Ases Eee PC with XP - special discount for schools?
,----[ Quote ]
| So, hold on a second! A special tender for educational institutions? And this
| is only for the XP version of the Eee PC, not the Linux version? I wonder who
| managed to line up this deal? Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft
| would be the one sponsoring this. Probably giving away the copies of XP more
| or less for free. If anyone has any information on the details of this,
| please let me know...
|
| Actually, assuming that Microsoft 'pays' for this special deal makes perfect
| sense, considering their recent DreamSpark initiative (see my comment about
| that here). As far as I can see, this is yet another attempt to ensure that
| students, as young as possible, are being let towards Microsoft products and
| are prevented to experience any alternatives. And since those closed-source
| products always hide 'how it works' from students, the only thing the
| students are left to learn is 'how to use it'. Training students with
| proprietary software just trains them to be IT users. Click here, click
| there. It only trains them in a particular vendor's products.
`----
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/4786
Someone in LinuxToday calls it "emergency 'charity'". Microsoft charity is a
joke. It's just a way of making more in the long term. It's an investment, not
charity at all.
Recent:
Yoohoo! EU Commission! Are you watching?
,----[ Quote ]
| Here's some repulsive news from Microsoft, in an article on Yahoo!
| News titled, "Microsoft pledges cash for IT in developing world" but
| which I would more accurately, I think, call, "Microsoft Finds New Way
| To Be Anticompetitive":
|
| [...]
|
| "Microsoft is still working through some of the 'technical
| limitations' that remain in putting XP on the XO, the green PC from
| the One Laptop Per Child project, Ayala [MS spokesman] said."
|
| So, to compete with Microsoft, Linux needs to be able to spend 235
| million to buy a market? There are also some interesting details on
| deals being made in Russia, Mexico and Libya:
|
| [...]
|
| Of course, they can't put that honking Vista on these laptops. So,
| it's XP forever, I guess, for the third world. Indeed the article says
| XP will be the supported platform on low-cost PCs such as the
| Classmate and Asus EEE, this despite the fact that Windows XP will
| stop being available to OEMs in June 2008 according to what I've seen
| announced. I hope those governments have figured out a plan on how
| they will upgrade someday. Hahahaha. Their only hope is if Microsoft
| can pick OLPC's brains fast and then figure out how to get a smaller
| footprint.
|
| [ Update: It's not just in the third world. A reader just sent me this
| link, about Microsoft offering Finland free Live.edu software for all
| Finnish schools, and the software enables "community features such as
| a discussion forum students can use to discuss with each other". Sort
| of like what XO meshing enables? More, if you can read Finnish.]
|
| So, bottom line? I read it as meaning that Microsoft would like to
| join Intel in killing off One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop, because it
| runs Linux on AMD, and because OLPC identified a new market in the
| third world, and monopolies are like the grave -- they never say,
| "Enough".
|
| Please remember this day, next time someone tells you how
| philanthropic Mr. Gates is. Monopolies these days not only crush
| competition, they're willing to crush a charity to make a buck. I
| would say any apparent cooperation with OLPC, therefore, is just for
| show, folks. Those "technical" difficulties won't be solved, I figure,
| until this new market is glutted with Microsoft on Intel Classmates
| and Asus EEE's, loaded with XP, that old-fashioned operating system,
| and none of their laptops can do for those children what the OLPC XO
| can do. P.S. Children don't need training to use an OLPC XO. It's
| designed to not need it. I hope OLPC patented everything before they
| show Microsoft a thing. For real. Otherwise, someday we'll be looking
| for prior art to overturn a Microsoft patent or two.
|
| Yoohoo, EU Commission! Are you watching these maneuvers?
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080123114324664
Does anybody care about Mr. Gates’s visit in Paris?
,----[ Quote ]
| Bill Gates took the opportunity to enslave sign an agreement with the mayor
| of Paris that will provide educational and social services of the city
| with “free” PCs running Windows Vista (oh, Joy!).
|
| [...]
|
| Call me envious, jealous, or simply evil, but it’s been a long time I don’t
| buy into Mr Gate’s social initiatives. I call them enlightened self-interest,
| especially when it’s about offering computers running Vista to the poor the
| very same day the French gendarmerie is announcing the migration of 70,000
| desktops to Ubuntu Linux. Yes, you read that right. If there’s any news this
| week coming from France, this is it.
`----
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2008/01/30/does-anybody-care-about-mr-gatess-visit-in-paris/
Gates to tap young minds
,----[ Quote ]
| Giving away Microsoft software also helps to ensure the next generation of
| code writers is well-versed in the Redmond, Wash., company's technology....
| Because they are minors and can't sign license agreements, high school
| students will have access to the tools only through their teachers.
`----
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8302312
|
|
