It is unlikely that microsoft will interfere with this deal. Chavez is anti-American and more than likely made his choice based on that. There is nothing that MS can do about that, unless they forfeit their american citizenship.

I guess you never heard of hugo chavez then eh Jim, he despises america's ways and likely picked linux because MS is so capitalistic, and I doubt there's anything they can do about it.

Jim: a valid reasoning. Just be aware that Venezuela is a free country, where the U$ influence is less powerful than in its european colonie$$$. Nice to see Hugo landing another clever deal. If only these notebooks would have AMD processors though ;)

The BBC put it so much better: 

"Venezuela splashes out on new laptops"

A minister said "Gringo porn for all the gauchos - very good!"

You don't think that Microsoft won't interfere with this? You're crazy. That's millions of children learning Linux as their primary OS. This isn't going to happen, not without major interference by Microsoft.