Comments on: Lenovo Acquires PC Maker in Brazil

By: Robert Pogson

Robert Pogson — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:07:18 +0000

Thorsten Rahn wrote, "Linux in South America is about as popular as a root canal extraction." Governments of Brazil and several other South American countries have policies promoting FLOSS. Last I heard, most governments in SA are elected, hence popular. FLOSS activity in Brazil is quite high according to RedHat and it's moderately high in most of South America. Government of USA has noted that Venezuela uses FLOSS:"22. (U) In an effort to move away from proprietary software products, the Government of Venezuela in 2004 introduced a law mandating the use of open-source software in government and public institutions. This is expected to reduce the demand for U.S. software products somewhat, though much software currently in use is unlicensed or pirated. "

By: Clarence Moon

Clarence Moon — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:43:38 +0000

Linux in South America is about as popular as a root canal extraction

You only say that because the web usage statistics show that no one is using it for web access. But you ignore the FACT that Brazillians who shop online for computers at Walmart buy Linux machines more than any other kind. One theory is that they are buying them for cheap and installing a pirate copy of Windows, but there is some dispute about that.

Mr. Pogson thinks that users are not smart enough to do that. He thinks that either the statistics company is lying or the users are just setting up their browsers to spoof Windows OS use.

By: Thorsten Rahn

Thorsten Rahn — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:32:18 +0000

This should allow Lenovo a bigger share of Brazil and perhaps South America where PCs are a growth industry and GNU/Linux is popular.

Linux in South America is about as popular as a root canal extraction.

By: Robert Pogson

Robert Pogson — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:40:21 +0000

Agent_Smith, do you see GNU/Linux on retail shelves in Brazil? Is it popular with users or just a place-holder as some trolls here claim?

By: Agent_Smith

Agent_Smith — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:11:59 +0000

This raises some questions: The company is a consumer electronics maker, computers are just a market they venture on.
Lenovo is a computer maker, I don’t know how will they manage the other divisions of the company (TV Sets, DVD’s, Stereo sound systems, car systems and so on).

But, I wish them (and the workers of CCE) all the luck.

Best regards,