05.25.15
Microsoft’s Secret Lobbying, Bullying, and the Long History of Blackmailing Politicians Around the World
Viewing itself as above the law
Summary: British media covers Microsoft’s abuse in the UK, but there are many similar incidents, and not just in the UK
GIVEN Microsoft’s pattern of retribution against individuals and organisations, what was revealed in UK-based media (and Bloomberg in the US) some days ago was hardly surprising.
A reader of ours reminded us of this older report about “Rohan Silva, who was a senior advisor to David Cameron on digital policy from May 2010 to June 2013, and a former economic advisor to George Osborne” because he “revealed the threats made by Microsoft during a speech at an event in London.”
In his own words: “A day or two before we were going to give the speech, a couple of backbench MPs called the office – they said Microsoft had called them saying if we went ahead with the speech on open standards, open architecture and open source, they would cut spending or maybe close research and development centres in the constituencies of the MPs they had called.”
“Microsoft is bamboozling politicians using corruptible media, not just through lobbyists who issue threats.”This is what he told delegates at the Chief Digital Officer Summit, so Microsoft’s bullying against British politicians is not exactly new. It sounds similar to the story told by Steve Hilton. There is a pattern here. We now see over a dozen news sites covering the Microsoft-led assault on British politicians [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. The British public will see the real face of Microsoft, but the public should not assume that this is an isolated incident involving some ‘rotten apples’. It’s not done only in Britain, either (here are examples from the US [1, 2]). This is how Microsoft does ‘business’, and not just in the UK. Softpedia, a Romanian site, spoke about Microsoft “Blackmailing UK Officials” and Robert Pogson, a Canadian, said we should “Put The Job-cuts Where They Belong, In Redmond”. Microsoft “used to bully key people everywhere to give their software the inside track in IT-decisions,” he wrote, referring to a phenomenon we often cover here: entryism, moles, revolving doors, etc. Microsoft plays dirty. There is a factual basis for disdain of Microsoft.
Microsoft is bamboozling politicians using corruptible media, not just through lobbyists who issue threats. Its boosters (in ‘news’ sites) attack the competition. We have named and shamed many of those who are/were actively involved in it. Sometimes Microsoft even hires people from the media in order to manipulate the media. Recall media mole Peter Galli, who repeatedly attacked ODF in the media until Microsoft hired him. He has since then been promoted at Microsoft to “Director of Executive Communications at Microsoft International”. So, from Microsoft promotion in the media (he used to be fake ‘journalist’ whose main goal was to promote Microsoft agenda) Peter Galli moved on to corrupting the press on behalf of Microsoft, as per his job title.
Again, this is just how Microsoft does ‘business’. It’s a deeply corrupt company and it keeps reminding us of that. █
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