IF your business model requires committing crimes but those crimes are bad for business, then maybe what you need is a 'public relations' strategy. When you are bribing governments and engaging in financial fraud or even AstroTurfing (bribing bloggers, journalists, and vloggers) it is clear that people are rightly going to hate you. When your LOBBYING is disguised as "openness" it is clear that your credentials are going down the drain. Microsoft pretends to open a 'transparency centre' in EU, based on this article which Glyn Moody calls '"fauxpen" waste of time without community to check code'. It is all about perception changing, but it is not going to work.

“Now I think Microsoft board is actively leaking CEO names, then running sentiment analysis on global response.”
      --Paul MillerFollowing the escape of Steve Ballmer amid bribery scandals there is clearly an attempt to whitewash Microsoft, with shallow reports about gossip from AOL [1] and other Microsoft-serving publications (it should be noted that AOL has been a very shameless Microsoft propaganda outlet in recent months, basically just parroting Microsoft's talking points about the NSA), not to mention Microsoft boosters from Seattle and former/semi-staff from Seattle.

At Slashdot, Microsoft Nick (the longtime booster of Microsoft) is already grooming and whitewashing Microsoft's potential new ringleader. "The owner remains Bill Gates so the flunky hardly matters," Will Hill opines.

We once speculated that Microsoft would using female or ethnic minority to reshape perceptions about the criminal company. Paul Miller writes: "Now I think Microsoft board is actively leaking CEO names, then running sentiment analysis on global response." ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft Will Likely Name Satya Nadella As Its Next CEO: Reports