Microsoft's $3 Plan for Education (everywhere)

There has been some coverage of this in the last couple of days.
I think Joe Wilcox from ZDNet's Microsoft Watch made a very good point in this blog post:

Microsoft will start offering the $3 suite [which includes Windows XP Starter Edition, not Vista Starter Edition -G.C.] to governments in the second half of 2007, which indicates how the company really sees the future state of Vista hardware support. Actions speak louder than marketing messaging.

Yes, even as I write this up on my work laptop running Vista Business (and we're a Gold Partner... where's the Enterprise love for the channel this time around?) and I think of the nightmares several of my colleagues have had trying to get Vista x64 to, well, work without optical drives disappearing randomly and my own issues of trying to find a working virtual CD/DVD drive in January... Shudder.

My own selfish reasons for not liking the message this program sends now dealt with, let's take the long view of what this project really means:

1. Linux and other F/OSS projects have a strong presence in the developing world, Microsoft does not.
2. Given 1, Microsoft's future market dominance is, at best, doubtful as information-based economies outside of Europe and North America begin to flourish and begin to rapidly grow infrastructure - an infrastructure not based on MS products, not on the server side, not on the desktop side, not on the mobile side.
3. Given 2, the future is not that bright for Microsoft - unless something changes.
4. Given 3, Microsoft, in order to grab a bigger piece of developing markets, had best start getting software in front of the upcoming generation at a (relatively) affordable rate before initiatives like One Laptop Per Child introduce the world's largest potential markets to F/OSS operating on a large scale.

So, is this altruism or indoctrination of potential consumers in the guise of an educational quick start?
Let me think about that...