>From the BBC online. Friday, 8 February, 2002, 12:35 Here is the last part of a story covering a speech by Mr. Mbeki to the S.A. parliament this week: "He also announced a pledge by the US software giant Microsoft to provide software to all of South Africa's 32,000 public schools."
You can read the entire story if you like, but that paragraph was the only reference to MS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1808000/1808986.stm This looks to be a beautiful marketing move. It's a shame there is no organization that could supply linux. I suppose S.A. will get grants from Western countries to buy the hardware to run the free MS software. So, Western governments will help pay to extend MS's monoply. Very nice touch. Anybody who doubts the intelligence of the MS organization should reflect on the genius of this "gift." It is my observation that very few people, having used windows for a while, will willingly switch to linux. Therefore, it looks like linux just lost the African computer market. As I recall, MS took over the office productivity market by giving people cheap versions of word and excel. (MS works). After that, they had to use Work and Excel at work. I suppose they'll do the same here. Joel _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list - http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the above URL.
