… for at least those two recent (and well publicised) blunders:
- Wiki-gate Rick Jelliffe was offered money by Microsoft to make the Office Open XML page on Wikipedia “more objective” (as said by Rob Weir). The slight problem is that this is considered to be a Conflict of Interest which is clearly a breach in the terms of use of the encyclopedia.
- Bribing Giving free laptops to bloggers (i.e. bribing them) so that they are more inclined to write something positive about Microsoft and/or Microsoft products.
Stupid!
well desperate situations call for desperate measures!! lol
am not against the idea of giving laptops away to blogger :D
if they want us to write something nice about microsoft, we can write;
“Microsoft is nice, but Linux/Mac are nicer”
thats it, where is my laptop?
Go next to your letter box with a “la bouzie rouze” and wait :-)
I find it hard to call a company with billions of dollars in the bank stupid.
The whole thing has been blown out of proportion by bloggers, as usual. Would it have been different had they contacted an official of Wikipedia to ask for the amendments? No, of course.
Funny isn’t it?
This can only mean one thing: you can have billions of dollars in the bank and still be stupid :-)
More seriously, Microsoft has always violated rules. At least now, they can’t do this with impunity because many very influential people (some of them are bloggers) do not think that Microsoft is the center of the IT world any more…
No, it isn’t funny. It is just callous Microsoft-bashing.
All Microsoft moves have been well calculated (from the very purchase of DOS and the deal with IBM to the latest hire of Jelliffe for the Wikipedia changes). The Wiki-gate, as you call it, was never to be a win situation for Microsoft whatever approach it took. I think that is why they were so open about this move; only bloggers made it look bad.
The effort of a large number of open-source bigots have only managed to dent it. I say “dent” because that is all it is to Microsoft at this point. In the enterprise, Microsoft remains a force to be reckoned with. Care to count the number of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office installations *still* in use today!?
I would not call the overrunning of the Netscape domination in the browser market a stupid move. Unfair competition, according to the laws of certain countries, but still a win based on clever strategic thinking.
Eventually, if you throw enough people against Microsoft, the company will suffer, but just this fact testifies of the power of Microsoft; it takes a lot to take it down, and it is not even there yet.
But you do *know* that Bill Gates and Satan are only one?
:-)
Nah, the guy is a philanthropist. He’s sharing this gains with charities, what more can you ask for? ;_
Lighten up guys, Avinash is only yanking your chains :-)
*Noob mode ON*
omagad! like totally liek OMAGAD! dudes liek i totlayy heard like that thing which goes like you know like omagad there is that thing like that goes around and which is called like a “Lunix Distrobution” and Like OMAGADH it given away for liek TOTALLY liek freakkin FREE!
I MEAN IT LIKE TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. AT ALL! THEY EVEN GIVE YOU THE CD FOR FREE! AND LIKE THERE IS MICROSOFT THAT IS COPYING THAM BUT THEY ARE LIKE GIVING LAPTOPS INSTEAD LIKE OMAGAD MICROSOFT IS LIKE BETTER! LIKE OMAGAD TOTALLY! OMAGAD MY CAPSLOCK KEY IS STUCK! OMAGAD BILL HELP ME!
*Noob mode OFF*
Okay jokes aside. Microsoft does business. So they do it with what they have and that is money.
Linux companies doing unbuntu give out free CDs, microsoft gives out free laptops.
But openly bribing the wikipedia guy is a bit stupid…
Couldn’t they just have registered at wikipedia and changed the article themselves?
Yaasir, you are a born actor, omagad :-)
Ki OMAGAD OMAGAD sa piti la p cozer koumadire line fek sorti engleterre line vini p declare trop anglais ici.
Mauricien p gagne limpression li ene XX kan p lire so commentaire.
To Avinash. Keep up the good work dude!
OMAGAD , THAM, haha!