In the six months since Microsoft announced Unlimited Potential, a company-wide plan to help bring technology skills and resources to developing countries to foster social and economic growth, it has been building programs and testing products around the world, said Will Poole, corporate vice president for the effort.

Poole was in New York Friday to discuss Unlimited Potential, a program through which the company works with community leaders in countries where technology has not yet had as much of an impact on businesses and communities as it could.

"If you look at the challenge of addressing the needs of [developing countries], it isn't going to be met by donations by Microsoft [and others], it's going to be met by people building a business to serve the needs," Poole said.

Analysts and observers have suggested another reason Microsoft is interested in working with emerging markets on technology efforts -- the fight against Linux, which is proving a less expensive and easier to access option for people in countries with scant access to technology. In its effort to make it a Windows world, Microsoft has recognized the need to foster education and business development to get software like Windows and Office in the hands of people who wouldn't typically be able to afford it, they said.

To do this, Microsoft is working with business leaders in countries to find the most viable business methods for bringing PCs to as many people as possible. Through this work, the company recently tweaked its FlexGo pay-as-you-go computing program it was piloting in Brazil with partner Telefonica to offer PCs on a subscription basis instead because it was a better fit for customers, Poole said.

"It depends on the dynamics of each market and the development of that market" what kind of business models work in that country, he said.

In fact, the new business model for PCs in Brazil grew out of work Microsoft had been doing in Mexico with telecom partner Telmex to offer PCs on a subscription basis as part of a bill for monthly Internet access and phone service, Poole said. That work was done through the Subscription Computing Program, which preceded the idea of linking Microsoft's global efforts under the Unlimited Potential umbrella, but has since been subsumed into that more focused effort.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.