The ADMK minions and ‘The
New Indian Express’ were so thrilled over the meeting of US Foreign Secretary
Hillary Clinton with Jayalalitha on July 20, that the former issued ads and
posters hailing their supremo and the daily publishing an editorial that she
has emerged as the ‘Leader of World Tamils’. But conspicuously, the official
website of the US State Department did not mention a word about the meeting. Now
the cat is out of the bag. It was not Lankan Tamils issue that transpired in
their meet, but the US
lady pushed the US Business interests and successfully pressurised Jaya for the
market-starved Microsoft, of course at the huge cost of students of Tamil Nadu
and the State government. Here is an expose by the Tehelka’s business daily ‘The Financial World’:
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TAMIL NADU Chief Minister
Jayalalitha’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 ADMK
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. Jayalalitha 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
Jayalalitha 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.
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?
Diplomatic observers point
out to the stopover of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Chennai on July
20-21 when she met Jayalalitha 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 Jayalalitha’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.
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.”
Bhargava’s views are shared
by Chennai-based IT consultant Mahesh Bhadani. “The education system should be
vender-agnostic as ultimately it is the students who will have to pay the price
of Microsoft’s armtwisting and invasive technology.
The Linux system has
extremely beneficial academic applications for students available free of cost.
For science students, free software like Stellarium and Kalzium are immensely
beneficial.
The new tender also
reduces the warranty to one year. That is a real bad idea considering that most
of the users will be first timers who will be prone to mishandling the laptop
out of ignorance,” Bhadani said.
What should probably be
more disconcerting than Microsoft’s aggressive strategy is that Jayalalitha is
making the same mistakes that leaders of underdeveloped African nations made
under US
pressure.
Sai Manish, New Delhi
Courtesy: The Financial World, Oct. 4, 5
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