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

Did anyone RTFA before approving?

[supabeast!]

The original article does NOT claim that Brazil pays 20.1% of its income to Microsoft, it only states that the âoeCost of Business Licenses as % of GNI per capitaâoe is 20.1%. Only a complete moron would read that as 20.1% of Brazilâ(TM)s income going to Microsoft.

Furthermore, the OP claims that the linked article is a study; it is NOT a study, it is a blog post. It has not been fact-checked or reviewed by editors or peers, and could be a complete load of BS.

Re:There are "Studies" and there are Studies

[gustavoduarte]

As the author of the blog post, I totally agree :)