Robert Pogson

ELCOT is doing it. They asked M$ to bid on 100 thousand copies of that other OS for laptops for students. M$ declined to match $12/copy and instead replied with a $57 bundle including Office. ELCOT plans to distribute GNU/Linux instead. What was M$ thinking? This is still the good old days? Any price is a good deal for our stuff? Who knows? ELCOT has been using GNU/Linux in their offices for years so they know it works. Whether GNU/Linux is your bargaining chip or the goto OS, GNU/Linux works for almost everyone.

What has ELCOT against bundling?

Microsoft’s offer and the current stage of negotiations:

ELCOT had asked Microsoft to supply its operating system for Rs.500 ($12). But Microsoft offered a bundled version of its operating system, office suite and anti virus software for Rs.2500 ($57). This is not acceptable for ELCOT as this was an academic edition. ELCOT does not accept the marketing concept called ‘academic edition’. There can be only one price for ELCOT to market a product. Academic edition concept goes against this principle. Again, Microsoft has bundled its offer. ELCOT believes in openness. Any such bundling could result in serious exploitation of the consumer. This could be considered an anti-consumer move. ELCOT cannot support an anti consumer move. Hence ELCOT asked Microsoft to debundle its offer.

HEHEHE M$ just does not get it. Everyone is wise to the bundling game. It used to work for most people when they had the only game in town , but the emerging markets are not locked in and have learned from the mistakes of others. Let’s see $12X100k = $1.2 million. $57 X 100k = $5.7 million. Do the maths. M$ is all about greed, not supplying the customer’s needs.