02.21.10

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: February 21st, 2010

Posted in IRC Logs at 8:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Read the log

Enter the IRC channel now

To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.

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Links 21/2/2010: Thin Clients With GNU/Linux, OpenStreetMap Helps in Haiti

Posted in News Roundup at 8:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

Christian Einfeldt’s DTP presentation in Berlin 2004 09 (2004)

Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

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Microsoft Lawyer: Microsoft “Covers up Alleged Misconduct, Mischaracterizes Evidence [...] Protects the Perpetrators and Retaliates Against Victims.”

Posted in Finance, Fraud, Google, Law, Microsoft, SCO at 11:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”

–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO

Summary: Microsoft moves legal department to India and the whistleblowers come out to tell the truth about how Microsoft operates

IN THE previous post we discussed Microsoft’s funding of SCO, which is attacking Linux in the courtroom. Microsoft loves to sue its competitors using “dummy companies” (see the lawsuits against Google for example), which works out pretty well because Microsoft decreased its legal budget by 15%, it fired 450 of its lawyers, and according to the following two news reports, Microsoft will “outsource general legal work to India”.

Microsoft Corp. has entered into an agreement with legal outsourcing provider CPA Global to offshore legal work to lawyers in India.

The technology giant began a pilot scheme with CPA in October and formally rolled it out at the end of 2009. A team of between three and five qualified lawyers at CPA are handling multi-jurisdictional legal support work, including legal research, for Microsoft. The lawyers are based in CPA’s offices in Gurgaon, near New Delhi.

Microsoft has been outsourcing basic intellectual property and patent renewal work to CPA for five years, using a team of around 70 CPA staff. However, the new arrangement for general legal work operates separately.

Also:

Software giant Microsoft will begin outsourcing general legal work to India after signing a deal with legal process outsourcing (LPO) company CPA Global. The news comes as CPA outlined plans to expand its Indian workforce from 600 to 1,000 by the end of 2011, and hinted at opening another outsourcing centre.

Microsoft’s massive layoffs and migration to India is not news. What definitely is news ought to be the following major report from Courthouse News:

Fired Worker Calls Microsoft ‘a Lawless Place’

Calling Microsoft “a lawless place,” a longtime worker claims in a class action that he was fired in retaliation for reporting supervisors’ misconduct. He claims the company “routinely produces and/or condones deficient investigations, covers up alleged misconduct, mischaracterizes evidence, refuses to preserve or provide pertinent facts and data, protects the perpetrators and retaliates against victims.”

Craig Bartholomew worked for Microsoft for 21 years, he says in his complaint in King County Court. He says he was fired after complaining that his supervisors had created a “dysfunctional environment that was harming Microsoft and risking certain of its programs and objectives.”

“Microsoft has twice tried to cover up what really happened, first wrongly claiming his termination was a layoff or RIF. Neither was or is true,” according to the complaint.

According to his complaint: “Microsoft can be a lawless place. Courts have found that its key executives have violated the law and/or sought to circumvent court rulings. Powerful employees, because of their perceived value to the company, has (sic) been protected. Employees who have reported misconduct by senior management have been punished or fired based on trumped-up charges.

It is hard not to recall the i4i trial misconduct which had Microsoft fined $40 million some months ago. This is clearly a company that disregards the law, even today. The new lawyers from India are likely to be more obedient to their masters and thus be less prone to retaliation. The above is not the first whistleblower by the way; putting aside allegation of Microsoft orgies and drug parties [1, 2], there is a long history of Microsoft's abuse of the law. A US government official once said that “the government is not trying to destroy Microsoft, it’s simply seeking to compel Microsoft to obey the law. It’s quite revealing that Mr. Gates equates the two.”

Now, it’s not just legal abuse. Let’s take the Xbox for example. It led Microsoft to getting sued for homophobia [1, 2, 3] (homosexual employees and clients) and a former Xbox employee who was trying to save customers (Xbox 360 put lives at risk). Microsoft ended up retaliating by firing him for saying the truth.

“It is hard not to recall the i4i trial misconduct which had Microsoft fined $40 million some months ago.”Looking at Microsoft’s financial department (we’ve just covered legal and technical), a former Microsoft employee is slamming the company for tax evasion [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] and it is reasonable to suspect more malpractice, especially given the shady past of financial fraud [1, 2] (Charles Pancerzewski from Microsoft’s financial department was paid millions of dollars to shut up about misconduct/fraud after he had produced evidence of it). Another former Microsoft financial executive might be leaving the Seattle area based on this news. Is he following the footsteps of the CFO?

