If Microsoft makes good on its self-destructive threat to pull Windows from the South Korean market rather than accede to local damands to un-bundle its proprietary media and IM apps, there’s a safe harbour waiting in the form of blanket, country-wide licenses for the OS formerly known as Lindows. Linspire honcho Kevin Carmony has made a formal offer to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to license every computer in the realm for the bargain price of $5 million (E4.2 million).
Go Linspire..
I would like to see this happen for a number of reasons:
1. MS needs a good wake up call and *if* Linspire or other distros are rolled out across another country then this will show other governments that you can live without MS
2. *If* Linspire is the distro that gets rolled out then it will be good for them as they will have a huge market base to test software on, just like MS does with the rest of us.
3. *If* this happens then we may see Linux taken in a whole new direction as people become more aware of Linux as a whole.
Ah, but if South Korea adopts linux people in the US will say: “But, if we adopt Linux the Canadians will try and turn us into communists!”
It’s a joke, laugh
.
This is a thing of beauty to watch Microsoft’s unmittigated arrogance, thinking that it is bigger and more important than an entire sovereign nation, thinking that it does not have to obey the laws of that nation, condescending that nation’s government and the intelligence of it’s citizens, and threatening to pull their product out of that country entirely if that country insists that MS obeys their laws in order to do business with that country.
This is great. MS, due it’s arrogance, is going to lose the business of an entire nation, and provide golden opportunity for it’s competitors.
Microsoft made the “threat” in a stock exchange report in which it was required to detail the worst-case scenarios as well as best-case ones for the future. Antitrust action may have forced Microsoft to withdraw its products, at least temporarily
That doesnt mean its a stick with which the corporation intends to beat in entire, sovereign, technological nation. They certainly don’t want to do it..
Everyone in South Korea can instantly remove their pirated copy of XP Pro and Office 2003 and install Linspire?
Hmmmmm, how likely does this sound?
The Chinese could arrange this very easily by blocking access to Windows product authentication in the national firewall. Doubt the Koreans are that way inclined though.
…..
I’d bet it’s a one year CNR subscription and cd’s. So, probably, for a year. Yea, they’d likely lose money the first year, but the next year…
>> I’d bet it’s a one year CNR subscription and cd’s. So, probably, for a year. Yea, they’d likely lose money the first year, but the next year… <<
I doubt it…
I spent $100, two years ago and have a lifetime CNR subscription.
For $5 Million, Linspire can afford to staff and run a dedicated CNR server for the forseeable future JUST for Korea.
Not a bad move at all, from a business point of view.
MS posted $224 Million in “legal” sales in 2004, and now Linspire’s CEO makes a cover-all offer of $5 million?
While some may question Linspire’s motives, you have to admit that they immediately siezed on a potential opportunity with an offer that could benefit both South Korea and Linspire.
If South Korea decides accept Linspire’s offer, MS could potentially stand to lose more business in the Asian market. Consider the possibility of a domino effect with other Asian countries.
Remember when Munich dumped Microsoft in favor of SuSE a few years ago? MS lost the battle and Steve Balmer couldn’t win it back once they made their decision.
Whatever anyone thinks about Linspire, this moce is very a smart business move on their part.
This is just Linspire’s marketing stunt. It’s highly unlikely that South Korea would use Linspire if they would pay license fees of all there citizen which is even more unlikely. So basicly South Korea would do as some German cities have done and use local company to create new Linux distro. These is typical way both get rid of using Microsoft products and get more tax money(since local business pays taxes to local city or country) and more people employed. This was probaply biggest reason why Munich (or some other German city that is planning to move to Linux) changed from SuSe to some local distro after Novell bought SuSe.
Kudos to Linspire, but I would also like to see some of the other Linux companies jump on the bandwagon too…..
Kudos to Linspire, but I would also like to see some of the other Linux companies jump on the bandwagon too…..
Okay. I have no association with Ubuntu, but its a good distro. I’ll gladly send South Korea an Ubuntu CD which they can use to install on unlimited numbers of computers. I’ll even write “Ubuntu” on the CD with my sharpie. All this for the bargain price of $100,000 USD. I’ll even send them a second CD (also with “Ubuntu” written on it) if they lose the first one.
Can’t forget about games like star craft and WoW that are huge hits over there.
Doesn’t this deal from linspire cover only govt. computers? I’m not sure. Either way, the home user will likely keep windows somewhere just to get their game on!
What will happen if home users also switch to Linspire?
Hmm. If this does happen, I would hope that this will cause game vendors to release their games for Linux out of the box.
What about their beloved MS Word, Excel, etc? Maybe Sun will provide a similar offer?
Either way, I believe that if this does happen, it will benefit the OSS community a lot.
However, somehow Microsoft will pull a fast one, and all politicians will suddenly find other important things to do, and the issue forgotten.
while it sounds nice and all dont forget that to actually install additional applications via their easy-to-use thingy you must subscribe to click-n-run. Which they sell seperately from their OS.
Kind’ve a ‘gotcha’.
Hmmn, sounds to me like a clumsy and desperate publicity stunt. Possibly it could only be bettered by Sun. Mr McNealy will be pictured patting his labrador while offering the South Koreans 75 million copies of Sun Java Desktop.
Still. I guess Linspire can’t really lose. After a couple of months of running Linspire, Prozac-ravaged South Koreans will be offering twice the money to have it taken off their hands.
There’s really very little chance of Microsoft dumping South Korea. Surely this must be quite obvious even to the Linux crowd.
