Microsoft's $3 Software Bundle
Two billion customers. That's how many Microsoft would like to have by 2015. But to get to that number, it needs to reach folks in countries where spending hundreds of dollars for Windows and Office is an utter impossibility--and a new package called the Student Innovation Suite is designed to do just that.
Announced by Bill Gates at a Microsoft conference today in Beijing, the suite bundles Windows XP Starter Edition (the very basic version of the now-outdated edition of Windows) with Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail, and some other applications--for a grand total of $3. The company will work with governments to provide students with low-cost PCS that include the software.
It's an admirable initiative, but it's also a concession to reality. With projects like One Laptop Per Child working to drive the cost of a student computer for emerging nations down to $100, standard Microsoft pricing--which starts at a hundred bucks for the retail upgrade version of Windows Vista Home Basic--just doesn't compute. The company has always competed with itself--in the form of pirated copies of its own wares--in poorer countries. And Linux and Linux-based applications are a huge boon for such users, since they drive the cost of software to zero.
Microsoft presumably won't make much money at all on the Student Innovation Suite, at least by multi-billion-dollar-company standards. But if it gets paid-for Microsoft products into the hands of young people in developing countries, it'll introduce itself to customers of the future--and make it a little less likely that a large chunk of the planet will grow up with Linux as the default computing platform.
Random side note: In Gates' speech today about all this, he said once again that Tablet PCs are his favorite Microsoft-related products, and that they may replace paper in classrooms. Given that tablets haven't remotely lived up to Microsoft's stated hopes for the platform--when it was launched in 2001, the company said that most notebooks would be tablets within just a few years--I find it oddly touching that Bill remains so enthused and optimistic....
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I own a Tablet PC and love it. Sure, they might cost a little more, and they may not be as powerful as some standard notebooks, it's an experience that you begin to appreciate after using one for a long time. If I want to, I can edit an image in Photoshop without a separate tablet (which came in handy for a school project), can do my homework without worrying about paper, which means I can do it just about anywhere (I can also send assignments electronically), and I can enjoy more flexibility in other areas.
If microsoft can provide it's buggy software to people in third world countries for 3 bucks, why can't they they do it for their USA customers. Oh that is right by buying their overpriced crappy software we are providing them with the ability to do so!
Come on now robber69 someone has to feed the Gates family.
But seriously MS is doing this for their already gorged and forced marketshare. But at least someone is watching out for all of those that can't normally afford the $400 Vista.
I think that it is great that people will be able to get a computer and software for $103.00 (?) to boost ownership and thus literacy rates. These people would other-wise not be able to access a computer or have to wait at some internet cafe and spend their meager earnings learning to use a computer and it's software an hour at a time. Will they do this in the Philippines where public schools do not have computers? If people think we are paying high prices for Vista so others can own and learn I do not hink they are looking at the bigger picture. Vista would be this price anyway and so what if we have to pay a little extra so others may learn and have and not just wish and dream that someday they will. corruptpharms@yahoo.ca
I need to add another comment on this topic. I think Bill Gates and Microsoft should open this initiative up more so it can reach the people that really cannot afford to be computer literate. There are people in third world countries that need everyone in their families to work so they can exist - mother, father, sons, daughters and so on. These are the people that also need access to the initiative as the one mentioned above. It would allow some of the people to become computer literate by educating themselves and thus have experience that could be used for higher paying jobs, which would further allow future generations to go to school as their parents could then be able to put educational funds aside. We must think of the people that need the technology training the most also. It will help give people dignity by allowing them to educate adn work themselves out of poverty. corruptpharma@yahoo.ca
I'm tired of PCWorld's cynacle approach to microsoft. Of course there is a good business reason for the to do this, but it is also a remarkably generous and genuinely good thing to do. It is a perfect example of enlightenned self interest. Give credit where it is due.
And, by the way, I just received my second generation Tablet PC (Toshiba Portege M400) and would never go back!