While the News.com article focuses on Sun’s plans to offer per-citizen pricing for its software, what is interesting is how it itends to tier the pricing based on country category.
Sun will sell its Java Enterprise System server software and its Java Desktop System for personal computers using three pricing tiers based on the United Nations’ definitions of countries as “developed,” “developing” and “least developed,” Schwartz said.
“Across Asia and the world, there is an opportunity to grow the market by providing per-citizen pricing for network services as well as delivering per-citizen pricing for a full-up desktop,” Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz said. “The governments that I spoke with last week are interested in investing in networking their economies and networking their populations,” a move that’s “reminiscent of what the U.S. government did 100 years ago and 80 years ago with rural electrification and highway acts.”
I think this is the first time any major software vendor is looking at pricing which is significantly lower for developing countries on a large scale.
