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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: UncleBigs who wrote (51975)	1/29/2006 5:27:31 PM
From: benwood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Microsoft is working hard to incorporate rights management into Office that would make it perhaps impossible to read some documents with alternatives. Then by giving away the software (virtually) to colleges and high schools, you create resistance to using an alternative. For example, have you ever used a free office package? The way they can fight the downward pressure is to reduce the annual cost of the running a Windows system -- i.e. more built in stuff, and more overall security (a shamefully high percentage of units are spam-bots and/or spyware infested). You can kinda play DVDs on WMPlayer now, whereas I used to buy an app for that. It at least has a minimally effective firewall now. If they built a really good virus scanner into it and provided, say, 3-years' free updates, then that would sure help consumers. Thing is, the majority of people just want a few things -- digital photography, web browsing, e-mailing, write a letter or two, view PDF files plus Quicken/TurboTax. Quicken/Turbo is the only one I can't do under Linux, and I haven't explored dig. photo yet either. Downward pressure will come when somebody puts the right wrappers into Linux for a home user, and certain essential apps come out like Quicken (I've written them about a Linux version and they're "monitoring" the situation lol). Microsoft will do anything and everything to make sure an alternative doesn't hit critical mass, because that's when everybody starts coming up with Linux versions and the computer from Best Buy that costs $500 less but does nearly everything better suddenly starts to make a lot of sense. I still see that day as a ways off. And I think that the next OS will cost more than XP (mostly more crap piled in). There is some chance that MS Office sales will start to level off, if they can't "bind" users to their suite. OpenOffice 2.0 is terrific, and free.

To: UncleBigs who wrote (51975)	1/29/2006 5:34:55 PM
From: shades	Respond to of 110194

it.slashdot.org news.zdnet.co.uk Microsoft: Africa doesn't need free software Ingrid Marson ZDNet UK October 17, 2005, 16:30 GMT You can give people free software, but they won't have the expertise to use it, says Microsoft Nigeria's manager Microsoft has claimed the cost of software is not an important issue in the developing world. In response to a question on the role of open source software in Africa, Gerald Ilukwe, the general manager of Microsoft Nigeria, said that cost is not important, even though he admitted that the average annual salary in the West African country is only $160 (£91). "It's easy to focus on cost and say how much is a product, but at the end of the day it's the total impact that's important. You can give people free software or computers, but they won't have the expertise to use it," he said. "Microsoft is not a helicopter dropping relief materials; we're there in the field." Neil Holloway, the president of Microsoft for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that training in IT skills is the most important issue in emerging markets. Microsoft is involved in a number of training activities in Africa, including the Partners in Learning programme, which helps train teachers in computer skills, and the Nepad eSchools project, which supplies schools across Africa with computers, software, training, networking, connectivity, maintenance and support. "It's not about the cost of the software, it's about how you take your expertise to people. We are sharing our expertise, particularly with governments in emerging markets. Cost is not the barrier here — expertise is," said Holloway. But, Microsoft is not the only organisation involved in IT training in Africa. There are a number of organisations that run open source software training projects across the continent, including SchoolNet Namibia, The Shuttleworth Foundation and the East African Centre for Open Source Software.