[kanchilug] Fwd: [LUG@IITD:15040] The Deadly Microsoft Embrace

From: Shrinivasan T <tshrinivasan@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "kanchilug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <kanchilug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:53:22 +0530
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From: "FOSSmaniac" <fossmaniac@xxxxxx>
Date: 13 Oct 2011 21:31
Subject: [LUG@IITD:15040] The Deadly Microsoft Embrace
To: "IIT Delhi Linux User Group" <iitdlug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

The Deadly Microsoft Embrace


Copied from
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws101011MICROSOFT.asp

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The Tamil Nadu government is adding costly MS software to laptops meant
for poor students. It could cost Rs 10,200 Crore and hamper student growth


TAMIL NADU Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s battery of freebie
pronouncements has spawned a mini freebie industry in the state with
corporations, big and small, rushing in to bag a slice of the
scrumptious business on offer. But the newest dole by the AIADMK
government in the form of free laptops may become a millstone around the
necks of lakhs of students.

The Jaya government’s IT arm – the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu
(ELCOT) – has taken out a tender for the supply of 9,12,000 laptops to
be delivered this year. Over the next five years, close to 7 million
laptops produced at a cost of over Rs 10,200 crore would be distributed.
Jayalalithaa has sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
asking for central funds to implement this scheme.

With so much at stake, the IT intelligentsia in India is accusing
Microsoft of using a mixture of American diplomatic offensive and its
‘embrace, extend and extinguish’ strategy to make 7 million poor
students of Tamil Nadu dependent on its products with their free laptops.

ELCOT’s repeated changes in the tender have forced out free software and
pushed in Microsoft products, a move that in the words of former ELCOT
MD C Umashankar could ‘end up putting unproductive laptops with Windows
in the hands of poor students’. This would entrap them in Microsoft’s
proprietary web of licences, renewals, updates and upgrades.

There are allegations against ELCOT that it deliberately issued a second
tender favouring Microsoft by eliminating open source software from its
list of specifications and removing academically useful hardware from
the laptop in a bid to balance out the increased cost of using the
Windows Operating system and the licensed MS Office.

ELCOT advertised the first tender for the free distribution of over
9,12,000 laptops on June 4, 2011, after Jayalalithaa decided to
implement another of her election promises. ELCOT was working on keeping
the base price of the laptop at Rs 15,000 and, given the sheer scale of
the order, the costs were expected to come down to Rs 10,000 a laptop.

In June, ELCOT took out a tender with the following specifications: A
dual boot system that had free open source Linux with the proprietary
Microsoft Windows starter edition with antivirus software valid for a
year. In addition, the laptop also had to have 320 GB hard drive, 1.3
megapixel web camera, Wi-Fi adapter and 8X DVD writer among other things.

At a time when ELCOT was looking to reduce costs, the bundling of
Microsoft Windows raised the price by Rs 5,000. Experts also point out
that according to Microsoft’s terms of licencing with Original Equipment
Manufacturers (OEMs), Windows always boots first irrespective of what a
user wants when they start a laptop.

Faced with a situation where it needed to cut costs and not offend one
of the world’s most profitable and powerful corporations, ELCOT took out
a second tender that stupefied the IT community in Tamil Nadu. In its
new tender, ELCOT asked bidders to provide only Microsoft Windows and
removed Linux from the list. ELCOT MD Atul Anand denies this though the
tender documents clearly show this. “We will retain dual boot laptops to
ensure uniformity in the supply of laptops by different vendors,” he said.

He refused to take more questions on why they needed dual boot software
when Kerala had set an example in the use of the free open source
software through its 2007 IT policy.

The Kerala programme, which is being heralded as the future of
computing, aims to make the state the leader in e-literacy driven
largely by Linux, which promotes the democratisation of it and brings it
to every home.

ELCOT removed the free OS even though Linux’s Ubuntu operating system
comes for free and requires no updates, upgrades or expensive antivirus
software to keep the laptop in shape.

Ironically, ELCOT ’s own data centre at Taramani in Chennai uses IBM
servers and is powered by the free and open source Linux platform. But
when it came to students, it ditched the open source model for Microsoft.

