Via Scoble, comes the news of an incredible statement by Steve Ballmer, the second in command at Microsoft, saying that Windows costs about US$ 12 a year, considering the average life cycle of a computer. As James Robertson commented, it’s simply too amazing a allegation even to begin to make fun of. I feel like crying instead.
Even considering that you get a discount when you buy Windows bundled with the computer — something that, here in Brazil, it’s not true in most cases — Ballmer’s claim is a far cry from the truth. And it’s easy to show why.
Less than two weeks ago, I was in a computer store in a shopping mall near my workplace. My coworkers and I were checking the price of anti-virus software, and, just for curiosity, we asked about the prices of Microsoft software. Windows XP Professional was priced at R$ 1900 (US$ 664), and Office 2003 was even more expensive, being priced at R$ 2500 (US$ 874). Together, they cost R$ 4400 (US$ 1538).
I will admit the prices aforementioned are a little bit above the market’s average. Nonetheless, that’s the price you will find in many computer stores. Even considering the four years of use Ballmer mentions in the article, that’s a long way from US$ 12 a year.
Now, let’s take a look at the economic situation in Brazil. The minimum age is R$ 240 (US$ 84), which means Windows itself costs almost 8 times what a average works gets monthly here. Did I hear somebody say luxury item? Heck, you can buy an excellent computer here for the price of Office 2003 alone. It’s easy to see how absurd Microsoft prices are for the Brazilian reality, and how ridiculous Ballmer’s claims are.
To go further, taking the combined price of Windows and Office you can buy a good used car here. In fact, together they cost about one third of a brand new car. Worse yet, in Belo Horizonte, the city in which I live, that price would buy you one tenth of a nice, albeit small, house.
And I’m not even going into the details of how much the problems Windows gives you cost yearly (virii, trojan horses, etc.)
I don’t know what Ballmer was smoking when he was interviewed, but it was strong. And the most amazing thing about Windows and Office is that for that price you get only the OS and a bloated office package — nothing else. On the other hand, a normal Linux distro ships with more than 2000 different application, including various office packages, games, utilities, connection and sharing tools, Web servers, database servers, and scores of programming packages for a minimal price — in many cases, just the price of the media.
Do I need to say anything else?
