Today's Business Standard features an article on the front page on cheap laptops on the market, being offered with Linux pre-installed. You can read it here:

http://www.businessstandard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=8&subLeft...

The article's tone seems to be to downplay the emergence of the GNU/Linux OS and software package as a strong alternative to Windows and MS Office, requiring modest hardware to run, and the increasing ease of usage. Instead, it quotes the disadvantage of having to pay Redhat or Novell for support as compared to installing proprietary software from Microsoft. There is no mention of the fact that hardly any home user of Microsoft Windows ever reads up Microsoft Knowledge Base articles or calls Microsoft for support, at least in India.

There is no mention of the fact that Ubuntu, which is usually pre-installed on laptops, is available with long term support pledges, that it is very easy to keep a GNU/Linux installation updated, much more so than in case of Microsoft's offerings, which anyway cost you heavily for each upgrade.

Similarly, it also conveniently ignores the fact that apart from an office suite and the basic operating system, GNU/Linux distributions also feature a huge variety of other Free software packages, the Windows equivalents of which will see you bankrupting yourself over a period of, say, two years, considering installation and upgrades.

In fact, in the print version, there is a big box comparing the prices of software on 'cheap laptops' with Microsoft offerings, where it mentions, as an alternative to MS Office, Google Docs! OpenOffice is mentioned in the article, but only briefly. It seems there is an attempt to suggest that even though the laptop may be cheap, if you want to use serious software, you will have to pay a large sum of money or buy a costlier laptop. Oh, and the aspect of Windows' vulnerability is also blithely ignored.

All in all, considering that IDC has been quoted in the study, the bogeyman of piracy is brought forth, and there is a quote from Microsoft saying that the OEM versions of Windows and MS Office are cheaper than off-the-shelf purchases, this seems a direct and concerted, but veiled effort to cast aspersions on the opportunity offered by products such as MiLeap etc.

Gentlemen, I call FUD.

I am also posting this mail as a comment to the article. You are encouraged to add your comments likewise.