U.S. IT giant Microsoft is trying to arrange a meeting between its chairman Bill Gates and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during next week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, local daily Valor Economico reported.

To cut costs, the Brazilian government is promoting open-source software such as Linux. Brazil's National IT institute (ITI) is advising public sector entities and helping them implement this kind of software.

"They want to put pressure on Lula to switch to the other direction," the newspaper quoted ITI president Sergio Amadeu as saying.


(From Linux News, January 19, 2005)
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