Summary: Clearer insights into the means by which Microsoft responds to the mere existence of competition and a broad public's awareness of choice

OVER a year ago we showed how Microsoft was fighting GNU/Linux in cyber cafés. It used the infamous “piracy” slur. It was a self-serving lie.

Two days ago we quoted DeGroot from Directions on Microsoft regarding Microsoft's latest scheme to block GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org adoption [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. One of the people from OpenOffice.org has just responded as follows: (also here)

OpenOffice.org in internet cafes threat to Microsoft

Another week, another example of how Microsoft is being forced to react to the increasing adoption of OpenOffice.org as the 2010 office software of choice. Clearly worried by OpenOffice.org’s increasing market share, Microsoft has been forced to change its licencing terms in an attempt to hold on to its internet cafe business. Directions on Microsoft analyst Paul DeGroot admits that Linux and OpenOffice.org are a perfectly viable alternative to Microsoft Windows and MS-Office for web cafes.

Similarly, Microsoft is stifling a move to GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org in British schools. This is achieved through taxpayers-funded indoctrination of the young, as we explained last night. It turns out now that not only BETCA is involved [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Microsoft is also directly involved in this, so it need not rely on corruptible officials. Earlier today we found this report at The Register:

Microsoft tells UK schools: buy our software, save money

Microsoft's UK education chief insisted yesterday that schools would continue to lap up its software despite tightening budgets and a likely change of government - and education policy - in the next few months.

[...]

Earlier this week Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a national rollout of the Home Access scheme - to get laptops and broadband into around 270,000 deprived homes. Microsoft has been a key player in that particular €£300m project.

Another new article from The Register adds: "The then schools minister Jim Knight said in January 2009 that Microsoft had created something he described as a “re-investment fund”. The software maker agreed to “commit to fund a foundation in support of the Home Access programme”."

"Commit to fund a foundation," eh? Let us not forget the role of the Gates Foundation in education. We wrote about this subject in:

1. Bill Gates Puts in a Million to Ratify His Role as Education Minister
2. How the Gates Foundation is Used to Ensure Children Become Microsoft Clients
3. More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
4. Microsoft Builds Coalitions of NGOs, Makes Political and Educational Changes
5. Microsoft's EDGI in India: Fighting GNU/Linux in Education
6. Microsoft's Gates Seeks More Monopolies
7. Gates Foundation Funds Blogs to Promote Its Party Line
8. Microsoft Bribes to Make Education Microsoft-based
9. Lobbyists Dodge the Law; Bill Gates Lobbies the US Education System with Another $10 Million
10. Gates Investments in Education Criticised; Monsanto (Gates-Backed) Corruption Revisited
11. Latest Vista 7 Failures and Microsoft Dumping

This degree of market distortion which relies on back room deals and corrupted appointees need not carry on. More people just need to become aware of it and resistant to the propaganda (PR) that eternally disguises the truth. ⬆