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Microsoft's Lobbying In Massachusetts

Posted by kdawson on from the schmandards dept.

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.

7 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Call a spade a spade by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

    s/to/too

    --
    This guy's the limit!
  2. Be careful what you wish for.... by PHAEDRU5 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Long ago I remember a Microsoft that had nothing but contempt for the political process. A Microsoft that intended to dominate the market through mass, vendor lockout, FUD, giving stuff away, etc.

    You know, the Microsoft that got sued.

    Having learned the lesson that ignoring politicians is not good for your health, is it any wonder that Microsoft is lobbying as hard as it can?

    Good luck to them. I'll be happy to see them take their lumps when they screw up their technology badly enough that the world moves en masse to something better. Meanwhile, I'm smirking at the do-gooders and busybodies who are being hoisted on their own petards.

    --
    668: Neighbour of the Beast
    1. Re:Be careful what you wish for.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'll be happy to see them take their lumps when they screw up their technology badly enough that the world moves en masse to something better.


      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.
  3. Capitalism at it's finest! by Guppy06 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " 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?

    1. Re:Capitalism at it's finest! by tokul · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If Office is so good, why is Microsoft so afraid?
      OpenOffice might be good enough and has lower price tag.
  4. ODF has usability issues? by tjwhaynes · · Score: 5, Informative
    I am more interested to see if the ODF have addressed the usability issues which were raised.

    ODF (Open Document) does not have usability issues. Period. It is a document format, nothing more. Now if you are talking about OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, KOffice, the next version of Wordperfect or any of the word processes/document systems that support ODF, then you might have a point. All the talk of ODF having usability issues is just the sound of FUD smacking the media around. Accessibility for the disabled should ultimately be superior with the ODF format because it is a completely open, machine readable format and therefore should be easily transformed into what ever media is required for disabled access (Large Print, audio - speech and speech recognition, braille, etc.).

    Cheers,
    Toby Haynes

    --
    Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
  5. Re:In their defence... by genooma · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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" "energy", what a strange way of spelling money.