11.29.09
Microsoft Starts Raiding India, Not Just the Middle East
Summary: Last week’s Microsoft raids in the UAE (and some more new raids) are increasingly seen as a business model
LAST week we wrote about what Microsoft was doing in the UAE apart from signing exclusionary deals [1, 2] and removing choice [1, 2].
As part of its recent tours in Asia (recall the marketing blitz in Jordan last month, as well as this new meeting), Microsoft is now engaged in attacking the very same people who have spread Windows over the years. Suddenly Microsoft pretends that they are the “bad people” (using them, then denouncing them, and finally putting them in prison).
Not just the UAE is targeted, either. A few days ago we found out that Microsoft was also raiding India.
LUCKNOW, INDIA: For software developers and resellers, the fight against piracy seems to be an unending one. The recent launch of Microsoft Windows 7 was shrouded with the news of its availability as pirated copies.
In order to check the open and blatant piracy of Microsoft products, the vendor recently launched a scheme called Seven 7s to encourage resellers to sell the original products. But even as the scheme was announced, Microsoft also filed a complaint about the rampant software piracy in a notorious market in Lucknow.
That’s comical. Since when does Microsoft care about counterfeiting in this country? As Bill Gates put it a couple of years ago, “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.” So typical.
Let us remember that Microsoft was found guilty of tax evasion in India just a over a year ago. Should Microsoft also be labeled “a pirate” in India and therefore its offices aggressively raided? Last month when we wrote about Bill Gates and Microsoft dodging tax we also summarised previous posts about the subject, namely:
- Microsoft is Still Massively Evading Tax, Insider Trading Revisited
- Microsoft in Trouble with the Law Again
- Microsoft Debt and Tax Evasion
- Microsoft Tax Avoidance, by the Numbers
- Number One Lobbyist Gets Tax Breaks, Government Deals, Innocent Children
- Is Novell’s Pal Cooking the Books as Well? (Microsoft)
- Comes, Iowa, Suppression of Truth, Collusion and Tax Evasion
- Summary of Microsoft Tax Evasion Stories
- How Microsoft Harms American Workers, Taxpayers, and the Environment
- Microsoft, a Notorious Tax Evader, Takes Money from Taxpayers to Help Its Own Business (Updated)
The Microsoft ‘press’ is now having a chat with a former Microsoft employee who accuses Microsoft of improperly and even illegally handling tax matters.
Appearing on KUOW’s “The Conversation” on Monday was Jeff Reifman, a former Microsoft employee who has been writing about Microsoft’s software-licensing practices and whether they are illegal.
He asserts that Microsoft sidesteps Washington tax law by licensing its software out of an office in Reno, Nev. Nevada has no software-licensing tax; Washington does.
There is some sweet irony in the fact that a company which commits so many crimes accuses others of being “pirates” or “thieves” and “criminals”. Have they no shame or humility to see the hypocrisy? █
“As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.”
–Bill Gates
