Summary: Microsoft's political side shows its face in many areas, both in Europe and in the United States

AN important subject that wrote about a few days ago [1, 2] is this arrangement between the US Department of Justice and Microsoft. This is summarised by the Microsoft reporters as follows: "Microsoft Nears DoJ OK to Collect Protocol Fees"

Microsoft will deliberately avoid standards, create proprietary substitutes and then withhold information, bringing to a halt progress, then documenting some stuff (maybe a decade later) and demanding money for software patents adjacent to these anti-standards specifications. We made a comparison to Rambus the other day and now comes this IDG report:

EC Agrees to Close DRAM Antitrust Case Against Rambus

[...]

And it could have a bearing on how the European Commission deals with the controversial decision by the international standards body ISO to recognize Microsoft's OOXML document format, according to some observers.

[...]

The Commission is in the process of settling a much bigger antitrust case against Microsoft. A final decision to accept the software giant's settlement offer is expected next Tuesday.

In addition to creating a level playing field for competition among Internet browsers, Microsoft is understood to have also made promises not to unfairly withhold information from companies that want to make products compatible with the word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools contained in Microsoft's Office suite of software applications.

As part of this probe the Commission was examining whether OOXML is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products, and in April last year, when OOXML won ISO status, the regulator suspected foul play.

Microsoft was suspected of having unfairly influenced the vote by national ISO affiliates in order to secure the ISO label on OOXML.

It is unclear how the anticipated settlement announcement of the Microsoft case next week will deal with the questions surrounding OOXML. "Microsoft's settlement offer in the interoperability case has addressed the main concerns other companies had, but I don't know how this specific issue has been settled," said one person familiar with the Commission's thinking who asked not to be named.

Microsoft and SAP want to decide on Sun's (and ODF's) fate for all of us (they lobby heavily [1, 2, 3, 4]) and to many people's surprise, they are actually allowed to do so, despite obvious conflicts.

With an assist from Microsoft, SAP is making a renewed push against Oracle in the EPM (enterprise performance management) space, and has a rip-and-replace success story to show for it.

As long as Microsoft is controlling the government's judgment, such problems are likely to persist. The OOXML corruptions involved a lot of political pressure as well.

Former Microsoft employees are now looking to gain more government positions.

Microsoft alum challenges Inslee

James Watkins, a Redmond entrepreneur, on Wednesday announced he would challenge Rep. Jay Inslee, the Democrat from Washington's 1st Congressional District.

Microsoft is getting closer -- physically -- to Washington D.C.. The Gates- and Microsoft-hired lobbyists will soon be joined by 10,000 guests. Just see the press stories, as it's appalling.

Here is another new press release about a manager of "Microsoft banking, capital market":

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Joe Pagano has accepted the role of Managing Director of Banking and Capital Markets in the Worldwide Financial Services Industry Group. Joe will report to Susan Hauser, vice president, Worldwide Financial Services, effective December 2, 2009.

This pitiful role will be tied to anti-GNU/Linux FUDMeister, Susan Hauser. Since when is there a "Microsoft banking" part?

Microsoft has appointed Joe Pagano as the new managing director of Banking and Capital Markets in its Worldwide Financial Services Industry Group.

Pagano, who has been working at Microsoft for nearly 15 years, will report to Susan Hauser, vice president of Worldwide Financial Services.

Microsoft banks on banking interventions and it has been getting closer to bankers. According to this new article, even after the Microsoft disasters inside banks across Denmark, Microsoft is trying to push into them the same software that had the London Stock Exchange (LSE) crash [1, 2, 3, 4]. Here is another new press release about Microsoft's attempts to penetrate banks.

“And then comes more advertising from the Microsoft blog that only ever praises Microsoft.”Speaking of Microsoft disasters in Danish banks, last week we wrote about Microsoft PR stunts in Copenhagen and a new one with AARP as well. Yes, Microsoft uses Copenhagen (environment-centric summit) for PR, despite being a major polluter and offender/denier. Some of this PR comes from Microsoft's de facto PR blogs (Silver Lie only), which then leads to more PR: "Dickerson reached out to seattlepi.com after reading our Tuesday piece on Microsoft's work in climate change."

And then comes more advertising from the Microsoft blog that only ever praises Microsoft. In general, it is all coming from de facto Microsoft press (Seattle), which emits the usual PR fluff almost endlessly.

Regarding AARP, last week we stressed that its work with Microsoft was likely to have hidden goals (as always [1, 2, 3]) and there really is a hidden goal, based on the following newer fluff:

● Microsoft Says Graying Boomers Will Never Surrender Their Gadgets!

The New York Times reports on a study, jointly sponsored by MSFT and the American Association of Retired Persons, that suggests many more years of spending on upgrades and gizmos. Instead of clinging to their old VCR players, TRS-80 computers, and brick-like cell phones, boomers will continue to splurge on the latest neat high-tech toys.

● What Do Baby Boomers Want From Technology?

Those were the sorts of questions explored in a somewhat unusual marketing research project sponsored by AARP and Microsoft. Earlier this year, 60 people in total gathered for dinner and after-dinner discussions about their attitudes toward, use of and expectations for technology. The lengthy sessions were in four cities: San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago and New York. The participants ranged in age from 50 to 60.

Nice to see AARP and Microsoft shilling together. It gives them ammunition with which to lobby the governments. ⬆

“Did you know that there are more than 34,750 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., for just 435 representatives and 100 senators? That's 64 lobbyists for each congressperson.”

--CIO.com