Summary: Microsoft's culture of paying people a lot of money to keep its abuses secret and also hide dubious deals that are likely to violate domestic and foreign law

EARLIER this month we wrote about UK sex scandals taking place inside Microsoft. Now watch what happens based on the British press:

The sorry tale of Microsoft UK's Den of Inequity continues, with reports suggesting a top female exec in line for the role of general manager was brushed aside for no reason and given €£1 million to keep quiet and push off.

The alleged hush money saw Natalie Ayres, a working mother, leaving the company with a pat on the back and a knowing nod from Microsoft UK. Meanwhile, Microsoft UK was holding extravagant parties for its employees with free vodka on tap and an alleged sex culture that we are calling The Last Days of Redmond.

How convenient. Just pay a €£1,000,000 settlement gift, eh? That's Microsoft. Always settling when it is guilty, for fear of what discovery might entail. We even saw that in Comes vs Microsoft, but we got hold of evidence before it got taken down (as part of Microsoft's settlement, which came only weeks after the trial began).

As we pointed out some days ago, British journalist Mark Ballard got hold of some rather secret documents relating to the European Commission's deal with Microsoft and then produced a fact-checked article that had impact which can still be seen. As The H puts it: "According to a report in Computer Weekly based on documents seen by the magazine, the European Commission has purchased large volumes of Microsoft software on six occasions since 1993 without a single public tendering process, thereby excluding potential competitors. The most recent agreement with Microsoft, covering software licences for over 36,000 PCs and supporting infrastructure at 42 European institutions, was valued at €50 million. The software included desktop operating systems, SQL Server Enterprise, email, project management and collaboration tools."

Microsoft is still all about secrecy, hush-hush, and back room deals. These are the hallmarks of corrupt companies.

Speaking of Microsoft secrets, the company is now spinning its losses online by only mentioning losses from 2008/2009 onwards. Microsoft has lost around $10 billion in its online services since 2007 and going further back it would be a lot more than that. The company has billions in debt and is not in a truly healthy state. Bribing people to stay silent can be expensive. ⬆