Gates' India trip backfires

The Inquirer ^ | 08 December 2002 | Egan Orion

[JameRetief]

BILL GATES' recent mission to India seems to have backfired.

At the time, His Billness was rightly nailed for cynically exploiting a largely manufactured AIDS "crises" on the subcontinent -- coincidental with his flying counterstrike against the Indian government's earlier declaration to employ Linux throughout its offices and in education.

Now Reuters reports that the Vole's announced $400 Million in investments and *cough* gifts to India's schools seems to have had the opposite of its intended effect of stifling Indian interest in Linux.

In its coverage of a three-day Linux conference attended by 2,000 users in Bangalore last week, the wire service wrote: "Enthusiasts said a four-day visit by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last month drew welcome attention to Linux...."

Atul Chitnis, an adviser to the Bangalore Linux Users Group, was quoted as saying:

"No one could have possibly arranged for more publicity for the open source movement and its importance than Bill Gates coming and giving $400 million to fight Linux.

"Probably, the biggest boost that open source has got in recent times in India has been due to Bill Gates's visit."

Two Microsoft representatives pitched the Vole's "Shared Source" scheme, but the story doesn't say if they handed out NDAs or had any takers.

The Reuters story is in India's Economic Times here. µ

[JameRetief]

Linux gets free ($400 million) publicity.

[American in Israel]

The Evil Empire Emperor visits India and gets a message from the Borg, Linux, "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated".

[rdb3]

The Penguin Ping.

Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!

Got root?

[Stentor]

At the time, His Billness was rightly nailed for cynically exploiting a largely manufactured AIDS "crises" on the subcontinent

A pseudo-disease meets a pseudo-operating system.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[OKSooner]

I'm sure he picked up a few thousand new contractors, though.

[eno_]

Right you are. Microsoft has NO IDEA how to counter Linux. Sure, they have some very smart people that can fight a good skirmish here or there, but the established recipe for beating Novell, Lotus, IBM, midrange computing, and now Oracle (with the new ERP software) will not work on Linux. Why? Because Linux has usurped Microsoft's position as an agressive follower. Ironically, Microsoft now must protest (like all of Microsoft's defeated competitors) that Microsoft has more features, more performance, etc., whan all people care about is: "Is it good enough, is it cheaper, and can I set it up and operate it without a platoon of $250/hr. jackasses from EDS/IBM/Accenture?"

[sam_paine]

This reminds me of that video clip of the Arab protester that lit an American flag on fire, only to catch himself on fire in the process! Anybody gotta link?

[TechJunkYard]

Microsoft has NO IDEA how to counter Linux.... Ironically, Microsoft now must protest (like all of Microsoft's defeated competitors) that Microsoft has more features, more performance, etc...

And all of this protesting is merely drawing more attention to Linux. This indicates to me that consumers and CIOs have a very bad taste in their mouths from MS' historic reliability problems and more recent tactics to maintain revenue growth. And now that other software vendors are using such tactics, people are getting tired of software that keeps picking their pockets, and are looking for alternatives.

Microsoft is actually pointing out alternatives! You go, Microsoft!

[lelio]

"Is it good enough, is it cheaper, and can I set it up and operate it without a platoon of $250/hr. jackasses from EDS/IBM/Accenture?"
I'm not sure Linux solves that last problem, but your point is true: now you don't have to be a specialist in "Microsoft SQL server V 2.4 patch 567" to work, but rather a "Relational Database Expert" Same goes for Oracle and DB2. Hopefully the world will move towards a state where it is less product-driven and more technology needs / solutions driven.
And hopefully companies will start to realize this too. How many man hours are wasted in corporations training on a particular product, looking to hire people trained in that product, and maintaining that product?

[Aaron_A]

I remember that guy....it was one of the many protests in Pakistan just prior to our campaign last year. I know there was a series of pictures posted here on FR that showed it. Let me see if I can find it.