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.