Our reader Chips B. Malroy wrote to us earlier about this comment from Mini-Microsoft (mostly anonymous Microsoft employees) which says: “I don’t know how this is hidden, but fact is that Microsoft earns a lot just moving money across countries, betting on currency fluctuations. A lot of people in Finance are dedicated to this. When you have 60billion to move around, we are not talking about pennies here…”

“So MS might be playing the money game,” argues Malroy, “and getting away with it because they are an international company. This is most likely another way to evade taxes as well… playing the currency markets.” One of our readers has said to us the same thing for a couple of years now. It is too difficult to prove with any certainty because it requires audits. In a later post we will show what Microsoft has just been doing with President Obama.

Speaking of whistleblowers, here is Joe Wilcox sharing yet another confession from former employees of Microsoft. “There were a ton of bozos” is the summary.

Do middling, middle managers run Microsoft? That’s the consensus among the former Microsofties who shared their work stories with me over the last couple months. The new work week starts with another Microsoft Confessional — the fourth in four days — from 13-year company veteran Boris, which isn’t his real name, of course. Boris was smart enough to see the end coming, and he made preparations in the days before his May 2009 layoff. He learned to read middle managers the way a genuine fortune teller might read tea leaves.

“Microsoft Needs More Traitors,” says this new article from BNET:

Most companies dream of having loyal employees and managers. They want people who will follow the company strategy and stick to their jobs. But at Microsoft, a culture of loyalty has turned into slavish devotion to outdated strategy, outmoded thinking, and personal fiefdoms that today threatens to bring the company down.

[...]

Really? Microsoft focused on one narrow example and ignored every other criticism — the VP in charge of Office refused to adapt the product line to tablet computers, poor timing on Web TV and MP3 players, lost share in key product areas, and the steady exit of the company’s smartest employees. Yup, it was ignoring significant criticism because that’s not part of the program. It would just make the people in charge look bad.

Maybe the problem is that many traitors already work at Microsoft. They just don’t realize it.

Over at the Huffington Post, Microsoft’s Jim Allchin is quoted as saying “we were smoked”. It’s one of the Comes vs Microsoft exhibits that include Allchin’s “we are not on a path to win against Linux”, "we feel a huge threat from Linux", and "there’s going to be a patent lawsuit on Linux." █

“Government attorneys accuse Microsoft of using its monopoly position to bully, bribe and attempt to collude with others in the industry, while illegally expanding and protecting its Windows franchise.”

–The antitrust case: a timeline

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Just in Time: SCO Finds Another Cash Injection Proposal… from Former SCO Chairman

Posted in Bill Gates, Finance, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, SCO at 10:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The company that just refuses to die suddenly finds a new fountain of cash and Microsoft continues to stifle Free software through infighting and infiltrations

MICROSOFT has a proven (and thus factual) history of putting money in SCO, which has been suing Linux for almost a decade, always finding some extra cash to fund more motions and ensure that the trial does not end. On numerous occasions in the past we showed that Alwaleed bin Talal, a friend and/or partner of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, made his appearance in relation to investments in SCO [1, 2, 3, 4]. There are a few other examples like this (the firm of Bill Gates’ father for example), where Microsoft seemed like it was still funding these baseless lawsuits against Linux. Well, according to Groklaw, Ralph Yarro wanted to give a couple of million to SCO just a short while ago:

You’ve been expecting this, I’m sure. Ralph Yarro wants to loan SCO some money, $2 million, or more accurately up to $2 million, and the SCO trustee, Edward Cahn, wants to let him. It’s all at “arm’s length” and “in good faith” negotiations with this SCO insider, don’t you know. So, does this mean nobody else wants to fund SCO? No potential buyers? Just Ralph? And Cahn asks the court to please shorten the time to handle the motion. Is SCO on its last legs or something?

The motion calls Yarro the “former Chairman” of SCO’s board of directors. See all the stuff you can hide if you don’t file MORs or with the SEC, despite being a public company? Say, didn’t Cahn promise to file those MORs by now? What, they look too awful? Still, they’re supposed to be filed. Well, well. SCO’s MO seems to be catching. Delay, delay, delay while they keep their greedy hand reaching desperately for the brass ring.

