Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Shoots Own Foot In Iceland
David Gerard writes "The Microsoft Certified Partner model is: an MCP buys contracts from Microsoft and sells them to businesses as a three-year timed contract, payable in annual installments. Iceland's economy has collapsed, so 1500 businesses have gone bankrupt and aren't paying the fees any more. But Microsoft has told the MCPs: 'Our deal was with you, not them. Pay up.' The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software, taking most of the country with them. (Warning: link contains strong language and vivid imagery.)"
I think the complaint of the MCPs is Microsoft is demanding payment for product the customer isn't paying for. Specifically, my impression is that Microsoft wants to be payed for the full 3 year contract (over 3 years), even though the customer that purchased the software went bankrupt after the first year. It's a good deal from Microsoft's point of view ...
If the flaming article is right, and if I've understood it correctly, that "cut" was negative: "Microsoft Certified Partners (MCP's), which are local companies that lobby the software, generally at a loss to themselves, as they know that Microsoft's lock-in is powerful enough that they can only get service contracts from the company if they offer a substantial discount on the Microsoft products." In other words, the MS licenses were a loss leader.
There's still a good argument that they're just like any business that gets stuck with unsold inventory when its customers get shot out from under it, but it doesn't sound like the MCPs were on a gravy train.
Of course, any other business whose retail customers disappeared could eliminate the bills from their wholesaler by simply stopping their wholesale purchases.
I particularly liked the part about how, unless Microsoft permanently reduces the cost of all their software to zero it's an attack on Icelands sovereignty.
That made me giggle a little. And then depressed that the guy who wrote it believes it.
"Unless, and this is important: Microsoft can redeem themselves towards the Icelandic economy if and only if they immediately reduce the price of all of their products to zero, permanently. Anything less will be an act of non-compliance towards the needs of the Icelandic economy, and can be considered an attack on the nationâ(TM)s sovereignty. Such an attack will inevitably be responded to by the market by way of an across-the-board adoption of free software."
Puuuuke.
Having your bank's own bank accounts frozen by a foreign power (the main reason Iceland's collapsing so fast) probably does count as "completely unexpected"...
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"