What is more startling is that in 2007, under the DMK government, ELCOT,
then headed by a proactive and well-informed IAS officer C Umashankar,
had shut the doors on Microsoft by ordering the migration of all
government departments, panchayats and schools to Open Source Software
after being convinced about its cost benefits and massive collaborative
potential.

Over 30,000 government and schoolteachers were to be trained in Linux.
Umashankar recounted how he was approached a couple of times by
Microsoft staffers who offered to sell the Windows OS for Rs 7,000 a
computer. Umashankar quoted a price of Rs 500 saying that for a mere Rs
300 he could not only get an Operating System better than Windows but
could also incorporate features like DVD drives, webcams, multimedia
editing software, vector map drawing applications and hundreds of other
academically helpful software.

"India will be able to survive without Microsoft. But Microsoft will not
be able to survive without India."

Umashankar said Rs 300 was just the media cost and he would not need to
pay it if the package was downloaded. Umashankar contended that MS
Office did not allow saving files in open format but it was always
possible to open MS Office files on an open source. This made the
Windows OS and MS Office not only more expensive but also inferior.
Umashankar’s proposals massively upgraded the systems and saved the
Tamil Nadu government close to Rs 400 crore every year.

“India will be able to survive without Microsoft. But Microsoft will not
be able to survive without India. There is gross misconception among
government officials that if we shift to open source platform, then
Microsoft would get angry and the software industry would come to a
halt”, Umashankar said, “This is a completely misplaced fear.”

Even the special adviser to the Prime Minister, Sam Pitroda, believes
that in a scheme like this there is no scope for burdening students with
stifling software that would eventually become a liability for students.
“I would strongly recommend going in for open source software since it
gives students the capability to innovate, improvise and be creative.
There is no difference between using expensive proprietary software and
open source platforms and students who fear that their job prospects
might be hurt because of using free software are completely misplaced in
their fears,” Pitroda told TEHELKA.

Umashankar’s words turned out to be prophetic when ELCOT took out a
second tender on August 20, 2011. Not only had ELCOT booted out open
source by only allowing Microsoft Windows OS on the systems, but it also
removed vital hardware to accommodate the high cost of the Windows OS .
The new tender removed the webcam and Wi-Fi adapter from the system
while reducing the hard disk capacity to half (160 GB as opposed to 320
GB in the June tender). So ELCOT which wanted to reduce costs by about
Rs 3000 on the base price of Rs 15,000 chose to dispose of hardware,
which would benefit the students instead of shaving off the costs by
including free software with extra hardware. Considering the growing
penetration and relevance of internet in today's times, without the
Wi-Fi adapter, how beneficial is a laptop (defined as a personal
computer for mobile use) to students?

SO WHAT changed between June 4 and August 20 that led to Microsoft’s OS
being bundled into the laptop even though it meant higher costs and
removing hardware from the system, which is helpful to students?

Not only had ELCOT allowed only Microsoft Windows OS on the systems, but
it also removed vital hardware to accommodate the high cost of the
Windows OS

Diplomatic observers point out to the stopover of US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton in Chennai on July 20-21 when she met Jayalalithaa
before flying out to Indonesia on a state visit. “The proximity of the
Clintons and the Gates is well known to the world and needs no
explanation. Hillary Clinton has often endorsed Microsoft’s views on
piracy and curtailing open source software to protect Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR). Microsoft employees alone contributed close to
$1,30,000 to Hillary’s presidential campaign while giving just half that
amount to Obama’s campaign. And the revelations of WikiLeaks only show
how the US has been forcing governments across the world to buy
expensive Microsoft licences,” says Peter Gabriel, an online free
software activist.

Two cables, one originating in the embassy at Hanoi and the other at the
embassy in Tunis, throw enough light on the scale and nature of the
government-corporation nexus in the United States and its influence on
world governments.

According to one of the cables, the US government ‘intervened’ to force
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung to sign an agreement with
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that would require Hanoi to pay Microsoft
$20 million for 3 lakh licences. This even though the Vietnamese PM
wanted to hold the Microsoft deal as a deliverable till he met the US
president later that year.

Now put that deal in an Indian context where 68 lakh licences would be
required under Jayalalithaa’s ambitious free laptop scheme and the
business of diplomacy becomes clear. The Microsoft deal of 3 lakh
licences was dubbed in the cable as ‘the most significant agreement
Vietnam has ever signed with a US business’.

