On Apr 11, 8:13 am, flyer <f...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Roy's post said alot about China and MS.
>
> Lots of "customers" or not, China is still a dictatorship. The last
> refuge for MS it would seem, since free people are dumping windows.
> Will be interesting to see what the people do there.
PRC has already formally adopted Linux as their primary and preferred
operating system. Windows still does well in Hong Kong and Singapore,
but even there, the stores are touting "Linux Ready" systems.
Microsoft offered to sell Windows XP for 75 cents/copy, but even that
was nearly a full day's wages in Bejing.
PRC even has their own distribution, called "Red Flag" linux. It's a
variant of Red Hat linux, but is optimized to support Mandarin
Chinese, and Cantonese. This includes documentation, pop-ups, and
other context sensitive help as well as tutorials and documentation.
By the same token, most Chinese are now learning English as a second
language - because it's the language of the Internet.
Many of the students who sent e-mails and faxes describing the events
of Tienemen Square back in the 1980s are now high ranking officials,
many in their late 30s and even mid 40s.
Red Hat partnered with a United Nations NGO that sends nearly 10
million computers/year to schools in developing countries. They
started this effort back in 1997. China was a big recipient. One of
the reasons Linux became so popular was because the US had placed
export restrictions on the computers that were capable of running
Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000. The machines capable of
running Windows 3.1 were also capable of running several versions of
Linux.
Even today, many U.S. computers that are "recycled" by US corporations
or sent to county "recycling centers" are simply converted to Linux
(since their Windows licenses are no longer valid), and shipped to
Asia, India, Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe.
There are still export restrictions which limit export of encryption
technology used in modern Linux and Windows systems to Syria, Iran,
Iraq, Pakhistan, Libya, Afghanistan, and North Korea. It seems that
by denying these countries access to the Internet, we've made enemies
of them.
Keep in mind that for many of these recipient countries, it's not just
a computer or the ability to communicate. It's the ability to market
products, goods, and services directly to the Western consumer. A
pair of hand decorated shoes made in Africa can sell on E-bay for as
much as $200. This doesn't seem like much, until you realize that
most people in place where the shoes were decorated - make about 50
cents per day.
There are other products which are produced in factories in "Emerging
economies" which can be transformed into artwork by the old women of
the village, and sold for what amounts to a year's wages, just because
they can make it, and market it, directly to Western consumers.
In many cases, the factories even partner in the effort. They provide
high powered repeaters, and access to the internet. The NGOs provide
computers to the schools.
The One Laptop Per Child project was conceived to provide laptops to
children who didn't have access to reliable power, and possibly not
even reliable access to the internet. At least they can learn the
fundamental principles, in their local village schools, rather than
having to wait until they can commute to the factory towns.
The good news is that now these countries are starting to BUY
computers, and even MAKE computers. Lennovo makes the IBM Thinkpad.
It has the Lennovo branding as well, but it means
that millions of computers can be made in PRC and sold throughout the
world based on purchase power index.
China has found that it likes being an exporter. The people are
healthier, the quality of life is better, and the political turbulance
is much lower.
Microsoft still wants a piece of that market, and for good reason.
Microsoft sold 1 billion computers in the last 10 years, and the
western market is nearly saturated, with Linux beginning to capture
market share in after-market deployments. On the other hand, there
are about 7 billion people on the planet right now, and about 5
billion of them would be capable of using computers if they were
available at the equivalent of 3 days pay at median income (roughly
the same price to median income ratio as here in the USA). Even if
Microsoft only got 20% of the market, that would double theri unit
volumes. If they could trade that license revenue for products such
as the X-Box, they could even "lose" money on the hardware, because of
their huge profits on Windows licenses.
To soften up government officials, the Gates foundation is willing to
give out billions of innoculations which can prevent child-hood
diseases that kill almost half the worlds children by the time they
are 10 years old. They can provide misquito netting, which can
prevent Malaria - which kills hundreds of millions of men, women, and
children every year. They can leverage other charities and business
partnerships to make food available at affordable prices. They can
even help these countries get access to water treatment facilities,
desalinization, and even low-cost nuclear reactors capable of
producing energy from ultra-cheap fuel sources.
Ironically, Bill and Melinda are probably going to do more good for
the world once Bill retires than Bill did for the world before he
retired. And that's not insignificant. We may hate the draconian
monopoly tactics Bill used to get his billions, but he did make
computers cheap enough so that we could all afford them. He made them
so helpful that almost anyone could learn to use them. And he made
them so uniform that people can go from one Windows XP machine to
another without having to learn anything special.
Bill Gates did for information what Henry Ford did for
transportatiton. The big difference was that Henry Ford didn't try to
bankrupt any company that tried to use assembly lines to produce
cars. He didn't shut off their distribution channels. He didn't keep
changing the engines so that they would only run on fuels that caused
other cars to either explode or seize (even though he was offered the
chance to do so).
Henry Ford clung to the Model T design well past the point where it
was obsolete. It wasn't until the Great Depression hit, that he
realized he needed to keep pace with competitors. He had to replace
the and-throttle, manual spark advance and mixture control, and foot
pedal transmission, with the more conventional accelerator pedal,
automatic mixture and spark advance, and even the hand shifted
transmission. In the end, the streets were quieter, because the cars
backfired less. The cars used less gas, because the mixture was
optimized. The cars were more reliable, because they didn't flood
out. The cars were safer, because the driver could focus more
attention on the road, and less on manipulating the engine's controls.
Henry Ford had to change because of competition. Chrysler, Chevrolet,
and several others were making "standards compliant" cars. They cross
licensed each other's technology. They formed independent networks of
dealerships. They standardized on fuel. Most importantly, they
focused on the technology that would make transportation more
reliable, safer, and more economical. They didn't just make cars,
they also made trucks and buses. They didn't just paint them black,
they customized them to the buyer's needs. The basic frame and
chassis was standardized, but upholstery, comfort, and style were
often options left to the buyer.
Linux is much like those "standards based cars" of the late 1920s and
early 1930s. Windows was more like Henry Ford's Model T. In the long
run, Ford adopted the same standards, and cross-licensed it's own
technology. The result was better and better cars, and the ability to
build lots of them very cheaply. When World War II started, the US
car makers had no trouble providing all of the Jeeps, Tanks, and
Trucks needed to wage the war on both fronts, and win on both fronts.
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