The International Finance Corporation turns 50 this year. To mark the occasion, the group released an article that talks about the IFC’s investments – past, present, and future. Its prognosis for 2006? Emerging markets are headed for a banner year.

Lars Thunell, executive vice president of IFC notes that the flow of private capital into the developing countries – at roughly $350 billion – is now more than four times the amount of international aid. What isn’t clear is how much of this money is actually flowing to BOP industries or creating BOP jobs. My guess – based on the hype surrounding large-scale manufacturing in China and back-office outsourcing in India – is relatively little.

In the news release, Thunell himself notes that the development community needs to do a better job of using market-based solutions to reduce poverty, address social needs, and preserve the global environment.

The New York Times posted an interesting article today talking about the politics of open-source software, and its consequences to the much vaunted One Laptop Per Child program.

According to the article, Dr. Negroponte’s decision to furnish his program’s inexpensive laptops with open-source Linux software instead of the proprietary Windows operating system has “ruffled a few feathers” at Microsoft. Negroponte insists he chose Linux not because it was free but because of its quality and maintainability.

“I chose open-source because it’s better,” he said. “I have 100 million programmers I can rely on.”

Not to be dissuaded, Microsoft has now started discussing what they say is a less expensive alternative: turning a specially configured cellular phone into a computer by connecting it to a TV and a keyboard. The company has even gone so far as to demonstrate a mockup of the cellular PC at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month.