Bonum Certa Men Certa

Estarta Solutions a Microsoft Proxy in Jordan, Elsewhere

Estarta



Summary: Cablegate shows Microsoft injecting funds into a company to imprison a whole nation on its behalf

TECHRIGHT has a wiki page about Microsoft in Jordan. It helps highlight the pattern of operation of Microsoft around the world. it organises itself around subsidiaries that pretend to be "local" and "create jobs". One Cablegate cable, posted below in its raw form, shows us how US diplomats describe Microsoft's "INVESTMENT IN JORDAN". We are highlighting parts of interest.










DEPT PASS FOR ANE/MEA KIM FINAN USDOC FOR 4520/ITA/MAC/ONE/PAUL THANOS USDOC FOR 6400/ITA/TD/OEC/KFERGUSON TREASURY FOR PIPATANAGUL TDA FOR SIGLER

E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECPS, BEXP, EINV, JO SUBJECT: MICROSOFT EXPANDS INVESTMENT IN JORDAN

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED; PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY

------- SUMMARY -------

1. (U) Estarta Solutions, the result of a merger between two prominent and well-established Jordanian IT companies, represents a significant expansion of Microsoft\'s investment and presence in Jordan. The new company bills itself as an international IT solutions company and consultant specializing in e-government, e-education, banking and finance, telecom, and logistics. The deal demonstrates the GOJ\'s determination to boost the development of the IT sector. End Summary

---------- BACKGROUND ----------

2. (U) On May 20, following weeks of speculation and negotiations, and amidst a great deal of fanfare, Microsoft Vice President for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa Emre Birkin announced the launch of Estarta Solutions, the result of a merger between Jordan\'s two leading IT firms, ONEWORLD Jordan and Zeine Technological Applications. Birkin said that reform of Jordan\'s investment framework laws and a favorable \"IT investment ambiance\" in the country were behind Microsoft\'s preference to launch a new project in Jordan. The new firm, which will be based in Amman, will employ 200 people. Among its current clients are Thomson Financial, Apple, Siemens, and the Jordanian government.

3. (U) Microsoft will take a small share in the company, as will al-Foursan, a local venture capital fund specializing in IT companies. In addition to its investment stake, Microsoft has committed to channel business to Estarta (such as for creating an Arabic version of its Excel 7.0 spreadsheet program). According to a banker involved as an adviser in the merger negotiations, some issues relating to the corporate structure and management of the new company remain to be worked out.

------------------ THE HOPE OF JORDAN ------------------

4. (U) At a dinner reception given by Estarta to celebrate the launch and attended by the Ambassador, Minister of Planning Bassem Awadallah, Minister of Trade, Industry and Commerce Salah al-Bashir, and local IT professionals, Minister of Information and Communications Technology Fawwaz Zu\'bi opened the proceedings and said the \"young entrepreneurs\" who forged the new company represented \"the hope of Jordan\". He said the merged company represented a model for \"what we would like to see in Jordan\", and expressed his hope that other international IT companies might now be more encouraged to invest in Jordan as a result of the deal. The Ambassador cited Microsoft\'s participation in the venture as \"a vote of confidence in Jordan\'s ability to grow\".

5. (U) Earlier, at a press conference announcing the merger, King Abdullah stressed the importance of cooperation between the private sector and the government, particularly the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, in working \"to open new horizons for IT in Jordan\". Contacts between Microsoft and Jordan developed following a meeting between King Abdullah and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000. Their relationship drove Microsoft\'s plans for expanding its presence in Jordan. One reason for the long gestation period was the change in Jordan\'s Companies Law required to permit the formation of a joint stock company (as opposed to the more common form of a limited liability partnership), as demanded by Microsoft.

--------- SYNERGIES ---------

6. (U) We spoke with Estarta Senior Director Basil Qubain about some of the upcoming projects the new company had in the pipeline. He stressed that Estarta was all about creating new approaches and synergies for its clients, not using existing applications to solve problems. He cited Mobius, a wireless platform that enables content providers to send web-based content to any mobile phone, and Gaia, Estarta\'s patent-pending pattern recognition software, as two major projects with broad applications, ranging from commercial to military, forged as solutions to client problems and challenges. As an example of Estarta\'s cooperation with Microsoft, Qubain pointed to Muse, an automated intelligence interface that plugs into Microsoft programs and acts as a virtual information manager and organizer. By way of example, Qubain explained that once an email is received by a user, Muse will list all previously received emails linked either by subject or sender, enabling the user to access and consolidate related information.

7. (SBU) Qubain said that the merger itself has gone quite smoothly, as clients and personnel from Zeine and ONEWORLD complement each other rather well. He added Estarta did face a challenge regarding rival mobile telecom companies Fastlink and MobileCom, as each was a client of Zeine and ONEWORLD respectively. While theoretically it was possible to retain both firms as clients, he said given current tensions between the two it was impractical and unlikely. Qubain said he did not yet know how the dilemma would be resolved.

