Microsoft's Ethical Guidelines

hankwang writes "Did you know that Microsoft has ethical guidelines? It's good to know that 'Microsoft did not make any payments to foreign government officials' while lobbying for OOXML, and that 'Microsoft conducts its business in compliance with laws designed to promote fair competition' every time they suppressed competitors. In their Corporate Citizenship section, they discuss how the customer-focused approach creates products that work well with those of competitors and open-source solutions. So all the reverse-engineering by Samba and OpenOffice.org developers wasn't really necessary."

Comments

What is a code of conduct for?

[golodh]

The opening post displays a startling lack of insight as far as the purpose of having a Code of Conduct is concerned.

There really do seem to be people who believe that a Code of Conduct is there to limit what a company can do. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First and foremost, a Code of Conduct is an integral part of the company's PR effort. Every self-respecting company has to have one. It's cool to have one, and you look stupid and unsophisticated if you don't. Besides, there is no need to be without. There are templates with good-sounding Codes of Conduct that are guaranteed to leave everyone a comfortably free hand.

Secondly: damage limitation. A Code of Conduct is there to be able to shield a company from legal consequences of unethical conduct by it's employees on its behalf. If an employee is caught red-handed, it really helps if a company is able to state (truthfully) that this action contravenes their official Code of Conduct. This can really limit the damage.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[b00le]

My own employers have an ethics code which is 33 pages of closely-spaced Maoist gibberish, most of which has nothing at all to do with the ethics of company, or managerial, behaviour and much of which is actually exhortations to blind obedience for employees. All corporations tend to authoritarianism, and these are the people who actually own the world, while blathering about freedom and democracy. The truth is that anyone employed by a large corporation spends most of their waking hours living in a totalitarian dictatorship - could this be what is wrong with Western Civilisation?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[jkrise]

You can pick any browser you want from these alternatives: IE6, IE7, IE8

Not always. You can't pick IE6 AND Vista. Many sites work well only with IE6.

Recent versions of Exchange Server work well only with IE7 or later. So in a Corporate setting with Win2K systems running IE6 for the Corporate Intranet, things get very clunky and unmanagable. Add multiple versions of SharePoint, Office, Active Directory... and pretty soon, you realise even Microsoft's products do not work well between and amnongst themselves. Unless you upgrade all of them, all at once. Which is pretty much impractical and terribly expensive.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[canix]

Strange definition of "works just fine" - works fine but not everything works. "Works just about" would have been better.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MightyYar]

There is no way to search your messages from any browser except IE... that is a broken email program!

I don't expect it to be as feature-rich as Outlook, and I don't even care if IE has more features... but SEARCH? As a result, I forward all of my mail to a gmail account. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what if my gmail is compromised. Cry me a river.

a shocking statement.

[filthpickle]

that might be the dumbest thing I have ever read on any messageboard anywhere on the net.