"Brazil, India, and China, which together count for more than a third of the world's population, all voted against Office Open XML in voting last week before the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Russia was the only member of the so-called BRIC nations to vote in favor of ISO ratification for OOXML."

Who remembers Red Flag Linux?

Russia's state anti-monopoly service launched a probe of Microsoft Corp over cutbacks in supplies of the Windows XP operating system in Russia, it said on Thursday.

Firefox, the open-source web browser, is close to overtaking the rival Microsoft product, Internet Explorer, in Germany, but Firefox still lags well behind in the rest of the world, according to market data Monday.

The world’s most popular operating system is Windows, which is made by the Microsoft Corporation. Linux has no links with Windows at all. Microsoft doesn’t contribute anything to Linux and, in fact, is rather hostile toward it, because it threatens Microsoft’s market dominance. This means that installing Linux can give you an entirely Microsoft-free PC. How enticing does that sound?

Developers in countries like China, India, and Brazil are much younger than are programmers in other parts of the world. And they're more likely to use open source.

Microsoft Corp. has dramatically cut the price of Windows Vista in China in a bid to boost sales of its new operating system.

How do you know when a country is ready to enter the legions of developed nations? When it’s ready to sue Microsoft. AFP reports that China is conducting an anti-monopoly investigation into giant Microsoft.

What’s holding it back is people’s love of the Microsoft operating system and that fact that it’s familiar and so on. But actually the trajectory of progress in the Linux world is very, very impressive. I think it’s only a matter of time for ARM to gain market share with or without Microsoft.