Is this BusinessKorea's depiction of Elop and Ballmer?

Image from BusinessKorea

Summary: Harsh words from the national press of South Korea as Nokia's role in Microsoft's anti-Linux tactics becomes more apparent

MICROSOFT is a big loser, but a dangerous loser nonetheless. Microsoft is above the law in many countries and it knows it. So, inevitably, Microsoft acts like it always has and it resorts to criminal activities in an attempt to destroy the competition. It's just the same old Microsoft, acting like a spoiled brat and a bully.

Last week the Korean press was portraying Microsoft and Nokia as trolls (pay attention to the photos in this article). To quote the opening paragraphs:

Korean Industry Demanding Measures against Patent Offensives by Nokia, Microsoft

The local electronics industry is demanding stricter conditions for the approval of Microsoft's purchase of Nokia by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC). The demand is attributable to the fact that those conditions will inevitably have a huge influence on the industry.

Remember that the criminals from Microsoft (crimes like racketeering and conspiracy to extort from multiple directions, patent-stacking, etc.) recently sued the increasingly-confused Samsung, which became a litigation/extortion target of Nokia (e.g. via MOSAID) and Microsoft trolling.

European regulators have already warned about this. They seem to know what Microsoft is up to. For those who still insist that Microsoft is not a crime syndicate masquerading as a company this report can serve as a reminder:

Business Korea has just published a very provocative piece that depicts a monstrous troll attacking its home country’s pride and joy, Samsung. That troll, you’ll be surprised to learn, is Nokia.

The reason for this is easy to understand: Samsung may be forced to pay one of the history’s biggest patent royalty sums to Nokia, and fellow Korean electronics titan LG is not scot free, either.

What unleashed the beast in the Finnish company was its decision to sell its handset division to Microsoft a while back. As long as Nokia was a phone company, it was bound by a web of cross-licensing deals limiting how much it can charge for its thousands of handset-related patents. Nokia needed to use both essential and non-essential patents held by Samsung, Apple, Motorola and other industry giants, which put a rather severe cap on how much it could charge other phone vendors.

Microsoft is not even interested in Nokia as a producing company, based on recent layoffs that affect Finland while Microsoft is avoiding many billions in tax. As one of the latest articles put it, "Microsoft's Staggering Tax Dodge Alone Would Fund the Entire State of Washington for Two Years". This was pointed out by a former Microsoft employee who protested against this, but suddenly it's all news again:

Reading companies' annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission is a reliable cure for insomnia. Every so often, though, there is a significant revelation in the paperwork. This year, one of the most important revelations came from Microsoft's filings, which spotlighted how the tax code allows corporations to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship yet avoid paying U.S. taxes.

According to the SEC documents, the company is sitting on almost $29.6 billion it would owe in U.S. taxes if it repatriated the $92.9 billion of earnings it is keeping offshore. That amount of money represents a significant spike from prior years.

When people insist there there is a 'new' and reformed Microsoft be sure to recall and pointed the racketeering, the massive tax evasion, and many more of Microsoft systemic abuses. The company deserves to have no more than zero employees, or many who are in prison. But when corporations control politics this is unlikely to happen any time soon. The criminals not only get away with crime; they get wealthy and they hide their wealth from the state. ⬆