Office and Windows for $3?
Microsoft’s announcement that developing countries will have access to a package including Windows XP Starter Edition and Office Home for $3 is of course very controversial: some see it as insidious, some as a sign of desperation, others as highly philanthropic.
It’s a dramatic headline, but it’s not clear to me that it really benefits anyone. It means people can now get a cut-down version of an old release of Windows legally for the same money that they’ll pay for a full version of Vista illegally, and of course for more than they’d have to pay for a legal copy of Linux. And they can only do this as long as they’re students, and buy it through the government, at the same time as purchasing a PC.
What would be much more interesting to us would be if cheap Windows licences became available which could be used under virtualisation, or a if cheap version of Terminal Server were released, so that Ndiyo’s PC-sharing model could be used legally with Windows…