“The Trustee is advised that Seung Ni Capital Partners, L.L.C. is a newly formed entity formed by Ralph J. Yarro III (“Yarro”) and was created for the purpose of providing postpetition financing to the Debtors. Since Yarro is the former Chairman of the Debtors’ Board of Directors and the Debtors’ largest shareholder, Yarro is an insider pursuant to Bankruptcy Code section 101(31). See 11 U.S.C. § 101(31). The Trustee represents that at all times the negotiations among the Trustee, his advisors and Yarro were at arms-length and in good faith.”

Wait. Look at page 2. It’s a loan from Ralph in public and “other lenders from time to time”. Uh oh. Page 3:

9. In accordance with the Credit Agreement, additional Lenders may also make loans to the Debtors under the Credit Facility from time to time.

Not another weirdo deal with shadows… Remember the York deal in 2007, speaking of shadows? It was a Super Dooper Senior Secured Super-Priority Credit Agreement too. We’d better look at the exhibits, which set forth the precise terms. I’ll swing back by after I do that.

[...]

The H has coverage of this too.

In the dispute between the SCO Group and Novell about the copyright for Unix, the new jury trial scheduled to begin on the 8th of March is apparently set to go ahead: according to a statement by Chapter 11 trustee Edward Cahn, SCO’s majority owner Ralph Yarro wants to inject a loan of $2 million dollars into the financially stricken company.

Legal observers at Groklaw reported that Ralph Yarro intends to finance the loan via his investment company, Seung Ni Capital Partners. The loan is termed to run for a year at an interest rate of 6.6%. SCO will have to repay the loan before settling its other open debts. Among these is a court order to pay $2.5 million to Novell. Earlier, trustee Cahn had told the bankruptcy court that SCO was in urgent need of further funding if it was to survive the new trial. The trustee said that without further funding he would not be able to continue SCO’s business.

Pogson wrote about the duration of this. The longer it goes on, the more Microsoft benefits. It provides FUD against Linux.

Presumably Novell will soldier on with this handicap and SCO gets to bring up years of irrelevant evidence as it did before. How the trial can go in two or three weeks with this Pandora’s box now opened is beyond me.

Another strange thing. The judge made his ruling without a hearing… That can happen if the matter is clear but there is obviously a dispute. Why not have it out in a hearing? I fear the fix is in. SCO is getting everything its own way, even having Utah law applied to a California contract. Novell will have to start all over again in SCOTUS. How many years will it take?

Other new articles from Groklaw (regarding SCO) are:

• Novell’s Daubert Motions: We Finally Get to Read 3 of SCO’s Experts’ Reports
• Novell’s Motion for Leave to Reply to SCO’s Opposition to Motion in Limine # 1 – As Text
• Dr. Gary Pisano’s Expert Report for SCO
• Judge Stewart Denies Novell’s Motion in Limine #1

More filings can be found here.

What’s also worth commenting and remarking about is Microsoft’s OSBC keynote. Darryl Taft wrote about it, but he changed his headline (or maybe the editor did) from “Microsoft to Spread Open Source Love at Business Conference” to “Microsoft to Talk Open Source at OSBC”. Why the sudden change?

In any case, Dana Blankenhorn wrote about this too and he used a provocative headline, namely “Will open source accept Microsoft leadership”:

It will once again be a “platinum sponsor” at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco next month and its National Technology Officer for the U.S., Stuart McKee, will deliver a keynote.

At Groklaw, Pamela Jones wrote: “This is where precise language matters. Free Software, the F in FOSS, will never accept Microsoft’s “leadership”, since that leadership has given evidence of attempting to destroy or make useless the GPL and has actively FUDed against Linux, threatening it with patents. Besides, their software is poorly designed, in the community’s view, so leadership to where? to what? for whose benefit? If you read the exhibits in the Comes v. Microsoft litigation, you’ll find there have been earlier “charm offensives”, as Dana calls it, and they were indeed for the purpose of destroying competitors. So the real answer to Dana’s question is, only if they’re stupidly naive.”

“If you read the exhibits in the Comes v. Microsoft litigation, you’ll find there have been earlier “charm offensives”, as Dana calls it, and they were indeed for the purpose of destroying competitors.”
      –Pamela JonesRegarding the CodePlex Foundation picking Paula Hunter as Executive Director (we covered this in [1, 2, 3]), Jones quotes Andy Updegrove: “As you’ll see from the announcement, one of Paula’s prior jobs was as the Executive Director of UnitedLinux. UL was a client of mine, and that’s where I first met Paula. And if you’ve never heard the saga of UL, it’s a rather fascinating story.

