Per Slashdot:

An anonymous reader writes “After trying to bribe a local supplier with a $400,000 marketing contract, Microsoft has still apparently lost out in trying to woo Nigeria’s government to use Windows over Linux. Microsoft threw the money at the supplier after it chose Mandriva Linux for 17,000 laptops for school children across Nigeria. The supplier took the bait and agreed to wipe Mandriva off the machines, but now Nigeria’s government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal.”

All I can say is, good for them. The decision to use Linux appeared to have originally been made based on technical and value merits, and Microsofts attempt to buy out the deal was ridiculous. I can hardly blame Microsoft though. A vendor offering incentives to try to increase their market share is nothing new, but that doesn’t make it any less anti-competitive. Nigeria’s government choosing to step in is a huge win for fair-market competition and Linux.

Between this and the One Laptop Per Child project, it should be interesting to see how Linux is going to shape the developing world.