On Tuesday 10 Jun 2008, Parthan SR wrote: > Akarsh Simha wrote: > > IMHO, all these 'Social welfare campaigns' > > supported by Microsoft, by providing free copies of Windows to run > > on kiosks set up in rural villages are actually monopolizing > > campaigns to target people who see computers for the first time. 20 > > years later, when every villager in India will probably have a > > computer, he'd obviously be inclined to using Windows because > > that's what he saw first. > > AFAIK, Microsoft never gives *free* Windows to anyone, even when it > donates *technology*. What they do is give *free* hardware, which > comes with their proprietary operating system mostly a trial version > of 90 days or so, and make them pay for the license afterwards.
OR hold back part of the "donated" money, upfront, towards license cost. IIRC that's what they did when they settled the anti trust case with the US Dept. of Justice. Additionally, the string attached with the donated hardware is that they can run MS Windows only. The beneficiary cannot install another hard disk and make it dual/multi boot with some other OS. -- Arun Khan _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe <password> <address>" in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
