Microsoft’s games in emerging markets

Recently, a deal with the Nigerian government to install and use Mandriva Linux on 17,000 Intel Classmate PCs got derailed when the government decided to overwrite the installed operating system with Windows XP.

Christopher Dawson of ZDnet wonders why Nigeria had taken a decision to overwrite Windows on Mandriva Linux, after extensively testing a Classmate PC loaded with the Linux distro and vouching for its excellent performance.

Well, The Nigerian Government is going to pay for the PCs as well as the Mandria Linux installation, but they have chosen to run the machines on Windows. Reason? Quite obvious, says the ZDnet story, since Microsoft has a lot to lose if the next billion computers sold in the world don’t run Windows and 1/7th of the world doesn’t see Windows and PC as necessarily going hand in hand.

Stakes are very high indeed. And you have to play the game to save your foothold, call it by any epithet you like, but that is not going to make my bills smell bad!

And you want to know more about this sordid affair?

Here is the first hand account of the happenings from Monsieur François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandriva himself!

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