“Since it was a client, I can’t go into many details, but suffice it to say that it was an early casualty of SCO’s maniacal and misguided obsession with trying to tax the development of Linux.”

“And now she works for Microsoft’s Codeplex,” says Jones. It’s a small world when Microsoft acquires what only looks like competitors. █

“On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO’s strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”

–Bruce Perens

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Eye on Microsoft Crime: Microsoft “Consumer Fraud Class Action Lawsuit”, Wallace vs Microsoft, Arizona Antitrust

Posted in Antitrust, Courtroom, Finance, Law, Microsoft at 10:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: News coverage about Microsoft litigation and compensation for illegal business practices which continue to this date

• School District of Mauston cashes in on Microsoft settlement, stimulus funds

The Mauston School District will benefit substantially from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also called the stimulus package, and the Wisconsin Microsoft Settlement allocations.

At the Monday evening regular school board meeting held at the district office, Steven Smolek, superintendent of schools, said the ARRA and the antitrust settlement brought millions of dollars to Wisconsin.

[...]

Rob Demeuse, technology and phone systems director, highlighted some of the uses for the $255,072 coming to the district from the settlement from a Microsoft antitrust and consumer fraud class action lawsuit.

• WALLACE v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION

• Keller Rohrback L.L.P. and DeRoon & Seyfer Announce Settlement Disbursement in Antitrust Matter Against Microsoft

Budget-beleaguered Arizona state and local government entities are getting a little help this week as payments from the settlement in Daisy Mountain Fire District v. Microsoft Corp., No.07-2851 (D. Md.) begin to roll in. A total of $4,415,258 in cash has been distributed pursuant to the settlement agreement approved by the Court. Daisy Mountain Fire District, represented by antitrust experts at the law firms of Keller Rohrback L.L.P. (Seattle and Phoenix) and DeRoon & Seyfer, took the lead in bringing antitrust claims against Microsoft on behalf of a class consisting of all Arizona governmental entities that indirectly licensed Microsoft Operating System software and/or Microsoft Application software between May 18, 1994 and December 31, 2008 (the “Class”).

The complaint alleged violations of the Arizona Antitrust Act and with the leadership of Class counsel, Daisy Mountain Fire District pursued Microsoft regarding its engagement in anticompetitive and monopolistic practices. The cash settlement benefits will be distributed among the Class for the purchase of new computer programs and equipment.

Related posts:

• Microsoft Antitrust Settlement in Arizona Might Not be ‘Funny Money’
• Microsoft Crimes Emit Another $4,415,258 in Arizona, Amid Newer Crimes

“The day the Mac shipped in January 1984, Gates told McGregor to run out and buy a Mac for the Windows developers. “Reverse engineer it,” Gates told him. “I have applications like BASIC and Multiplan that we’ve hacked out for the Mac, and we’re working on other Mac applications like Word with a graphical user interface. I want to run all those Mac applications on Windows.””

–Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul

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Microsoft’s Ballot Screen is a Farce, Decoy

Posted in Antitrust, Europe, Google, Microsoft at 9:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft uses its Web browser to promote its own Web services while pretending to offer Web browsers in addition to its own

THERE is a lot of coverage this week about the Web browsers ballot screen which Mozilla employees like Asa are covering in their blogs, whereas Microsoft employees are pushing as ‘news’ — making it their own biased ‘coverage’ — into R&D Magazine (there is a lot of Microsoft-written material there). This is yet another example of Microsoft’s control of the media (there are more examples coming later). As mentioned before, right after SJVN had brought this up, people are missing the more important news and instead covering irrelevant subjects [1, 2, 3]. IE8 is reducing choice even in the search bar. As a reader of ours explained it yesterday:

I’m sure you have covered this topic, but I haven’t read about it on Boycott Novell yet. I use Windows only rarely for 2 things: 1) as a VMWare ESX client, 2) if I need to experiment with Outlook. The administrator of the Windows instance which I use upgraded to Server 2008 R2, so I decided to give it a try. I can now share my experience with trying to make Google the default search engine on IE8. As previewed, Microsoft does indeed make it difficult to add or change the default search engine. It’s necessary to navigate a menu, go to a Web page on “microsoft.com” and click the right links there. The first time I tried it, I got a security pop-up which said that “download.microsoft.com” is not a “trusted” site. My change didn’t take effect. I tried again after adding “download.microsoft.com” as a “trusted” site and, while I didn’t see any more security popups, Bing remained as the default search engine. Finally, I went to Google manually, searched on “make Google default search engine IE8″ and saw a Google discussion group: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p… as the first result. The first suggestion I saw outlined the steps which I took but which didn’t work. I tried the second suggest, which was to go to a different page which purported to do the same thing, except for IE7. That worked for me the first time I tried it. All in all, this process is a very clumsy one which is far more difficult than it should be.

