The Official Mandriva Blog

This is my second trip to Angola. I went there last year for the first IT Forum, the local annual IT event. Last year, I initiated the discussions that led to us signing our first contract with the Angolan government. We now have a team of Brazilian engineers on site doing training and consulting. I went back this year for the second IT Forum, to check on the status of our current contract and to discuss future projects.

As in most of my trips, I haven’t seen much: from the airport, to the hotel, to the conference center and back. But I could not help be impressed by gigantic traffic jams, a visible haze of pollution, roads in terrible conditions, people quietly siting on sidewalks as if in their living room, continuous lines at gas stations, lack of public transportation besides the white and blue minivans, young people everywhere, women carrying huge baskets on their head, young peddlers selling the usual stuff and the most usual (stethoscopes?) from car to car in highway traffic jams, a no left turn policy forcing you do to long and convoluted detours, huge SUVs everywhere, garbage dumps and favelas, dust covering everything and turning into mud at the first shower, Chinese workers building highways, huge strange trees (at least strange to me), large and modern new development areas, major work on sewage (“the water is flowing betterâ€? says my friend Eric), steel and glass building emerging in the middle of the city, Wifi but little Internet bandwidth behind it, a beautiful conference center, etc.

The country has a major challenge developing its infrastructure quickly enough to keep up with the growth: Angola is the fastest growing economy in Africa, with an 18% annual growth, and it’s been going at this pace for more than 5 years now thanks to oil, diamonds, and agriculture (and peace).

Part of the infrastructure development is mastering and using IT. The man behind the development and use of IT in Angola is Pedro Teta, the Vice-Minister of technology and the head of CNTI, the national center for information technology. He holds a PhD in computer and control, speaks 8 languages, is smart, hard working, fast moving, visionary with an attention to detail. He understands one of the key issue is people and training.

Most companies and people at the conference were from Angola, Brazil or Portugal. We make sense here because of our Brazilian team.

Microsoft Africa’s Chairman was there and give a speech just before mine. The main topic was open source, so I assume I was one of the reasons for his presence. He made a few strange statements which I am not sure match the official Microsoft position: according to him, because of Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC project, Africa lost four years waiting for a machine that never came. He also said that Angola is the richest nation in Africa, so it should buy expensive computers (by which I suppose he means high powered machines running Windows). And he finally explained that open source and Free Software are not the same thing (at least he got this one right).

I gave a talk on low cost computers in emerging markets. I presented the Intel Classmate and the Angolinux distribution we installed on it: as part of the program we have here, together with the local community we built Angolinux, a localized version of Mandriva. It is now getting a lot of attention and excitement and with the Classmate was one of the hot topics of the trade show. Lots of people came to the booth to get copies of the system and to play with the machines, and many wanted to see if they could buy it.

I had a formal meeting with the Prime Minister. Pedro Teta took me and a Romanian professor to meet him and present two projects: a project of academic exchanges with Romania and the Classmate PC/Angolinux project for school deployment. The meeting was very formal, with translators, pictures and interviews with the press at the end.

So, I found Angola a fascinating country, taking the right path to accelerated development, and we’re happy to participate in this process.

On another front, it seems that our position Nigeria is improving and we remain involved in the project. It is too early to give precise facts, but things are better. So it seems that the attention drawn on the situation is helping towards a positive resolution.

Dear Steve,

Hi, this is François, from Mandriva.

I’m sure we are way too small for you to have heard of us. You know, we are one of these Linux company who is working hard to make its place in the market. We publish a Linux Distro, called Mandriva Linux. Mandriva Linux 2008, our last edition, has a pretty good review and we’re proud of it. You should try it, I’m sure you’d like it. We also happen to be one of the Linux companies that did not sign an agreement with your company (nobody’s perfect).

We recently closed a deal with the Nigerian Government. Maybe you heard about it, Steve. They were looking for an affordable hardware+software solution for their schools. The initial batch was 17,000 machines. We had a good deal to respond to their need: the Classmate PC from Intel, with a customized Mandriva Linux solution. We presented the solution to the local government, they liked the machine, they liked our system, they liked what we offered them, especially the fact that it was open, and that we could customize it for their country and so on.

Then, your people get in the game and the deal got more competitive. I would not say it got dirty, but someone could have said that. Your team fought and fought again the deal, but still the customer was happy with the CMPC and Mandriva.

We actually closed the deal, we took the order, we qualified the software, we got the machine shipped. To conclude, we did our job. And, the machine are being delivered right now.

Now, we hear a different story from the customer : “we shall pay for the Mandriva Software as agreed, but we shall replace it by Windows afterward.�

Wow! I’m impressed, Steve! What have you done to these guys to make them change their mind like this? It’s quite clear to me, and it will be to everyone. How do you call what you just did Steve? There is various names for it, I’m sure you know them.

