02.26.08
Microsoft ‘Stole the Elections’ in Africa, Australia, Tried Philippines Also
Ivory Coast-Sénégal
Here is a new short report:
The representative of Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) here in Geneva is Wemba Opota, a senegalese citizen,, who is responsible for Microsoft West Africa.
Remember what happened in other parts of Africa.
Australia
It’s not quite over yet. The news has reached the Sydney Morning Herald, which is probably one of the most read online publications.
Australia’s standards body has been accused of sending an inappropriate, though well qualified, delegate to a crucial international ballot on a controversial move by Microsoft to make its Office documents a world standard.
One industry figure says the move has left Australia looking like a “banana republic”.
Philippines
For information about prior incidents in the Philippines, start here and follow the links forward and backward in time. We have accumulated a good deal of incidents.
Here is the latest good pick: [via Groklaw]
Earlier, Microsoft had flown foreign journalists—including staff members from two local newspapers (not Standard Today)—all the way to Redmond, to pitch OOXML.
I drew some belated attention from the local Microsoft office when I questioned the wisdom of using OOXML as an international standard earlier this month. They didn’t fly me to Redmond, but they did want to meet me so they could air their side.
I proposed they type out their response, instead—which they did. In the spirit of fairness, I am reproducing their arguments here, edited for clarity and brevity. My comments follow in italics.
Going back to Australia, here is an example from the Australian press where you can see Microsoft twisting the arms of journalists for favourable coverage.
“Microsoft expressed disappointment at our views and said “a better story” would have been the positive benefits OpenXML…”
–Microsoft pressures ITWire for better OOXML publicity in 2007 (more here)
This was far from the first time that they are caught twisting journalists’ arms. Mind our past writings about Microsoft bribing journalists in exchange for good publicity. it’s an obnoxious phenomenon which deserves to receive wider publicity. █
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.