Why is the SA Deputy President signing deals with M$?
Steve Ballmer is in town. For those of you who don't know, he is the CEO of Microsoft.
Ballmer is apparently here to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and the Universal Services Agency(USA). It is a deal in which Microsoft is committing to give software to telecentres and community centres in poor areas, and assist them with training (the specifics of the deal are not that clear and Tectonic didn't get invited to the signing so we have to rely on what we've gleaned from a few reliable sources.)
So why is this important?
For a start it is important because Steve Ballmer is not only the second-in-command at the world's largest proprietary software company but he is also a man who has been widely quoted as labelling Linux as a "cancer".
It is important because South Africa's second-in-command (our deputy president) is signing deals with Microsoft's number two and yet the South African government has a Cabinet-level strategy to use free and open source software.
Elsewhere on Tectonic: Open source software is locally relevant, globally competitive and can make good business sense. That was the message from some of South Africa's top open source
pioneers at the African Computing & Telecommunications Summit in Johannesburg yesterday.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 1682 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago