Last week Bill Gates admitted that they couldn’t keep up with the mobile revolution. But it seems that Microsoft is making its best efforts now. With a quick schedule to evade the press, CEO Steve Ballmer paid a visit to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last Friday night and then to Turkish Minister of Science, Industry and Technology Nihat ergun the following morning.
The course of this visit was to attach Microsoft into Fatih Project, which is $4-5 billion (8 billion TL) project to arm 15 million students with tablet devices and educate them in interactive classrooms which support smart boards, new photocopy machines, cameras and etc… After the 40 minute meeting with Microsoft CEO Ballmer, Turkish Minister of Science, Industry and Technology Nihat Ergun stated that the path is clear for Microsoft’s entrance into the Fatih Project. But Ergun pointed out some important requirements and said:
“All the conditions are set for this project. For the tablets, the bidding firm should build a production facility in Turkey and also establish an R&D center to support the development of this industry in Turkey. Open source software is also very important to develop the applications. Anyone, taking these conditions into account, can be a player in this project. They can be bidders if they are willing to fulfil these requirements. Microsoft expressed their willingness to participate in this project. They said they can collaborate with the domestic partners, their business partners to fulfil the domestic production requirement and to fulfill the software needs. They said they really intend to establish an R&D center in Turkey.”
Minister especially stated that the production of the tablets should be done in Turkey. Ergun said they delivered this message to Microsoft clearly. He also said that PM Erdogan underlined this requirement when he met Ballmer.
But there is also another claim that’s being whispered in the backstage of the Parliament. Resources say that Microsoft has actually offered not to build a production facility but to give away the tablets for free.
A Huge Opportunity for Microsoft Tablets
Turkey is a pretty powerfull market for Microsoft. Redmond firm complains about the regulations regarding intellectual property from time to time but we have to remind you that Microsoft has earned $500 million from this market last year.
We contacted an expert from the market in order to interpret these meetings and the claims about Microsoft’s free tablets. He said:
“Mobile phone platforms are the new war stages of the era. Aside from the 2 giant platforms (iOS and Android), 4 different platforms have just been introduced into market last week. Ubuntu, Firefox, Tizen and Blackberry are all new and ambitious platforms. So it is not easy to seize a place in this market.
Turkey is one of the most powerfull markets for Microsoft and Fatih Project presents an enormous opportunity. Whoever steps into a pivot role in this project will surely be one step ahead of their rivals. Intel has also tried to be involved in this project for some time but since they are one of the companies that missed to jump on to the mobile train, their chipsets are no match for the other players in mobile industry. If you carefully think about this project, you will see that the tablets that will be given to 15 million students will not only serve todays ambitions but will also create a user habit and affinity towards the successfull bidder. Therefore if Microsoft really offered to give them free, they have put a genius step forward.”
We reached Microsoft’s Turkey office and asked for a comment. But haven’t heard form them yet. We will update this article if they return our questions.
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