Via Dave, a contrarian piece on the BBC’s site says that it’s wasteful to ship second-hand PCs to Africa. I’d be interested in the reaction of Timothy Anderson, who runs the enormously successful World Computer Exchange, which can get second-hand PCs from the US to developing countries for $50 per box.
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John, reading the piece I thought it was interesting that Microsoft had a strong opinion on it. They also have a conflict of interest, they want the old computers retired so they can sell more of their latest and greatest software.
I too was particularly interested in the MSFT opinion noted. I think your read is likely the right one. I read into it that they were saying “don’t fret over open source v. proprietary” but I think that was just my narrowness of focus coming through.