[kictanet] M$ Vendor Lockin In Kenyan Schools

[Dorcas Muthoni]

 Microsoft waives software license fees for schools

Schools  in Kenya will have more access to computer technology, with a free
license deal from the world's leading software producer.
Microsoft Corporation  forged the deal through the Ministry of Education to
allow local schools and higher education institutions to use the company's
software free of charge.
Under the arrangement, Microsoft will work with organisations currently in
charge of supplying computers to the institutions to first install the
programmes on the machines .
Learning institutions in the developing world have often been held back from
using legitimate copies of common software such as Microsoft's Windows
operating system and Office application suite because of license fees that
are locally unaffordable.

With the free licenses, schools can use the computer technology to build
capacity among teachers and students.
Mr Mark East, the general manager for Microsoft's International Education
Solutions Group, said the main drive for offering the fees waiver, was the
lack of computer uptake in the region's education system.

Mr East said the company learnt a lesson from Ghana, where its approach to
increasing computer usage in schools ran into trouble.
"In Ghana our approach first was to build capacity for teachers but we came
to learn that even after training the teachers they still didn't have this
basic tool—the computer," he said.

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http://bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1232&Itemid=4298
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