Using OpenOffice gets you a free Nokia Phone in Kenya

I was pleasantly surprised when netbook shopping around Nairobi the other day to notice that Safaricom were offering an Acer aspire one @ KShs 27K.
This particular model comes with a 160GB HD and 1GB RAM and comes pre-installed with Windows XP ( yuck! I know, but bear with me ).
In an effort to sweeten the deal, SufferingCom are giving one a free gift, a choice between a copy of Microsoft Office 07 or a Nokia Handset, Now if one chooses to forego the Office 07( logical choice, isn't it? ) and instead use the Free( as in both Beer and Freedom ) OpenOffice suite from Oracle( which has ingested previous OpenOffice patron Sun ), one then gets a free Nokia handset, without having to pirate software or anything and still manage to do all of their Word-Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations et-cetera.

Thank you OpenOffice for the free Nokia and thank you for the Freedom.

Interesting look at commerce in action aka Matatu diaries

Just spent what has been both one of the most mind numbingly boring at
the same time intriguing 2 hours of my life! Where? At a Nairobi
Matatu terminus.
While waiting to board one of our cities travelling art canvases is
about as interesting or desirable as watching paint dry, what
intrigued of was watching commerce in action as the fare price
fluctuated from a sincerely obscene rate to what was finally
acceptable (to me).
Nairobi matatu touts have got to be some of the most arrogant people
working in the service industry that I have ever come across And they
no qualms about charging an exorbitant rate, but that arrogance was
quickly tempered by the appearance of more vehicles in the terminus.
The more competition that these touts had, the more considerate they
became and the harder they tried to persuade you to board their
particular vehicle, but once one vehicle left the terminus the change
becomes tangible as they get rude-r .
I had two hours to watch this in action and it intrigued me, but it
also brought up some questions like "Is a fully liberalised market
willing to regulate itself?" and "If you are a willing participant in
your own exploitation, can you really cry 'foul!' ?"
My opinions on both those questions being the subject of another blog
post, I shall leave video both open.

All in all it was an interesting 3 hours, yes 3 hours including the 1+
hours that I spent in traffic, tapping up this blog post on my mobile
phone( no qwerty! )
Just thought you might wanna know.