01.10.08
A Look Back at Well-documented Microsoft Briberies
It would be worth taking a quick look back for those who resort to using insults like “conspiracy theorist”. There are two new articles that happen to mention what Microsoft got caught doing just a few months ago. Here is the first.
The most egregious incident occurred when local Microsoft officials in Sweden were caught essentially trying to bribe business partners into joining a committee whose task was to decide whether to endorse Microsoft’s Office Open XML, the default format for Office 2007, as an international standard. It turned out that Microsoft managers in Sweden offered “joint marketing support” and other incentives to local VARs if they joined the committee and voted for OOXML.
Another short mention is here:
The business of establishing standards is ugly stuff, complete with politicking and dirty tricks and all that. Just look at Microsoft’s effort to get OOXML approved by the ISO.
As we emphasised quite recently, Microsoft’s dirty tricks for OOXML are far from over. The tricks, including the briberies — however subtle they may be (c/f Novell) — will never end because it’s innate. All we can do is find them, document them and present them. As long as Microsoft is above the law, nobody can actually punish them, except for the collective power of the consumer. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.