[ale] Lovely story about Microsoft in Africa

Robbie Honerkamp robbie at shorty.com
Tue Oct 28 14:53:52 EDT 2008


Charles Shapiro wrote:
> GOSEF ought to be proud. This was published in the WSJ, but it is behind 
> a paywall there.
> 
> http://www.mediainfocenter.org/story.asp?story_id=122760705

I was in Nigeria when Microsoft opened their office there. At the time, 
it appeared the only purpose of the office was to prod the government's 
copyright bureau into cracking down on the mindboggling supply of 
pirated Microsoft products found in markets all over the country. After 
several highly publicized raids on Internet cafes that didn't have 
legitimate copies of Windows, I got inquiries from several cafe owners 
who wanted to dump Windows and install Linux on all their computers.

I can only wish them the best of luck in their unintentional efforts to 
drive people towards free and open source products.

Robbie


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