Linspire is one of the easiest, cleanest Linux desktops out there. Check out these screenshots: http://www.linspire.com/products_linspire_whatis.php?tab=screenshot…
For my tastes I’d rather use this any day over Windows XP’s “suicide blue” look. Talk about needing some Prozac…
Go Linspire
“while it sounds nice and all dont forget that to actually install additional applications via their easy-to-use thingy you must subscribe to click-n-run. Which they sell seperately from their OS.
Kind’ve a ‘gotcha’.”
Actually if you were a Linspire user you would know that if you pay $50 a year you get all OS updates on top of full access to Click and Run and discounts on commercial software.
You do not have to pay for CNR and then when a new version of Linspire comes out also have to pay for that on top. No, you actually get access to the new version before other customers because the link goes up in your CNR account page a day before non CNR users. No extra charge.
Also if you just want access to the software and not OS updates then you can get that for $20 a year. (OS updates are not security updates. You get those for free like every other OS does)
People really want to see MS pull out of entire market/country due to its antitrust policies? Our founding fathers are turning in their graves! It’s one thing to be an MS-hater but guess what, once the door is open, how do you know they won’t come after the company you work for next?
And make no mistake about it, the enire Windows OS is “proprietery”, not just WMP or Messenger – this is an obvious smear. Nearly every commercial OS has some proprietary elements to it.
Antitrust is wrong – impracical and immoral. Get a clue/life MS-haters!
Antitrust law is immoral? Please explain.
“People really want to see MS pull out of entire market/country due to its antitrust policies? Our founding fathers are turning in their graves! It’s one thing to be an MS-hater but guess what, once the door is open, how do you know they won’t come after the company you work for next?”
Aaaahhhhh, poooooor babies – getting slapped whent they break the law – boo hoo hooo, whaahhh!
And oh, I don’t work for a company that crassly, repeatedly, breaks the law, steals IP, gets convicted as a monopolist, spreads FUD, inimidates ISVs and hardware vendors, bullies entire nations, and continually puts out bad products. I work for an honest company that makes a profit the honest way: By providing good products and services, and good honest hard work.
So I have no worries about AntiTrust laws coming to get my company. What about you??
Anyway, major kudos for Linspire to jump on this opportunity, regardless of whether or not it’s a publicity stunt. I say it’s more than that, because I’m sure that they would love a $5,000,000 sale.
I hope that more Linux distros jump in, as well as Sun with Solaris, Apple with Mac, and consulting firms to assist with file and system transistions.
If any of these wonderful scenarios occur, S. Korea will stand to save millions in the short term (and that’s including transition costs and training costs), and even more in the long term, with smaller licensing fees, more secure and stable software, and greater productivity.
They would most likely go with their own Linux which is rather good also!
Hancom Linux
http://kr.hancom.com/zone/os/
Hancom Office
http://kr.hancom.com/zone/office/
Everything is in Korean, but I believe info can also be found in English on this as well!
I forgot about those…
Thanks for reminding us all!
I thought this P.T. Barnum-like hucksterism and tub-thumping was supposed to leave with MR. Apparently not. TurboLinux, Asianux, RedFlag, and several others are ALL available at the moment for considerably less than five million USD. This is nothing more than another in the long, sorry parade of used-car advertisement style that seems Linspire nee Lindows stock-in-trade. And, to the individual who said that “you get the goodies when you buy for xx price”, nowhere is there a mention made of any followon access to Click-and-drain-your-wallet included in this blanket “license”.
And the company deserves to stay around and keep providing one of the best Linux based Desktop OS’es on the market.
We need to stop the hemmoraging of Retail Linux Distribution companies, so the state of the art of Linux and Open Source Solutions can continue to develop and move forward.
I’d love to see $1 million of that money dedicated to further refining the GUI of Linspire and making it as smooth and as nice as MacOS X.
MacOS X shows that a *nix system can compete on the desktop with Windows. It just takes a LOT of work, and vision in polishing the GUI to a fine sheen.
Linspire/Linux is mostly there. Just some rough edges here and there to take care of.
There are LOTS of great distributions out there.. Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, MEPIS, and more.
All they need is polish. The basic functionality and day to day usefulness is there.
And unfortunately Windows just keeps getting more and more bloated, and requires more and more Processor Power just to provide the same functionality I used to get on my 486DX2/66 10 years ago with Windows 3.1.
My Amiga 1000 is more responsive than my P4 3.2 box which is haunted with Virii and Adware and other things I just cannot exorcise from the unit.. Stealing processor cycles and slowing the unit down to a crawl.
I guess I could unplug it from the Network, scrape it to the “bare iron” and reload it… But, then… I’d be bored without the web.
Currently, most real businesses use MS Windows. Maybe it’s a US thing, I don’t know. Monopoly or not, there are alternatives all over the place.
Don’t expect MS to roll over each time an arrogant country or leadership attempts to dictate how MS designs their product. Just cause MS is an “illegal” monopoly does not mean they should lay there and let all the phirrana eat away at it. They need to figure out how to juggle all the laws, settlements, etc. Why should they compete “fairly”? They will do what they need to try and ensure they earn more revenue/profit than the year before. This they must do.
I’ll say this gain (it’s getting tiring), monopoly or not by a legal definition, MS does have competition in Linux. Linux is free, and ANY entity is more than able to make a decision and switch to it. Of course, there is a cost for this, but then again, any large scale conversion will have a cost.
If an entity does not like what they get from MS, then can ask to have MS change what they offer. MS can either agree or not. If not, then by all means, look at alternatives. They are there, go use them when you are ready.
If anything, arrogance is not something that MS has a monopoly on.