Bonum Certa Men Certa

Quick Mention: Microsoft's OLPC is About Selfishness, Gain, Neither Children Nor Education

Black girl



WE WROTE ABOUT this antitrust exhibit several days ago. Now it's another man's turn at OLPC News:

The quid pro quo is handled a bit more subtly inside Microsoft - naturally, as they're quite practiced - and we learn that Microsoft Research already intends to reduce MIT Media Lab funding, but has not done so specifically because they don't want to "disrupt the negotiations".

Finally, in case you think I've failed to mention it: there is never any talk of "the best technology" or "educating or empowering children" or "customers/governments want Windows" or any such merit-based discussion. Outside of a brief mention of Academic Software offerings - literally the very last thing in the recap and suggested by the OLPC faction - the entire discussion revolves around what benefits Microsoft, what might hurt Google, and exploiting inside information they have on the OLPC project and OLPC people.


What a nice company.

"My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod."

--Steve Ballmer (on CNN)

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