Gates in SA

So Bill Gates now wants to help the people of South Africa get computers and get connected to the net. A nice idea, in theory, but somewhat problematic in practice.

First, getiing everyone a computer and an internet connection is not going to solve their problems. Someone who lives in a tin shack, without water, electricity, healthcare or food is not going to benefit from having a computer, even if it was free and ran off sunlight. Sure, information and education is key but most of south africa hasn't got to that point yet - if you're illiterate, you're not going to be able to use a computer. The most that I can see being useful is
having a community centre, with a computer literate teacher and helper.

The idea is that people can buy computers with 'microsoft starter software' - I'll get back to that one in a minute - and pay them off over time. So people who have very little money can now get themselves deeper in debt. Good idea. A recent report showed that about half of all South Africans live on less than R20 per day - they're going to take a long, long, time to pay off even a cheap computer. Maybe he's not aiming at the really poor, the rural communities and informal settlements, though - the article mentioned targeting the lower-middle-to-middle-income market.

Another aim is to get cheap broadband - I'm all for that, but I wonder if he realises the extent of the problem, and how restrictive the legislation is? And while the article doesn't explicitly say so, I think the implication is that the cheap broadband comes as a package with the cheap starter computer. Which would eliminate all of us who have decent, high-spec pc's but can't afford thousands a month for broadband (because it's not just the really poor who can't afford it - it's anyone who isn't very well off or very dedicated to being connected). And it's mtn wireless broadband, at that, so they need to drastically improve their coverage areas if this is going to work.

Of course this is partly just a ploy to get MS software into every little nook and cranny of the world (another report, which I can't find now, showed the main reason people use MSOffice is because everyone else uses it! so it's in their interests to get many people using it as possible, even at a loss) The concept of this 'starter software' is particularly annoying, both in the sense of trying to lock new users into MS software (OpenOffice is free, why not provide that instead?), but also the restrictions that they're placing on the software, in theory to make it cheaper. The
problem with that is that the software is already there, in full working order, and it won't actually cost them anything more to provide this software - it'll cost more, actually, to pay developers to build in these ridiculous restrictions. And so the main of aim of providing cut down software can't be to make it more affordable, but to prevent lost income by making people who can afford the full version to want that instead of the cheap version. Which is fair enough, but then say so, don't bill it as being generous and helpful and worried about affordability in order to score brownie points. And if the one example they give is typical of the rest, the restrictions really are ridiculous: only allowing two windows open at a time! How on earth does that affect the affordability of the software?!

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I always feel that these 'help the poor old 3rd world countries' comes with with a touch of patronisation, a dollop of self-interest, and a catch.