------- COMMENT -------

8. (U) Coming after a dry period following the September 11 disaster, Microsoft\'s decision to invest in Jordan represents a shot in the arm for Jordan\'s efforts to attract foreign investment despite its volatile neighborhood. It is also a boost for the Jordanian IT sector. Not just another IT shop, Estarta has the goods and the drive to become, as it hopes, the leading IT solution provider in the region with worldwide reach. The success of Microsoft\'s investment in Estarta could well attract more likewise innovative firms and investors to a sector that Jordan expects to be a key to its continued economic growth. Gnehm







A few points to note here are the manipulation of government by Microsoft, the creation of a loophole to get around Jordanian law, and lobbying from Bill Gates, to whom this is a matter of nepotism, not technical merit.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Web Sites That Are Independent Are Also Like Software Projects (Sometimes Literally So)
Roll out your own 'stack'
The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Participating in a Ponzi Scheme
The market in "tech" seems awful when a lot of it sells a fraud and journalism about this market is part of the fraud
Mass Layoffs in Starbucks... and Society Loses Nothing of Value
Society might even be better off if Starbucks shuts down entirely
Matthew J. Garrett Behaved in a Similar Fashion to 4Chan and Kiwi Farms
Opposites attract? Are they opposites at all?
Drew DeVault Suggests "CoC Enhancement", Starts Trolling Projects in Microsoft GitHub
And it backfires immediately
 
Next Step: Find Out Who's Funding the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' to SLAPP Us
We now have the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' working alongside a strangler of women, who as a Microsoft employee spent time in prison for it
Pieter Hintjens on Codes of Misconduct a Decade Ago
original is still online
Links 27/09/2025: Australia Might Ban Microsoft GitHub for Young People, Likely Illegal Executive Order Turns TikTok Into Cheeto Propaganda
Links for the day
Repeating the Lies to Promote a Ponzi Scheme is Not OK Because "Many Other Sites Do This" (Including Slopfarms)
They already work on the next Ponzi scheme
Glimmer of Hope: More People Realise and Come to Accept "AI" is Just a Giant, Elaborate Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme That Will Leave Everyone Worse Off (Except the "Top of the Pyramid")
quoting Einhorn and some comments
Do Your Job and Demand Your Compensation - But in That Order.
We'll do our best to convince the Judge to award all costs to us (lawyers, barrister, LIP bills etc.) plus judgements against them, for abusive litigation and needless suffering associated with that abuse
Like Nazi Germany and Volkswagen
Tell us all about "freedom" when your government runs a Ponzi scheme
Microsoft Sponsored This Man, Microsoft Sponsored His Behaviour (and He Controls Microsoft)
They get what they paid for
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 26, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 26, 2025
He Talks Too Much, He Says Dumb Things
only British when that suits him
Slopwatch: FUD and Plagiarism (Working Against Linux) Promoted and Rewarded by Google News
Shame on Google News
Reminder: We're Unloading Some Publications to Tux Machines
About 15 years ago I was struggling to keep up with TechDirt
The E-mail Protocol is for Text
bad netiquette
Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Slop in OpenStreetMap and MOPML (My Own Private Markup Language)
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2025: More Provocations Against NATO by Russia (Near Alaska, USA), Microsoft Booster Accenture Has Mass Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2025: Hardware, Security, Health, and Nuclear Armament
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2025: "Digital Fatigue" and Slop Frenzy (Hype) Ruining Work Productivity, Culture, Languages
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Unwilling to Disclose or Explain How 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Pays for His SLAPPs Against Us (He Cannot Afford These), So We Are Escalating
Escalated in the British authorities
What 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Could Learn From Jimmy Kimmel About the 'Streisand Effect'
Lawyering up is risky and is usually doesn't work
Linux is Replacing Apple
Apple is money down the drain. Not only are the gadgets overpriced; they cost a lot to maintain and keep going over time
"We don't have that kind of relationship with Microsoft. The only public key that every UEFI firmware is guaranteed to have is Microsoft's, and only Microsoft owns the private key."
This is how to sabotage GNU/Linux distros that Microsoft does not control
Slopwatch: linuxconfig.org, linuxsecurity.com, and Google's Promotion of the Worst and Most Prolific Slopfarms
Over in Google News it has been quite chaotic this past day
Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Reading RSS Feeds, ROOPHLOCH 202
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 25, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: More European Airports Shut Down Due to What Seems Like Russian Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: Amiga Revived and Hackers (UTF-8)
Links for the day
Purchasing Concert Tickets in 2025 in Manchester: The "Modern" Experience
I recently spent a couple of days here testing the "terrain" in order to better understand how large public venues, for concerts rather than sporting events like football, currently "work"
Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
Just as intended all along
Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day