Tamil Nadu asks Microsoft for Rs 500 Operating System
By Shalini Singh

ELCOT (Electronics Corp of Tamil Nadu), is owned by the State Government.  Tasked with the primary role of reducing the Digital Divide in Tamil Nadu, it has launched a new scheme to sell 100 thousand laptops with Linux Operating system. Each of these laptops would be sold to school and college students at a discounted price of approximately Rs. 30,000.  The purchase price includes a 3-year international warranty. 

Each student would save up to Rs. 10,000 if buying a similar product in the open market.

According to ELCOT, it did the usual range of tests on laptops of different vendors, but “The notable tests are fire walk and Linux compatibility tests. The fire walk test is a special test carried out by ELCOT to ascertain the ruggedness of the Laptop. In this case, the Laptop Computers are placed on a hard floor and persons weighing 80 kgs and above are made to walk on the Laptop Computers. Only those Laptop Computers which clear this test without any damage are allowed to participate in the price bid. Similarly, ELCOT carries out extensive Linux compatibility test with Redhat and Suse Linux. Unless the Laptop Computer works fully under these two Linux distribution environments, they are not allowed to reach the price bid stage. Hence, the Laptop Computers that are being procured by ELCOT are rugged and are compatible for multiple operating systems, notably the most popular and stable.”

The ELCOT website gives an interesting insight on how and why Microsoft has not landed the contract to supply its operating system to such a large project.  According to ELCOT: “We 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.

Microsoft India is yet to provide the revised offer (Rs.500 for its operating system and debundling its current offer to fix the price of its office suite and anti virus software). Once we receive Microsoft's revised offer which is acceptable to ELCOT, we would get back to you with our offer for Microsoft products. “

In India many policies are driven by populist appeal with an eye on the next elections.  In this case,   populism is very practical and looks like a win-win situation.  In some situations Microsoft is the best product, in others open source like Linux is better.  Whatever the merits, it is always admirable for any Government Department to publicly detail its negotiations with giants like Microsoft.   Much credit to ELCOT for such transparency.

Techgoss note:  The configurations of the laptop are

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 1.8 Ghz T5670 processor/ 2 MB Cache / 800 Mhz FSB/ 15.4" WXGA-TFT screen/ 320 GB-HDD/2GB-RAM/DVD multi burner/Bluetooth/built in 1.3 MP camera/ Fireware/ 4 USB ports/Gigabyte LAN/ Wi-fi/ 6 Cell Li-ion battery/Suse Linux Enterprise Edition 10.1 with one year subscription/ Internal modem/ 3 year international warranty (except for battery - battery carries one year replacement warranty) Carry bag.