I'm not sure what the deal is with Microsoft and Africa. In this article, technology centers throughout South Africa could get free copies of Windows right from Microsoft (government-backed centers, notably). But over here we see that the GM for Microsoft Nigeria is belittling the idea that free software is of any value.
"It's easy to focus on cost and say how much is a product, but at the end of the day it's the total impact that's important. You can give people free software or computers, but they won't have the expertise to use it," he said. "Microsoft is not a helicopter dropping relief materials; we're there in the field."
Anyone who needed to get a job out of undergrad will understand the flaw in that reasoning: if people only hire experienced workers, how do unexperienced people get experience in the first place. Of course, if you train people on a limited set of tools in an operating environment that all but demands future use of single-company products, you effectively guarantee yourself future customers.
