Windows in Brazil Costs 20% of Per Capita Business Income

mjasay writes "Ever wonder why open source is so popular in Brazil and other BRIC nations? As one study suggests, one big reason may well be Microsoft's punitive pricing, which exceeds 20 percent of Gross National Income for businesses in Brazil (and 7.8 percent of consumer GNI). This leads to a second, related reason: At those prices, there's little hope that Brazil can build a home-grown software economy on the foundation of proprietary software. This factor is exacerbated by Brazil's widespread disdain for the United States, which also tends to favor software that is not perceived as American. Of late the free and open-source Brazilian dream may be fading a little but its importance to the long-term growth prospects of the Brazilian economy shouldn't be understated."

Comments

Re:Not American?

[stoolpigeon]

I was in Mexico City, hanging out with university students on a number of campuses. They were all pretty nice about it but made clear their preference. I had been warned ahead of time, but still slipped up.
 
You mention Mexico being mistaken as part of Central America. Since I've been back I've had a couple people ask me how I enjoyed my time in South America. I wish I was kidding.

Re:Not American?

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

actually, we should call ourselves "vespucians". if the continents were named after americo vespucio, by tradition we should've used his last name, not the first.

so brasils is in "south vespucia", and the US should be called "united states of vespucia".