Previously, I blogged about how Microsoft wants to make sure that they don’t lose market share to Mandriva. The plot has thickened as more details emerges in a PC World article.
The funder of 11000 of the 17000 classmate PC’s is insisting that Mandriva remains on the machines, at least for now. This will have a big impact on the project as a whole, and Mandriva might just yet be the default system on all these machines after all.
In the article it also mentions that the Microsoft country manager for Nigeria, Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu wrote that Microsoft is working on an agreement with the Technology Support Center (which seems to be an independent service provider in Nigeria) to pay them US$400 000 for marketing activities around the classmate, if they switch to Windows.
It seems that the Nigeria is bit behind when it comes to competition laws, since Microsoft claims that they have broken no international laws or the laws of the countries it operates in, according to the article.
I hope that it turns out for the better for Mandriva, if Microsoft could get away with these kind of tactics in every country, we would have a really tough time increasing the market share of free software everywhere.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
[…] Carter has an update on the goings on regarding the Classmate PCs in Nigeria: The plot has thickened as more details […]