As both Roy and Mike have already reported, it looks like 11,000 of the
17,000 Mandriva laptops will in fact *remain* Mandrvia laptops, despite
Microsoft's bribery attempts. The important detail that has so far been
omitted, is that this bribery has now been confirmed:
.----
| Mba-Uzoukwu wrote that Microsoft is still negotiating an agreement
| that would give TSC US$400,000 (£190,323) for marketing activities
| around the Classmate PCs when those computers are converted to
| Windows.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124&pn=2
"Marketing activities"?
I wonder where I've heard that one before:
.----
| IDG in Sweden is reporting the contents of a leaked Microsoft memo
| sent to Microsoft partners there, telling them to join the Swedish
| Institute of Standards and vote yes on OOXML. As you know, 20+
| newly registered Microsoft partner companies did so, thus switching
| the expected No vote to Yes at the last minute. It says Microsoft's
| representative Klas Hammar acknowledges the memo was sent, but says
| it should not have been.
|
| It costs money to join SIS, registration of around $150 and an
| additional $1,150 or so to get to vote, so Microsoft is reported to
| have told partners in the memo that companies that paid the fee and
| voted appropriately would receive "marketing support"
| (”marknadsbidrag”) and "additional support in the form of Microsoft
| resources" (”extra stöd i form av Microsoftresurser”)
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20070829070630660
Well, well, well ... so "Marketing" is Microsoft's codeword for bribe
money. Now we know.
Of course the Swedish vote was overturned, so Microsoft failed, just as
they have in Nigeria:
.----
| Now, however, a government agency funding 11,000 of the PCs has
| overruled the supplier. Nigeria's Universal Service Provision Fund
| (USPF) wants to keep Mandriva Linux on the Classmate PCs, said an
| official who identified himself as the programme manager for USPF's
| Classmate PCs project.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124
One wonders what might have happened to provoke this U-turn. Perhaps the
USPF read François Bancilhon's (Mandriva CEO) Open Letter to Ballmer:
.----
| Wow! I’m impressed, Steve! What have you done to these guys to make
| them change their mind like this? It’s quite clear to me, and it
| will be to everyone. How do you call what you just did Steve? There
| is various names for it, I’m sure you know them.
`----
http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/
Then again, maybe this is just the Microsoft Mafia "tying up loose ends"
to avoid exposure of something even nastier:
Questions abound on firing of Microsoft's CIO
.----
| In addition to the question of what corporate policy now-former
| Microsoft Corp. CIO Stuart Scott violated to lead to his
| termination by the company on Monday, many other unknowns remain.
|
| For instance, why didn't Microsoft and Scott work out some sort of
| face-saving departure? Was Microsoft tougher on Scott than it might
| have been on someone else because he was CIO? And what career paths
| remain open to the 40-something Scott?
|
| One thing is for certain: Scott's firing has become unusually
| public, even though the termination was disclosed in an internal
| memo and Microsoft didn't formally announce it to the outside world
| or specify what internal policy he had violated.
|
| [...]
|
| On the other hand, CIOs are not only in charge of ensuring that key
| IT systems stay up all of the time; they also have access to many
| of a company's deepest secrets.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9045958
Which of Microsoft's "deepest secrets" did Stuart Scott know, or was
about to discover, that made his departure so necessary?
Could this be the source of all those leaked memos.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "[Microsoft] are willing to lose money for years and years just to
| make sure that you don't make any money, either." - Bob Cringely.
| - http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2007/07/cringely-the-un.html
`----
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine) on sky, running kernel 2.6.22.9-91.fc7
22:29:19 up 17:55, 2 users, load average: 0.49, 0.33, 0.37
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