This is another example of Microsoft playing dirty. Will the European Commission pay attention to it? Almost nobody is discussing it. █
_______
[1] Microsoft’s About To Lose More Web Browser Users

This is in compliance with a December European Commission antitrust agreement that stops it from pushing its own Internet Explorer exclusively, and is likely to mean a market-share hike for Google’s Chrome, Firefox and Opera, whose complaint to the EC kicked off its year-long competition inquiry.

[2] Microsoft Browser Poll could be heaven for hackers

Hackers find a way to get into every corner of the internet and Microsoft’s antitrust-busting ‘Browser Poll’, due to launch in Europe next week, could be no different.

[3] EU Browser Ballot: Which Would You Choose? — A Poll

After years of legal squabbling between Microsoft and the European Commission, Redmond will soon make it easier for Internet Explorer users in Europe to switch Web browsers. Starting next week, Microsoft will offer a “Web browser choice screen” to Windows users in Europe who have IE as their default browser.

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Office Watch: Microsoft Smears Google Apps in Videos, Biased Articles, ODF-hostile Dialogues

Posted in FUD, Google, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Videos at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft is still attacking its competition rather than focus on its own products and comply with industry standards

Microsoft — like Novell [1, 2, 3, 4] — uses YouTube to promote its products and to spin/lie (e.g. about OOXML), but according to the following two reports, Microsoft also uses YouTube to disparage its competition. Microsoft not only sues Google and resorts to whisper campaigns; right now it has employees going out there to smear a rival of Microsoft’s biggest cash cow (and one of the very few products that are profitable):

The Irony of Microsoft’s Anti-Google Apps Campaign on YouTube

[...]

In a Microsoft video extolling its virtues, the narrator makes the point that marketing is difficult with Google Apps. It’s far simpler with Microsoft Office.

So we find it deliciously ironic that Microsoft is marketing a number of anti-Google Apps videos using Google’s YouTube. Hmm…doesn’t that defeat the point a bit?

[...]

It all feels like a company protecting its power base more so than embracing the current disruption in the market.

Also:

Microsoft Attacks Google Apps … on YouTube

[...]

They’ll let anything onto YouTube these days. No, I’m not talking about the millionth video featuring a squirrel lip-syncing to Right Said Fred, but a set of Microsoft-created videos attacking Google Apps. I guess Google, which owns YouTube, really has no inclination to censor anything aside from content that violates copyrights; but watching the Microsoft videos play out next to that YouTube logo is like watching promos for a TV show like “Dexter” (produced by Showtime) playing on HBO or another rival channel.

Microsoft sometimes uses former employees from the Office group in order to do the smearing/belittling of Google Apps and the Microsoft-paid blog called TechFlash is now giving a platform for a former Microsoft employee (“He worked in Microsoft’s Information Technology Group in the early 1990s,” says the bottom part) to do the same type of things. This control of the press is a subject that was demonstrated in the previous post and one which we’ll return to later.

It’s easy to see why Microsoft is so concerned. First it was ODF and now it’s Google Apps. One dismantles Microsoft’s lock-in using open formats that everyone supports and the other challenges Microsoft’s core business model. Microsoft's old friend, Dina Bass from Seattle, has just disseminated this Microsoft narrative which she originally published in Bloomberg:

Microsoft Corp. President Stephen Elop is preparing for the biggest shakeup to the $19 billion Office business in a decade as the company races Google Inc. to sell Internet-based programs.

