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

International Trade Balance

[RichMan]

Ever wonder how much oil money going out of the US is balanced by payments to Microsoft coming in?

1 car -> $50/week of gas -> 50*50 = 2500 a year

1 computer -> $400 os + $800 offic = 1200 every 2 years or so.

So for every car in the US need 4 people outside the US using Microsoft products to balance.

Ever wonder why the sanctions against Microsoft were not that bad?