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Microsoft's Lobbying In Massachusetts
Andy Updegrove writes "Carol Sliwa at ComputerWorld has posted two excellent stories just now on ODF in Massachusetts, based on over 300 emails secured under the Massachusetts Public Records Law (the local analogue of the Federal Freedom of Information Act). The longer and more intriguing article focuses on Microsoft's lobbying efforts in Massachusetts, and confirms, as I reported last week, that Microsoft lobbyist Brian Burke was spearheading an effort to bring pressure on the state's Information Technology Division (ITD) by promoting an amendment that would have taken away much of the ITD's power to make technology policy. The article goes on to describe the back-channel negotiations between State CIO Louis Gutierrez and Microsoft's Alan Yates, and the way that Microsoft played the lobbying card throughout those discussions in an effort to protect its wildly profitable Office software franchise against potential erosion by competing products that support ODF." Andy has a blog entry on the lobbying effort.
far to many re-defining words in todays world
s/lobbying/bribing
s/pretexting/lying
Any supplier that makes enough to pay a full time lobbyist is overcharging.
" Microsoft lobbyist Brian Burke was spearheading an effort to bring pressure on the state's Information Technology Division (ITD) by promoting an amendment that would have taken away much of the ITD's power to make technology policy."
So, instead of spending time and money on making a better product, Microsoft decides to spend it on removing the power of choice from potential consumers? It's beginning to seem like the only products actually available in a free market here are the legislators themselves.
If Office is so good, why is Microsoft so afraid?
I hope you're prepared for disappointment, because it's on the way. No matter what Microsoft does, they always win. Even the worst of their worst (WinME?) or the EU fines didn't even put a dent in their operations and profits.
It's like the dreamers claiming that "Nobody wants Vista" or "MS miscalculated this time!", and "Who needs to 'upgrade' to Vista?"...the same shit was said about every other Windows release, yet each very quickly became the new standard.
If Microsoft shipped shrink wrapped boxes of horse shit they'd still dominate. Yay.
It takes a lot of energy to convince people that using open, standard formats to store files somehow gives "preferential treatment for specific vendor products"
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
ODF is a data format definition not an application. It does not have usabilitiy issues, applications do.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Why does M$ think they can mess with everything? Or do they just want are money?
What? You mean unlike every other major corporation on Earth?
Companies want to do whatever they like unimpeded and what they like to do is earn as much of our money as possible and control as much of their respective markets as they can. But to disparage Microsoft like this is somehow unique to them is a bit foolish. Right now Microsoft draws all the ire. Someday it will be someone like Google or Apple.
I'm not necessarily defending Microsoft. I'm just trying to point out what I feel are childish perceptions some people have of companies. How people can go to absurd lengths to put one company on a pedestal, Apple is one of the first examples to come to mind, and then go to the most absurd lengths to bash a company Microsoft. Look at Sony. Imagine what people would think about Apple if they had 80% or 90% marketshare. Would Apple also be sued by various nations for including Quicktime, Mail and Safari with OS X? And lets see how people feel about Google in 10 years.
So lobbying isn't new. So what. Just because the article lambastes Microsoft for lobbying doesn't mean it is flamebait, nor does it mean that the article is wrong. I could understand your angst if you were complaining that there are no articles on the net attacking other companies' lobbying efforts as being bad (like for instance, when you google for 'haliburton and lobbying'). I could also understand you being angry if perhaps you had previously, in this forum, tried to point our attention to lobbyists from other companies who were trying to create vendor lock-in in public/government sectors and were rebuffed.
Lobbying is shite pure and simple. This story is an example of lobbying and conflict of interest in the technical/computer world. Seeing as how this is a forum on technical and computer related topics, it works here. So maybe you should have titled your post "This post is flamebait"... and I shouldn't have bit. Ahh well... can't help my nature.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
The anti-trust case was not about companies "moaning about getting their asses kicked", it was about Microsoft breaking the law. If other companies had been permitted to ignore competition law, Microsoft would be long dead; Gates was a successful criminal but a mediocre businessman.
> Now, congratulations, people. You've awakened a sleeping giant.
Sorry, I don't see what basis a software vendor has to lobby against a document format chosen in the public interest. Microsoft are free to support ODF or not, anything else is just the dirty business tactics we've come to expect from this criminal monopoly.
If I have the right take on you, you're from a country famed in the past for its tolerance.
I see now that your new Muslim Overlords are changing the tenor of discourse in the Netherlands. Instead of live and let live, it's a slit throat and knife in the chest for Theo van Gogh, and nukes for Microsoft.
Nice.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I don't normally reply to AC's but it got modded insightful for no good reason and saddens me because it suggests there is way too much ignorance on the issue.
In my limited experience working on the contractor side of gov't projects, I promise you lobbying of all kinds is done for every single expenditure. Standard Operating Procedure.
I don't know how much of it is legal versus illegal, but this is an excellent example of how gov't IT expenditures really work. Nearly all of the decision making is done via back channels, then the appropriate public documentation is created and the money is spent.
If there was ever a better application of the term "textbook case" I cannot think of it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html