The article is imbalanced and Google is hardly quoted at all (even though it’s a subject of the article). It reads almost like an advertisement for Microsoft. Speaking of which, Microsoft already advertises a product that’s not even available (Office 2010) and someone sent us this screenshot of a new dialogue, which he described as “Satan’s talk with Jesus, at the desert.” As usual — and as we have expected all along — Microsoft sells people the illusion that ODF is defective. Microsoft doesn’t even implement it properly [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].█

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New AstroTurfing from Microsoft Philippines, Increased Pressure on Businesses

Posted in Asia, Marketing, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument at 8:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft Philippines “targets Manila’s top 100 Netizens” and also targets so-called ‘piracy’

THE head of Microsoft Philippines quit the firm last year but not before being part of Microsoft’s OOXML scandals. Among posts that covered OOXML in the Philippines we have:

• OpenDocument Format Already a Winner in Brazil, Philippines Named for OOXML Irregularities
• The World Sighs as ISO Becomes Irrelevant
• Microsoft ‘Stole the Elections’ in Africa, Australia, Tried Philippines Also
• OOXML Marketing: Calling Lies a “Spin”
• Ballot Stuffer from Redmond Stuffs Another FOSS Conference (Romania)
• The Beast of Redmond Intervenes with Yet Another Open Source Summit
• The Latest OOXML/ODF FUD from the Philippines, Microsoft and Gates Go Batting in Europe
• If Cattle, Use OOXML; If Wise, Use ODF
• The Effect of Burton Group FUD and the Source of the FUD (Microsoft?)
• Microsoft Goes Lobbying Against OpenDocument Format in Malaysia
• With Novell’s OOXML Support, Microsoft Lobbies and Deceives in the Philippines
• How Microsoft Operates in China and Parts of Asia
• Microsoft Puppet (Frost & Sullivan) Praises ‘Intellectual Property’, Novell’s Patent Deal
• Microsoft Lobbies for OOXML Through Proxies, IBM Does Its Own Legwork

A leopard does not change its spots and Microsoft Philippines is still very unethical if not simply corrupt.

We previously covered examples where Microsoft had bribed bloggers [1, 2, 3, 4] to rave about Vista 7. Some months ago we also showed that Microsoft fed 777 prominent Korean bloggers in order for them to do this type of promotion and now we are finding something similar in the Philippines. The following article has changed since it was first published. Its older headline was “‘VIP Mix’ of Microsoft targets Manila’s top 100 Netizens”

Microsoft in the Philippines is trying out what looks and sounds like the second-oldest sales strategy in the book.

[...]

To secure a free VIP invite, a prospective guest needs to comply with certain requirements previously set by the company.

Last December, when it held its first VIP event for students, the software company chose the top 100 students with the most number of friends on Facebook.

Those who emerged on top of the pile had an average of 2,000 Facebook friends, an achievement made possible by their extensive networks, de Dios said.

[...]

An unofficial Facebook account of Microsoft friends in the Philippines — known as MSfriends Philippines — has also been created.

Who knows how much buzz that will generate?

No one does, as of yet.

But one thing’s for sure: Bill Gates is smiling.

Yes, Bill Gates is always smiling all the way to the bank because there are enough fools out there who fall for his PR operations and fail to see his continued abuse of society (more on that later).

“Microsoft is just trying to alter press coverage and blog coverage in the Philippines.”The article above can also be found here and it’s hard not to think of Melvin Calimag, a Microsoft booster/journalist from the Philippines — one whom Microsoft flew to the United States at its own expense for some OOXML brainwash and poison against ODF (courtesy of Microsoft employees, who disparaged ODF “independently” at the time). Microsoft is just trying to alter press coverage and blog coverage in the Philippines. It’s as simple as that.

At the same time, Microsoft suppresses Free software adoption in the Philippines using dumping techniques that we covered in:

1. The EDGIfication of the Philippines
2. Microsoft’s B.A.D. in China, Philippines

Our reader Chips B. Malroy has just shown us this new article that says: “Citing a study by a global technology research firm, Magsadia said the country has a 69 percent software piracy rate. Magsadia bared the Microsoft Philippines has decided to reduce the standard retail price of its Windows 7, for instance, from P9,000 down to P2,000, to help alleviate the problem on piracy.”

We are going to write about the latest “piracy” propaganda from Microsoft a little later (today or tomorrow). As Malroy explains, the above shows that “MS first goes after the “business” users. Last I knew 50peso to the US dollar, so MS is selling Seven for less than $40 to these cafe owners, in order to get some of them to buy.”

Microsoft is suppressing GNU/Linux in Internet Cafés [1, 2] where Free software is a good fit (mostly safe Web browsing is required). “MS going after piracy, is another way to squeeze out more revenue as profits decline. MS attempts to do this will increasingly become evil,” concludes Malroy. █

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