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Nigerian Government Nixes Microsoft's Mandriva Block

Posted by Zonk on from the money-well-spent dept.

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."

4 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dirty deal? by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 0, Troll
    You can call it what you like, you're simply wrong is all. There is no such thing as a "dirty deal" unless it involves fraud or coersion. A business offering incentives to use its products is not wrong.

    As for your "contract" - was Du Pont paid? If so, and nothing in the contract states that the widgets can't be _repainted_, then it's perfectly fine. You seem to have some kind of issue with consenting business entities doing business. If Microsoft is willing to cut them a deal or even give them money because they have some business interest in MS Windows being on those machines, then that's their problem. The whole outrage over this is just completely ridiculous and makes no rational sense. In the end, the government said "no" to the deal and it's over with.

  2. Re:Dirty deal? by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Why is the system screwy? Microsoft saw a business value in those machines running Windows XP. They made an offer to the end-user which was obviously, at first glance, beneficial enough to be accepted. In the end, the government didn't agree and the deal was refused. Who exactly, again, did anything wrong here?

  3. Re:Dirty deal? by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Nonsense. There's absolutely nothing unethical about using marketshare power unless you have government granted control over a physically limited resource. Business ethics say nothing about being "fair" to your opponents. Only "fair" to your customers. If you give them what they paid for and both parties are happy, there's nothing wrong with it. The whole ridiculous, and easily proved false idea that MS has a monopoly was dreamed up by their competitors and lapped up by corrupt politicians with distinct geographical associations to said competitors.

  4. Re:Dirty deal? by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 0, Troll
    Haha. This, the SlashDweeb day to day line, is Insightful? Give me a break. Microsoft controls 90% of the desktops worldwide because people have made a conscious choice that Microsoft shall control 90% of the market. Microsoft has no pricing power in the desktop OS market at large, of course, since many of the choices are _free_. Strike one against monopoly. There are literally dozens of very strong alternatives to Windows, most of which cost very little - stike two. Strike three is the fact that it's idiotic to claim someone has a monopoly on a piece of intellectual property. Monopoly law only makes sense when dealing with physically limited resources.

    Now go back to your mother's basement, you dirty, smelly UNIX dweeb.