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Is Microsoft Paying Russia to Take Schools off GNU/Linux and Halt Antitrust Action?

House gift



Summary: Microsoft dumps what it claims to be a $300 million investment on Russia amid antitrust pains and massive migrations to GNU/Linux

THE MIGRATION of Russian schools to GNU/Linux is already known to many because it was covered extensively in the press. What is never covered in the press, however, is EDGI, which we previously covered in:



Microsoft is afraid of Russia because its internal intelligence shows GNU/Linux usage figures that are exceptionally high over there.

Now that Russia is moving to GNU/Linux en masse (starting with the young generation), guess what Microsoft is doing, because of (or despite) the fact that Russia intends to act upon Microsoft's monopoly abuse? Microsoft is paying Russia what it claims to be $0.3 billion (software costs nothing to reproduce) in order for the nation to change course.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said the software giant would invest $300 million in Russia projects over the next three years. [...]

Microsoft intends to expand the Dream Spark program that provides software to Russian university students.


This is more harmful than helpful to these student. For information about DreamSpark (which we covered too many times to be worth repeating):



Microsoft is still up to its old, anti-competitive tactics. There is no "new Microsoft".

“Microsoft Corp is using scare tactics to exert pressure on PC vendors not to explore the potential of desktop Linux"

--Ron Hovsepian, Novell

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