Summary: Reports from Slovakia suggest that another outrageous government deal has been signed with the monopolist from Redmond

"Yesterday [the] Slovak government approved controversial MS deal: 52 mil EUR for (mostly) useless licenses," wrote to us a reader some days ago. "Subsequently," he added, "Slovakia has been chosen by MS as testing country (market) for their new (unspecified) products."

"Slovak language only articles so far," claimed the reader, who also informed us of this thing before. We'll post an update if/when we receive more information. ⬆

Update: We have received additional information from our source:

...some info about recent issues in Slovakia:

1. MS agreement

http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/46462/10/government_approves_extension_of_microsoft_agreement.html - this is the only news article in English language I was able to find - source - TASR (The news agency of Slovak republic)

http://www.soit.sk/sk/aktualne/oit-doma/2012-05-23/186-vlada-schvalila-problematicku-zmluvu-s-microsoftom-a-prislubila-hladat-alternativy - it's very good analysis made by SOIT (The Society for Open Information Technologies) - unfortunately only in Slovak language - I've asked original authors to write short info in English language for you (but I'm not sure they will do that actually)

2. Slovakia as testing ground

I have written recently: “Slovakia has been chosen by MS as testing country (market) for their new (unspecified) products.”

I'm sorry, It looks like it's not 100% true. The truth is that Laura Ipsen (MS VP) was 23.5.2012 here in Slovakia and she's met with government officials from the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak republic. She was probably just lobbying for MS agreement approval (#1 issue), but they had to tell news reporters something else of course, so they told them they were discussing an opportunity for Slovakia to become a testing ground for new products. But MS refused to comment or confirm this statement.

Related article in Slovak language: http://ekonomika.sme.sk/c/6388754/microsoft-moze-na-slovensku-testovat-nove-produkty.html

3. Eura Slovakia

- a couple of articles about an older issue:

http://www.cio.com/article/706053/Critics_Say_EU_Guidelines_on_Avoiding_Software_Vendor_Tie_in_Ignored_By_Slovak_Authorities

http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120509-01.en.html