Of course, I will keep fighting this one and the next one, and the next one. You have the money, the power, and maybe we have a different sense of ethics you and I, but I still believe that hard work, good technology and ethics can win too.

cheers

François

PS: a message to our friends in Nigeria: it’s still time to do the right thing and make the right choice, you will get lots of support for it and excellent services!

Et maintenant, pour les francophones (traduction par Caroline) :

Cher Steve,

Je me présente : François de Mandriva.

Je pense que nous sommes beaucoup trop petit pour que vous ayez, un jour, entendu parler de nous. Souvenez-vous, nous sommes une de ces sociétés Linux qui travaillent dur pour se faire une place sur le marché. Nous éditons une distribution Linux, appelée Mandriva Linux. Mandriva Linux 2008, notre dernière édition, a d’assez bonnes critiques et nous en sommes fiers. Vous devriez l’essayer, je suis sûr que vous l’adoreriez. Nous sommes aussi l’une des sociétés Linux qui n’a pas signé d’accord avec votre compagnie (personne n’est parfait).

Nous avons récemment conclu un marché avec le gouvernement Nigérian. Peut-être en avez-vous entendu parler ? Ils recherchaient une solution logicielle et matérielle abordable pour leurs écoles. La commande initiale était de 17,000 machines. Nous avions une bonne offre qui nous permettait de répondre à leur besoin : le Classmate PC d’INTEL, fourni avec une version adaptée de la solution Mandriva Linux. Nous avions présenté la solution au gouvernement local, ils ont aimé la machine, ils ont aimé notre système, ils ont aimé ce que nous leurs offrions, spécialement l’aspect ouvert et le fait que nous pouvions l’adapter aux besoins de leur pays et même plus.

Puis, votre équipe s’est jointe à la partie et le marché devint plus compétitif. Je ne peux faire de commentaires sur ce point mais certains pourront le faire. Votre équipe s’est battue et se battra encore, mais le client était satisfait du Classmate PC et de Mandriva.
Nous avons conclu le marché, nous avons compris la demande, nous avons qualifié le système et nous l’avons intégré à la machine. Pour conclure, nous avons fait notre travail. Et la machine est désormais livrable.

Maintenant, nous entendons différentes histoires de notre client : “nous allons payer pour les logiciels Mandriva comme prévu dans nos accords, mais ce dernier sera remplacé par Windows.”

Je suis impressionné, Steve ! Qu’avez-vous fait à ces personnes pour les faire changer d’avis ? C’est clair pour moi, et ça le sera pour tous. Comment appelez-vous ce que vous venez de faire ? Il y a plusieurs noms pour cela, je suis sûr que vous les connaissez bien.

Bien entendu, je continuerai à me battre cette fois et la prochaine et encore la prochaine. Vous avez l’argent, le pouvoir et peut être avons nous des définitions différentes de l’éthique. Je reste persuadé que le travail, les bonnes technologies et l’ethique peuvent aussi gagner.

Cordialement,

François

PS: message à nos amis du Nigéria : il n’est pas trop tard pour faire le bon choix, vous aurez beaucoup de soutien pour cela et des services excellents !

Mandriva today announced that the Nigerian government has selected Intel-powered classmate PCs running on Mandriva Linux for educational use in nationwide pilot in Nigeria. Mandriva is working with Intel Corporation and Technology Support Center Ltd. to provide 17,000 Intel-powered classmate PCs. The aim of this project is to improve the quality of technology delivered to students, and to help teachers and parents.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that Mandriva will be at the upcoming LinuxWorld conference at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. The conference runs August 6th to August 9th, and Mandriva’s Walt Pennington and Adam Williamson will be there from August 7th to August 9th. We will have a section of Intel’s Mobility Showcase display dedicated to Mandriva, and will be showing off the Intel classmate PC running Mandriva Linux, the Mandriva Flash USB key, and probably some other fun stuff too. If you’re going to the conference, please do drop by to say hi, check out our exhibits, or just bug us with requests to make your sound card work! We’d love to meet you all. If you live nearby but you weren’t planning to go, you might be interested to know that ‘Exhibits Only’ registration, which gives you access to the exhibition hall (where we’ll be) plus the keynote presentations, feature presentations and BOF sessions is free in advance - register here. It’s $50 onsite, so registering in advance is worth it.

Great to see that Ars Technica took time out at aKademy 2007 to look at the classmate PC running Mandriva Linux. Helio Castro, who was involved in the effort to port Mandriva to the classmate PC, did a demo for them, and they came away suitably impressed. Read the whole article here.