Indian State to Bypass Microsoft ÂMonopolyÂ
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In a new attack on multinational corporations, the Communist government in the Indian state of Kerala is campaigning to eliminate Microsoft from use in public institutions.
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Tehran - Iran has become the latest country to edge towards ditching the ubiquitous Microsoft computer operating system in favour of the open-source Linux solution, even if its refusal to abide by copyright laws means that the Islamic republic does not
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It may now be the turn of Indian companies to offshore outside India their IT services requirements.
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(InfoWorld) - The Indian state of Kerala has decided to promote free and open-source software in education, but will not make it compulsory, a minister in Keralaâs communist government said Wednesday. The government would like to avoid a monopoly by Microsoft and provide equal opportunity for both Linux and Microsoftâs Windows operating system in schools, said M.A. Baby, education minister in the Kerala government on Wednesday. The Kerala government is encouraging some 12,500 schools to give training on free and open-source software such as Linux. The decision to use Linux or Windows would be taken by teachers and students in each of the schools, Baby said. The move by the government reflects growing interest in free and open-source software among students in Kerala, according to Baby. About 60 percent of students use Linux in their school projects, rather than Windows, as they see the benefits of free and open-source software, according to Baby. â We want to increase the number of students using Linux,â he said. Kerala in south India had a population of 31.8 million, according to the census in 2001 of the government of India. The state has a literacy rate of 91 percent, the highest in the country. The recent statements by the Kerala government in favor of free and open-source software were prompted by the visit to the state last week by Richard Stallman, president of the Boston-based Free Software FoundationÂ (FSF). The government will take the lead in popularizing free software, the stateâs Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said last week at a seminar on âFree Software for Keralaâs developmentâ at which Stallman was also a speaker. Stallman, who also visited West Bengal, another communist-run state, was able to win some support from local political leaders. This is also not the first time that the state of Kerala has shown interest in alternatives to proprietary software. The IT policy announced in 2001 by the previous non-communist Kerala government stated that the government wishes to encourage the judicious use of open-source or free software that complements or supplements proprietary software. The position of the Kerala government is different from that of Indiaâs federal government in Delhi, which has declined to take a stand in regards to either type of software. Some Indian federal and state agencies have been beneficiaries of Microsoftâs programs to promote the use of information technology in schools.
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Microsoft Corp. will be forced for the first time to offer a version of its flagship Windows operating system stripped of a major feature, based on a court order issued yesterday.
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(InfoWorld) - Putting new restrictions on H1-B visas in the U.S. would be a barrier to trade, the president of a large Indian trade association said Wednesday. The remarks come in response to an inquiry by two U.S. senators into alleged misuse of the visas. Trade between the U.S. and India is two-way, and U.S. companies like Dell , Microsoft, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are benefiting from higher sales of computers and software to India's IT industry, according to India's NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies). NASSCOM made public on Wednesday contents of a letter about the issue, which it sent to U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Richard Durbin, who are investigating the alleged misuse of H1-B visas. It appears that companies are using H1-B visas to displace qualified, American workers, Grassley said in a statement earlier this month. New provisions proposed by the senators to ensure that H1-B visas are being used to meet a worker shortage and not to replace U.S. workers have been included in a bipartisan compromiseÂ immigration bill currently before the U.S. Senate. Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, and Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, earlier this month wrote to nine Indian companies, asking them for details on their use of the H1-B visas. NASSCOM said it had sent letters on behalf of the nine Indian companies to the senators. The nine companies together account for close to 20,000 H1-B visas, the senators said on their Web sites. Among the companies that received these letters were India's top outsourcers Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro. NASSCOM considers the issue of work permits like the H1-B visas and intracompany transfers from India to the U.S. as a trade issue that should not be confused with immigration issues. "We want to avoid this being confused as an immigration issue, particularly because it has come up in an immigration bill," NASSCOM's president Kiran Karnik said. India's minister for commerce and industry, Kamal Nath, has also warned of repercussions on ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations if there were any attempts to restrict H1-B visas. NASSCOM particularly objects to a clause in the immigration bill that prohibits companies from hiring H1-B employees if they employ more than 50 people and more than 50 percent of their employees are H1-B visa holders. This prohibition will affect the U.S. operations of Indian outsourcing companies as often they have to take staff from India to work on clients' projects, according to Karnik. These workers are in the U.S. on H1-B visas because they have the knowledge and experience to handle clients' requirements, Karnik said. It is also difficult for Indian companies to hire technical staff in the U.S., because of a tight labor market, he added. Taking staff from India on H1-B visas is not a way to get cheap labor, according to Karnik. The rules of the H1-B visa program allow H1-B visa holders to change jobs within the U.S., and market forces ensure that wages cannot be artificially suppressed, he added. The H1-B visa is an employer-sponsored, nonimmigrant work visa for a foreign worker coming temporarily to the U.S. to perform services in a specialty occupation. Indian outsourcing companies depend on these visas as a significant proportion of their staff work at client locations in the U.S. NASSCOM and some U.S. technology companies have asked for an increase in the current H1-B visa cap, which limits the number of visas annually to 65,000. In its letter to the senators, NASSCOM also mentioned that the largest outsourcing contracts from the Indian private sector, as also from the Indian government, have gone to U.S. companies. It said Indian students now form the biggest group of foreign nationals studying in U.S. universities, spending an estimated $3 billion a year. India is a major buyer of a whole host of U.S. goods and services, including aircraft, wheat, branded garments, and accessories, and the rapidly growing Indian economy is importing ever-larger quantities of these goods and services, NASSCOM said.
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The Chinese city of Beijing has cancelled an order for Microsoft software, apparently bowing to protectionist sentiment. The deal has come under fire in China, which is trying to build a domestic software industry.
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Beijing&#39;s city government has cancelled a controversial purchase of Rmb29m ($3.5m, â¬2.6m, Â£1.8m) of software from Microsoft after local rivals complained about the way the deal was handled.
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'No natural monopoly' The Globalisation Institute, a European think-tank run by advocates of the free market, today went on the offensive against Microsoft, calling on the EU to require all PCs to be sold without operating systems.â¦
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com. Beijing&#39;s municipal government canceled a $3.5 million deal with Microsoft under pressure from national government officials and in-country rivals, financial sources reported Monday.
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It&#39;s a weird case involving the sale of illicit internet porn, video via cell phone and the internet auction sell of VCDs. Unfortunately, the legal system in India has made this story even stranger by holding
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Microsoft has decided to stop pushing its Passport service following eBay&#39;s decision to drop it, effective late January, in favor of its own authentication tool.
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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) announced Wednesday that it would offer a low-cost, localized version of its Windows XP operating system in India to tap the large market potential in this country of 1 billion people, most of whom do not speak English...
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Microsoft plans to block access to some features by unlicensed versions of OS.
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India is accused of "protectionism" amid claims a UK bank was blocked from opening a rural network.
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Internet access may be cut for people who illegally download music and videos  under government proposals.
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India&#39;s arrest of an eBay executive over the sale of pornographic material by one of its customers via its Bombay-based internet portal has drawn a rebuke from the company and the interest of the United States government.