Bonum Certa Men Certa

Brett Winterford Had Kool-Aid in Redmond (and Then Came ODF FUD)

The best pro-OOXML propaganda money can buy

At the end of last week we alluded to Sam Varghese's piece of spinmeisters when discussing threats as a competitive weapon. Spinmeisters are expected to be well paid. These are the people that will have you (or the press) believe anything. Spinmeisters are often driven by some corporate interests and Sam warns that their number is rising. Several months ago Sam also wrote the article "Shills Abound", which warns about the type of stuff that we find in OOXML/ODF studies from IDC (funded by Microsoft) and the Burton Group, which has very recently given some pro-OOXML/anti-ODF presentation to the press in Microsoft's own yard. There is also the Yankee Group. Remember that analysts are not always required to say who funds their operation. Sometimes the funding comes through investments rather than commissioning.

“Good publicity in exchange for a paid-for trips is a no-brainer.”This brings us to the point of this post. The spinmeisters from Redmond are at it again (yes, again). Several months ago we gave examples where Microsoft flew in some Linux journalists to its campus and even bribed bloggers for positive publicity. Microsoft gets its money's worth. Good publicity in exchange for a paid-for trips is a no-brainer. And here is a brand-new example from ZDNet Australia which quotes Microsoft employees on the subject of OOXML and ODF:

"It obviously works," he said. "Apple, Novell, Turbolinux, Google can all do it. For somebody like Apple to bake natively the format into their operating system, it says a lot."

Brett Winterford travelled to Redmond as a guest of Microsoft. €¶


Novell and Turbolinux are a case of paid-for support for OOXML (Microsoft buys this support [1, 2, 3]). The inclusion of Google is utter FUD for the same reason that IBM inclusion would be FUD. Microsoft recently lied about IBM and got slammed for it.

So there. Here you have another bias article that was composed after a seemingly-free trip to Redmond, WA where Microsoft partners delivered grossly-biased talks. We spoke about these free trips some time ago and nothing seems to have changed. Sugar Daddy buys some sugar.

More FUD can be found in the following new article:

"ISO has a policy that, wherever possible, there should only be one standard to maximise interoperability and functionality," she says. "We have an international standard for digital documentation, ODF, which was developed by Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle and the open-source community some years back. €¶


Microsoft throws lies about ODF in this article. It's almost as though some of these articles are intended to promote Microsoft rather than focus on the technical deficiencies of OOXML, the documented briberies, and the endless manipulations which themselves alone justify getting the boot in Geneva.

Novell gets 'bribed'

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete