Microsoft Denies Paying Nigerians $400K To Ditch Linux

Da Massive writes "Microsoft has denied paying a Nigerian contractor $400,000 in a bid to retard Linux's movement into the government sector. Media reports alleged that Microsoft had proposed paying that sum to a government contractor under a joint marketing agreement last year, in order to persuade the contractor to replace Linux OS with Windows on thousands of school laptops. Although a joint marketing agreement was drafted to document the best practices for using technology in education, it was never executed, said a Microsoft regional manager for Africa. It became clear, he added, that one customer wanted a Linux OS."

Comments

Of course they didn't pay the "partner" ...

[siddesu]

As they do in other countries (see Eastern Europe for an example), Microsoft will just pay the government officials that award the contract.

It is a lot easier, safer (there are lawyer intermediaries, so it is impossible to catch the perpetrators) and works well, as the government has a "legitimate" reason to increase the budget, and the larger the budget, the merrier it gets.

The REAL reason microsoft decided not to pay...

[voss]

Microsoft could have paid $400,000 and the Nigerians could have gone ahead and used linux anyway. Bribes only work when you trust people to stay bought.

Re:hmmm... interesting bribe?

[cgenman]

Actually, read between the lines:

Although a joint marketing agreement was drafted to document the best practices for using technology in education, it was never executed, said Thomas Hansen, regional manager for Microsoft West, East and Central Africa. "As such, the joint marketing agreement became irrelevant; no such marketing agreement was ever agreed to, and no money was ever spent," he said.

You'll notice he doesn't deny attempting to pay 400k dollars to ditch Linux, he simply states that the plan to do so fell through.

Re:hmmm... interesting bribe?

[Stephen Samuel]

The plan was done by Microsoft's vampire core. When it was exposed to the light of day (and media stories), the deal evaporated. The deal was actually exposed some number of months ago Microsoft doesn't like such deals being exposed. Deals like this being illegal doesn't help the situation.