NECTEC (their equivalent of DOST), has launched the free PC and extra cheap notebook for every Thai citizen. Guess what's preloaded? Linux TLE and their very own TLE Office (based on Open Office, of course).
Microsoft Thailand had to counter with their own offering. They joined the government ICT program. Boy did they slashed prices! A few hundred baht from the Open Source offering for the notebooks. I didn't check about the PC's. Quick Linux magazine (Thai Open Source magazine) analyzed that giving away Linux and Open Source too soon without any clear-cut after-sales service program can backfire; the public may react negatively, to say the least. At the moment, it's wait and see. The new Minister for ICT is pushing Open Source citing the economic gains and substantial savings the government can achieve. To further quote, he encourages that every technically talented Thai should be involved in Open Source, that Thais should create something which they can call their own invention and contribute to mankind in general through Open Source. He is very open about it. Agitated? I think that's an understatement. Microsoft Thailand is pulling its hair to say the least. And then the local computer assembler Liberta now offers Liberta Linux preloaded on all its PC's. Laser, another local assembler is on to the act, too. And these two are not just small time players either. If the same could be said in the Philippines. Guys, you've just got to be in Bangkok. Art On Sun, 2003-08-17 at 20:27, optimus wrote: > On Saturday 16 August 2003 03:07 pm, Holden Hao wrote: > > > > 27 schools, >1M pesos per school in last five years, > > > with more to come. Total 50M pesos in last five years, > > I read last night that Microsoft's extremely agitated with the prospect of > Thailand going open source. They're planning to remove the online activation > code during setup of Windows XP and bundle it with Office XP. And the bundle > price for the two is.... > > US $ 35.00 for Thai users. > > This low, low price smacks near of being antitrustic. I could foresee them > offering the base OS in the future for free, while trying to make money from > Office. Sort of offering IE to beat Netscape out of the market. > > That's how desperate they've become, even if they've keep some government key > account contracts in Europe. > > > optimus > > > -- > Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) > Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph > Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph > . > To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug > . > Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to > http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie -- inion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
