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Microsoft's $3 desktop monopoly move
Microsoft will be offering developing nations a $3 software suite containing Windows and Office applications. All this, the company's PR spin doctors claim, is aimed at closing the digital divide.
Closing the digital divide is a noble cause by all means. But some of the plan's implications are less noble.
North America, Europe and parts of Asia are considered firm territory for Windows, simply because users are familiar with their operations and their data has been locked in. Microsoft's greatest challenge is to repeat this feat in emerging economies.
The challenge however is competing with Linux and open source software. Microsoft largely sees those applications as cheap competitors, but believes that few consumers care about (or think that they should care about) open standards. So faces with a $0 competitor, Microsoft can only follow with a price drop.
The move raises some ethical monopoly questions. The company after all is using the monopoly margins that it makes on Windows in the developed world, to give away software for (nearly) free elsewhere. This would be clearly illegal within a single market, but anti trust law doesn't cross borders.
All is not lost for the open source movement however. A growing number of governments is warming up to the idea that open source helps to build a local information technology economy, where Microsoft software will only create an IT services economy.
If a nation is dying of thirst, you can ship them bottled water or teach them how to dig a well. Microsoft is clearly in the bottled water business, and just launched a new low end brand.
(picture above: solar project to power up to 30 workstations at a school in South Africa's KwaZulu-Nathal region)
April 19, 2007 at 08:41 PM | Permalink
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