"If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good."

--Bill Gates, Microsoft

IT'S DEJA VU all over again. We have already seen that happening in the BBC as well as various other companies, into which Microsoft staff is emitted or injected -- whether deliberately or not -- to cause greater damage than they had caused from inside Microsoft. Now it's the Open University which we mentioned here in the digest. It gets a dose of Microsoft influence at its utmost level.

The Open University has appointed a Microsoft boss to be its fifth vice-chancellor.

Martin Bean is currently general manager of product management, marketing and business development for Microsoft's worldwide education products group.

Glyn Moody caught this one and added:

Of course, the first thing Mr Bean will have to do is change the name: we can't have any of that stinky "openness" around, can we?

As pointed out in the comment, it's a clash of cultures. The already-not-so-Open University might try to redefine its scope of "open" (a bit like OPLC after Microsoft and Intel had sabotaged it) and choose proprietary things like 'Open' XML.

It's worth remembering that Microsoft staff is being brainwashed by the obligatory guerrilla training courses. Mr. Bean is therefore hard to trust.

Direct link

Meanwhile, in what seems like an almost-daily or weekly recurrence, the Microsoft-influenced BBC is advertising Microsoft again, at taxpayers' expense.

Of course, this move couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that the security of Windows is so poor as to make the operating system unusable without this kind of anti-virus crutch. Well, that's certainly the impression you get from benign old Auntie.

Cronyism is a horrible thing and the only way to battle it is to make it more visible. ⬆