10.19.09
Microsoft Works to Eliminate FOSS/GNU/Linux in Kenya, Maryland, and Illinois
Summary: In addition to shameless propaganda, Microsoft is dumping software and Microsoft training in places where GNU/Linux gains traction, such as Kenya; Maryland and Illinois receive ‘American EDGI’
IT HAS only been less than two weeks since we last wrote about Microsoft in Kenya. “We wrote about this region before,” as we put it at the time, “shortly after Microsoft had allegedly blackmailed the country using withdrawal of incentives. Microsoft actively fights GNU/Linux adoption in Kenya while Bill Gates creates agricultural monopolies over there.”
This week we are finding more Microsoft propaganda in the Kenyan press (the usual crocodile tears):
Microsoft decries high rate of piracy
Leading computer software manufacturer Microsoft has decried the high rate of piracy on its products and vowed to curb the vice at all costs.
[...]
He voiced his Board’s support for the campaign mounted by the Microsoft to crack down on the counterfeits and called on all Kenyans to participate.
Notice how the article uses propaganda words like “piracy” and never mentions Free software, which is crucially important here. This is how they fight GNU/Linux. To quote:
“It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.”
–Bill Gates
Yes, Bill Gates said this to the press just a couple of years ago, but as Microsoft captures Kenya’s business this month, why bother saying the truth rather than spin? Here is more information about what Microsoft does in Kenya at the moment, probably because the nation turned to GNU/Linux in some places.
Computer Technology Corporation Microsoft is set to partner with local firms to re-evaluate their business operations and identify areas for improvement.
In the following new article, more Microsoft propaganda from Kenya can be seen, fueled by exaggerated and made up numbers (usually from the BSA), daemonisation terms, and no mention at all of Free(dom) software.
It ought to be added that not only Kenyans are targeted by Microsoft at the moment. This Seattle Web site speaks about a similar scheme in Maryland, and one that the press covers very poorly.
Microsoft and the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (DLLR) have joined forces to provide free technology training in the form of vouchers to 13,500 Maryland residents.
Will there be Free software training? Or just the preparation of more Windows/Office drones? As the following new article shows, this is all part of “Elevate America”, which is similar to EDGI [1, 2, 3, 4].
Microsoft is calling it the Elevate America Program. The training is available to any Marylander who wants to beef up their job skills, but it’s being targeted at workers who’ve been displaced in the economic downturn.
Marylanders are not the only victims in the United States, not in the past week even. We found the same type of thing in Illinois a few days ago — passing Windows indoctrination as “charity” or at least “goodwill”.
The East Central Illinois Community Action Agency, in collaboration with the “Elevate America” program, will distribute 20 Microsoft online training vouchers.
We have seen this in Illinois before [1, 2, 3], even with the endorsement of Governor Pat Quinn, who shook hands on this with Steve Ballmer. █