Microsoft harped on IPR and the fact that Vietnam had the highest
software piracy rate in Asia. “The cost of running MS Office is
extremely prohibitive. That will only encourage students in Tamil Nadu
to download pirated versions. Its own policies will encourage piracy,”
says Umashankar. Even Microsoft’s corporate affairs director in Thailand
had according to one cable ‘expressed concern over the Thailand
government’s policy of promoting open source software model over the
commercial source model as a means to curb piracy’.

Another indication of what Microsoft is up to in Tamil Nadu can be
understood from what the software giant did in Tunisia where only free
software was being used in the government since 2001, which prevented
Microsoft from participating in the Tunisian government’s tenders.

Microsoft, like its various charitable acts in India through the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, also helped a charity for handicapped
people run by the wife of the Tunisian president, Ben Ali. The
confidential cable notes, ‘Microsoft has agreed to provide training to
handicapped Tunisians to enable them to seek employment. The programme’s
affiliation with Leila Ben Ali’s charity is indicative of the backroom
manoeuvring sometimes required to finalise a deal. Microsoft’s reticence
to fully disclose the details of the agreement shows Tunisia’s emphasis
on secrecy over transparency. Ultimately, for Microsoft, the benefits
outweigh the costs.’

Microsoft eventually bagged the contract to supply 12,000 licences to
the Tunisian government. It also made the Tunisian government change its
tender rules for IT equipment, and every subsequent tender now specifies
that equipment must be Microsoft-compatible, which until then had been
prohibited by Tunisia’s open software policy.

A similar scenario is unfolding in Tamil Nadu where despite a major
shift to open source software in 2007, the state is moving back to
laptops for poor rural students preloaded with Microsoft Windows.

Microsoft’s profitability from its Windows OS is also facing serious
competition from the emergence of smaller and faster devices according
to a report by it research firm Gartner Inc. The report says there is an
increase in demand for cell phones and tablets in the West as well as India.

Gartner’s research shows that Microsoft Windows was installed in just
3.8 per cent of smart phones while Windows is not even counted much as
an OS in the tablet market. The dominance of Google’s Android with 43
per cent market share in this growing segment has forced Microsoft to
consolidate its most profitable Windows OS and Office by continuing to
dominate the laptop and desktop market.

"The cost of running MS Office is extremely prohibitive. That will only
encourage students in Tamil Nadu to download pirated versions"

A Microsoft spokesperson dodged most of the questions posed by TEHELKA
to send in the following response. “The tender specifies a “Windows
Starter or higher” version, so the implementing partners have the option
to propose the most suitable version of Windows 7. Windows 7 Starter
itself is specifically designed to cover all student essentials, such as
using the internet, sending email, and creating documents whilst
harnessing the most successful Operating System ever (today, more than
400 million Win7 licences have been sold worldwide). The implementing
partners can also bundle additional software, if required, and the
Windows Starter 7 (or higher version) supports standard drivers for
webcams and Wi-Fi devices. The Operating System licenses are perpetual.
If they want to, the students and educators will also be able to take
advantage of more than 3,50,000 open source applications that run on
Windows 7, as well as thousands of hardware devices.”

“I don’t know what is going on through the minds of my fellow officers
at ELCOT. I don’t think they have examined the pros and cons of the
system they will deliver to the poor student. After one year, the
performance of a Windows laptop goes down drastically. Using Windows
would greatly hamper the productivity of the student using it and the
machine would become useless within two years. This is a step backwards
for Tamil Nadu. They thought since it is the tax payer’s money, it
doesn’t matter what kind of laptop is given. Would anyone have bought a
laptop for their personal use without vital hardware at an enhanced
cost?” says Umashankar.

Bengaluru-based software analyst Niranjan Bhargava says: “An inbuilt
webcam would have helped poor students get access to qualitatively
superior training from India’s centres of academic excellence, which are
primarily concentrated in a few areas. A laptop without wireless
capability is outdated. It is going back in time when we should be
looking at leapfrogging broadband to improve wifi connectivity.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------
By Sai Manish who is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
sai.manish@xxxxxxxxxxx

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