[ossig] Microsoft Pumps $1 Bln Into UN Computer Aid ?

[Nan Phin <nplee@xxxxxxxxx>]

U.S. software giant Microsoft said on Friday it would pump $1 billion of
cash and software into a computer training program it has set up with the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

"The scale of the program we have here is quite unusual in terms of
corporate giving. It's $1 billion over five years and that represents both
cash and software," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told journalists at the
World Economic Forum.

The United Nations will work with the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program
to invest in community centers in poor regions where people can learn how to
use personal computers and enhance their job prospects.

The announcement follows a pilot project in Afghanistan where the two
organizations set up centers at 16 locations, aiming to train 12,000 users
this year.

UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown said the ambition was "to hook up the
world to the Internet."

Microsoft would donate cash and the latest versions of its software, but the
centers were free to expand with other software, including open source
software such as Linux, Gates said.

"They'll be adding software from other providers. There's no exclusivity,"
he said. "Our role is to bring software that is quite popular, and happens
to be ours."

Microsoft software is used to run more than 90 percent of the world's PCs.
Governments in several emerging countries, such as Brazil and Thailand, have
started to promote computers that run the rival Linux operating system.

Linux is an open source program that can be obtained for free or at little
cost.



--

best wishes.
/nan phin

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.


---------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe: send mail to ossig-request@mncc.com.my
with "unsubscribe ossig" in the body of the message