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Microsoft Pushes Windows To Battle Linux In Africa

Posted by timothy on from the roll-the-windows-down-if-it-gets-hot dept.

ThousandStars writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been making a concerted effort to promote Windows in Africa, pushing Windows over Linux in very poor countries that haven't been locked into a single operating system. From the article: 'To that end, it has established a presence in 13 countries, donated Windows for thousands of school computers, and funded programs for entrepreneurs and the young. It also has used aggressive business tactics, some aimed at its biggest threat in the region: Linux ...'"

10 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. What a minute . . . by Eg0Death · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is it possible to read the entire story without subscribing to the Wall Street Journal? How am I supposed to RTFA if I don't have a subscription?

    --
    Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
    1. Re:What a minute . . . by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Informative

      see if clicking on this link helps. WSJ.com used to allow visitors if you were directed from news.google.com.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  2. Full Article here by parodyca · · Score: 5, Informative

    See full article here

    http://www.mediainfocenter.org/story.asp?story_id=122760705

  3. Re:Dear poor schools..... by chortick · · Score: 4, Informative
    Interesting TED talk on the impact of technology on education: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html.

    The speaker begins by noting that technology has marginal impact where schools are already good, but huge impact where schools are bad or non-existent. He then discusses how his work shows that children collaborate in learning.

    Also http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html which in addition to some super cool eye candy graphs, points out the growing convergence of first-world and third-world problems.

    A big ask where respondents are notorious for not RTFA, but I found both talks fascinating and hope that you do too.

  4. Less like "gas" but more like "milk powder"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    And so MS is doing just like the gas companies: make the world addict to their product, brignin' the price VERY high, and when everybody is thinking about alternatives, lower the price or, in the case of MS, paying people to use the product.

    I would have thought it's more like when Nestle pushed milk powder in Africa. (see second item) and here.

  5. Re:For all the slamming of M$ by AttillaTheNun · · Score: 2, Informative
    I can provide a mirror-image anecdote, during an attempt to reinstall a Windows XP partition for my inlaws (irreversibly infested with malware).

    Thank GOD I had a working Ubuntu partition that could actually communicate to the ethernet card so I could actually search for the proprietary Windows drivers on the net.

    Have you ever actually tried to get a Windows installation to work without the benefit of the proprietary driver discs? Starting from the same clean slate (an OS ISO), I'd wager you'll have better luck with Ubuntu these days.

  6. Re: p00r Linux by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 2, Informative

    I mean, does there even exist Windows XP or Vista in Swahili?

    Yes, there is.

    --
    $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
  7. Re:Underhanded? by AdamWill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Frankie70: the highlights? hiring relatives of government ministers, and offering $400,000 in "marketing funds" to a reseller in order to persuade them to replace Mandriva ($3 per machine) with Windows ($45 per machine) on a large order of Intel Classmate PCs.

  8. Re:For all the slamming of M$ by blackest_k · · Score: 2, Informative

    You do know there is a lot of hardware supported out the box with Linux, and some that isn't.
      You tend to have more success when you buy hardware that is supported.

    (assume samual jackson voice)

    Did your computer come with anything that said it was designed to work with Linux or any particular version of Linux Brad? No, So why did you decide to treat it as if it was.

    Now Brad it said designed for Windows Vista, didn't it Brad and when you gave it Vista it ran perfectly fine, now why are we not surprised?

    Thats right brad it was designed to run vista.

    So what have learned brad? Don't bitch when you buy hardware without knowing if its supported or not. Thats right brad but don't feel too bad because that computer can't run XP! Wwwhat! yes brad there are no drivers for XP because everybody was supposed to be happy with Vista.

    Well Don't be too sad brad install virtualbox and XP and Ubuntu will run without complaint or any need to compile anything...

    --
    Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  9. Re:Dear poor schools..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    how did the whites manage to colonise them in the first place?

    http://www.google.com/search?q=Guns-Germs-and-Steel
    http://www.google.com/search?q=ISBN-0-393-03891-2

    gewg_