have taken the approach of ease of use for the customer, the development cycle for open source is superior to the closed source development cycle. The access to the programming code is also an incredible benefit unavailable (likely never will be available) to the government and the peoples of the world, whereas with open source if there's a conflict bug you can look at both project's code and resolve your issue yourself (as a programmer for some group).
Hopefully we'll see that other governments understand that it is important to put measures into place that secure them from the influences and lock ins created by using Microsoft products.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I for one am very happy to see this stopped! I grew up in a "third world" county (Belize), when my siblings and I joined our parents in the US, I recall one of the first things they did was get us a computer (CoCo 2). I wouldn't be where I am today if they had not (good job and my own little project http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html/ ). While I did do some growing up on Windows, it has been almost 9 years since I switched to using Linux exclusively at home. As someone that grew up in a developing nation, I firmly believe there is no better option for it that FLOSS.
Education and technology can level the playing field. Perhaps in the first world, we can afford to argue about the merits of FLOSS vs closed source. However, this isn't the case when you are worried about where your next meal is coming from or if you can afford to vaccinate your child. The Gates Foundation could really show it's altruism by helping to support OLPC or the Classmate PC.
Cecil
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
Big corporations bribing government officials, i've seen this a million times, i'm brazilian... Just recently it was Cisco in Brazil http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/16/2334253 and now MS in Nigeria. I've only seen people been arrested or fired, couldn't the corporation be fined or something? Apart from theirs reputation, the corporation itself in the end is clean to continue doing its dirty business...
"One wonders if Mandriva bribed the gov't in Nigeria first.."
Heh. Even if you didn't believe we wouldn't be inclined to do that, we don't have the *capacity*. Microsoft can get $400,000 out of Bill's petty cash jar. We couldn't get $400,000 from anywhere.
If this really came down to a battle to see who could provide the biggest...er...factory-to-dealer incentive, we'd be dead in the water.
(I work for Mandriva, in case you didn't figure that one out yet).
Hmm, this whole thing is funny, but let's seriously look at how "business is done" and view this in the light of it.
The there are two reasons that an entity would purchase software for a sizable sum and then later purchase different software to replace it at additional cost are, The software first purchased is fraudulent or unable to perform the function(s) that it was purchased to perform, this one we know is not the case here. Or, the decision maker got bribed, money, stuff, whatever.
Lunches, dinners, floor level tickets to NBA games, luxury boxes at hockey games, Superbowls and Olympic events, tickets that include drinks and food to luxury suites for PGA tournament events, strippers, prostitutes, SWAG, SWAG and more SWAG. How much vendor labeled stuff, provided by the vendors do you have? All of the above I have personally seen or have been informed of by reputable sources (attendees or eyewitnesses), here in the US. So why would it be any different anywhere else? The statement that the "right" people were probably not included in the bribe is probably accurate and we all know it. That is the way the world is, lot's of greedy people who are trying to "get some" for themselves. And legislation has not brought about honesty, just better motivation for hiding dishonesty. My idealism has been corrupted by realism. Get used to it. It's probably not going to change this week.
Friday morning at 10:00 pdt, I filed a complaint with the Washington State AG.
***
Microsoft is bribing "Technology Support Center (TSC)" a Nigerian computer company with $400,000.00 to install Windows after TSC already bought an operating system. To get around the word "bribe" they are calling it "marketing activities".
***
Yes, we raised $1.6m for the Linbox acquisition. It was spent on the Linbox acquisition. We also raised a couple of million in venture capital. That *is* our capital for the foreseeable future. All of it.
People sometimes really don't appreciate the difference in scale between a company like Microsoft and one like Mandriva. Microsoft makes $28m *profit* in a day. For Mandriva, $2m of *capital* is a huge investment.
Bah. Late to the party, as usual, hope more than 3 people read this. Let me share a story... it's been over 5 years already, so I hope I don't get into trouble for sharing it.
Picture a budding "third world" country, but one a little closer to the south of the border: Guatemala. Also picture a huge, monolithic Gov't institution, the Ministry of Education, where a small, dedicated team has been assigned a major project: switching all of the Ministry's PCs to Linux. This meant not only the PCs in the administrative buildings, but also the computers in every school in the country. Which in reality wasn't that huge of a project, because it's a smallish country, and at the time few schools had PCs for the kids.
Still, it was a very exciting project! We sincereley felt that what we were beginning could have a very positive impact in the lives of Guatemalan kids, exposing them early on to the advantages (and difficulties, too!) of the gospel of Open Source. But we soon ran into trouble. The hardware was hopelessly outdated -- note we didn't have the advantage of Xubuntu and other nice modern end-user distros for legacy HW, plus we met with serious and organized resistance from the many Ministry bureaucrats who decided they weren't going to give up the Microsoft OS they barely knew how to operate.
We soldiered on nonetheless, for a couple more weeks at least. But we could tell a storm was brewing at the higher ranks. Sure enough, the project gets axed, and a head or two rolls. Technical reasons were claimed, but we techs knew very well that the technical hurdles could've been overcome. Rumors abounded, and we all had our own suspicions. My own suspicions were confirmed when I had the chance to talk to a senior management guy who had managed to keep his job, who told me in no uncertain terms that Microsoft was very directly responsible for the project's cancellation, by courting Gov't officials and offering a generous "discount" on the many licenses the Ministry needed to fully comply with the law -- most of the Ministry's Windows PCs were illegal installations in the first place. And also, that palms had indeed been greased -- no proof, of course, but knowing how most (yes, most!) Gov't deals go down here would have been enough for me to believe this, but the confirmation by that bureaucrat left me with no doubt.
Cut to 5 years later. Millions were poured into the "legalization" of thousands of the Ministry's PCs, but the benefits for the average schoolkid remain to be seen. I often wonder what this country's schools would look like today if greed hadn't gotten in the way.. but sadly that's a recurring theme in corrupt countries. MS has a lot to answer for, in my humble opinion.
anon because this is still a very dangerous country