Yahoo!/Reuters: Brazil opposition slams "arrogant" Microsoft

"A project to provide thousands of cheap computers to Brazilian schools to bridge the digital divide in the vast country pitted U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. against the left-wing Workers Party (PT) this week.

The politically-charged government plan to supply 290,000 cheap computers to all of Brazil's public high schools, was intended to spread basic computer skills and throw open Internet access in this country of big regional differences.

But it ran into trouble last week when a judge ordered the suspension of the tender to chose a company that would provide and install the computers. Five of Brazil's fixed-line telephone operators were hoping to win the contract.

Criticism of the plan started before that, with the government's choice of Windows as the operating system for the computers instead of the much cheaper Linux operating system."

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