“Microsoft chairman Bill Gates’ tour through Asia recently
created the expected column inches in the newspapers, with most of
the stories highlighting the cut-price offers for its Windows
operating system (OS) that Microsoft promised to sell in Asian
markets to address affordability concerns.“At a big-picture level, one wonders if Microsoft would have
gone to Malaysia and China with that message if the ‘L-word’ was
not around. That’s right, ‘L’ as in Linux, the operating system
which is available free on the Internet, and which Microsoft has
acknowledged as one of its primary challenges going forward…”