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Is Microsoft Paying To Influence UN Standards?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the but-that's-unpossible dept.

PizzaFace writes "Microsoft is reported to be spending strategically to influence the United Nations' standards for business data exchange. A UN standards-setting body, UN/CEFACT, and an industry-standards group, OASIS, had developed an open standard format for data interchange, called ebXML. Microsoft hired two people from UN/CEFACT, and a few months later the body decided to stop working on ebXML and instead to work on a Business Collaboration Framework for web services, promoted by Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft then paid for three UN committee members to travel to six countries to promote the BCF."

21 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. No - the price is too cheap by MrRTFM · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hardly think that this particular article rates as a big deal.

    All technical issues aside, if a damn UN standards-setting body is influenced in their decision by a couple of hotel stays and some plane tickets (which, they would have gotten anyway), then there is no hope for any of us - we might as well accept our clippy enhanced future now.
    Hmmmm... or maybe there is - hell, if could raise $10 grand maybe I could get a new standard which lets me get master control over something. :)

    --
    You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
    1. Re:No - the price is too cheap by lacrymology.com · · Score: 5, Funny

      "And I bet the MS PR folk really know how to perk up a lowley UN grunts ego to boot..."

      I can see it now:

      M$: We wrote this operating system JUST FOR YOU. We even named it after you.

      UN Grunt: WOW! Windows Me. I like the sound of that.

      M$: (evil laughter)

      -m

      --

      #
      # Modus Ponens
      #
    2. Re:No - the price is too cheap by Died · · Score: 2, Funny

      Get a crash course to master the Dutch language, and read it yourself at the link defMan mentioned

  2. Surely not! by tomcrick · · Score: 5, Funny

    No way, I am flabbergasted that someone would even suggest that Microsoft would do something as underhand as this.

    I for one will stand up and defend...err.....hold on....

    1. Re:Surely not! by peragrin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Let me guess your microsoft monopoly check ran out at the end of the sentance????

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:Surely not! by salesgeek · · Score: 2, Funny

      I am flabbergasted that someone would even suggest the UN would do something as underhanded as this.

      Where's my check?

      --
      -- $G
    3. Re:Surely not! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Let me guess, your microsoft spell checker license ran out at the end of the sentence?

  3. What? The UN? by Zilfondel2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    They actually do stuff besides sit politicans around a large table and disappear for the next 5 years?

    Yea right!

  4. Moral Dilemma! by rherbert · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft bad... IBM good... so... confused....

  5. "Spending Strategically" ??? by cHALiTO · · Score: 5, Funny

    It used to be "Bribing"
    Then it was "lobbying"
    Now it's "Spending Strategically"

    bs

    --
    "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
    1. Re:"Spending Strategically" ??? by ozbird · · Score: 5, Funny

      To paraphrase Bernard from "Yes Minister", It's one of those irregular verbs:
      I spend strategically, you lobby, he bribes.

  6. Re:UN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    And of course the US always follows what the UN asks it to do...

  7. Re:UN - The Best International Organization... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    International Currier?

    I have experience in multi-continental vindaloo management, as well as korma transfer and naan broking

  8. Re:UN by millahtime · · Score: 1, Funny

    "And of course the US always follows what the UN asks it to do..."

    A better thing is will the rest of the world just laugh at a bought M$ standard and ignore it while people in the US actually try to implement it.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  9. Serious, yes, but... by sdo1 · · Score: 5, Funny
    I simply can't take an article seriously that starts "PizzaFace writes..."

    -S

    --
    --- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
  10. Funding plan by fr0dicus · · Score: 4, Funny
    1. Don't break up monopolies
    2. ??????
    3. profit!!!!

    Except now we know what (2) is.

  11. New category for stories... by GreenKiwi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot needs to create another category for some of their stories. The "No shit Sherlock!" category.

  12. The UN has *standards*? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    They seem to be selling themselves a lot cheaper than any IOC member or figure skating judge.

    Seems to me that's an utter lack of standards.

  13. What MS really wants from the UN by PickyH3D · · Score: 2, Funny

    They want to be recognized as their own country.

  14. Microsoft buys UN by RaptorGeek · · Score: 2, Funny

    "In related events, Microsoft has offered to buy the entirety of the UN in a cash offer extended early Monday. The news sent the software makers stock into a slight tailspin dropping by nearly a full point, while the UN rose 2/10ths. While there is no official comment from either party, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was overheard recently remarking that domination of the world's software market has always been a springboard to bigger things. Analysts are scambling to determine how exactly the two corporate structures and cultures would mesh. Rumors that the UN's trademark blue helmets would be replaced by pocket protectors are, so far just that, rumors."

  15. Re:Question by Alan · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes.