The main reason microsoft software was ever used in developing countries was because it was easy enough to pirate -- not something the company did "on purpose" that I'm aware of
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This! And I have to back you on that: “And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.” [1]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micro...
oh I had never heard it was an explicit strategy, I thought it sort of happened by accident. good to know
We could have just used Linux, which was free, instead of pirating Windows, but we didn't.
People in developing countries chose to pirate and use Windows because it ran most of the important apps of the era, namely video games, which were also easy to pirate, and because it ran on any custom built PC from the parts each user could afford to scrap together. It was the perfect storm.