"It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!"

--Microsoft's Doug Mahugh about OOXML in Malaysia

Microsoft really has no shame. If it were a person, it would probably have been arrested by now for harassment, for stalking, for bullying and for bribery. But Microsoft is not a person. Microsoft is still a fairly powerful corporation and it is also above the law in certain parts of the world.

The latest batch of stories which come from Malaysia are disgusting at best. Microsoft should be utterly humiliated and embarrassed now that people spill the beans. Here is the first post. It's the post that earned a fair bit of attention.

But to pass off a foreigner as a Malaysian organisation's representative? That's really stretching it, dudes. It's not as bad as having someone from Senegal representing another country, but it's still not particularly ... appropriate.

[...]

Which is also why there was an uneasy silence when Doug came back into the room to remove his computer, and he gruffly said, "I think it's best that I leave." I thought that was noble of him, and a great way to exit with whatever dignity he had left. I don't think he would normally bend his ethics to represent an organisation's national branch which he does not belong nor contribute to, but we must all understand, that employees at Microsoft are all facing a really stressful time now.

They are fighting like their jobs depend on this, and unfortunately for Microsoft as a brand, they are killing themselves. Bending their morals, burning their bridges which they have built so long and hard over the years, and hurting so many people and organisations over this silly matter of a File Format.

What the blogger might not be aware of is the fact that a press release from last week showed Microsoft's brand taking a plunge from top 10 or top 20 down to top 50 or top 100. This comes in addition to a big drop in the employment ladder ranks. It was last updated a couple of months ago.

There are also Microsoft's financial worries, which it keeps secret. OOXML may be a question of Windows' continued dominance and the company's relevance as a whole. But does it justify breaking the rules and pulling a 'covert ops'?

See the comments in Bruce Perens' highlight of this incident. It did not quite end there. There were followups.

Here is noooxml.org's take, which was summarises quite rudely:

Some people change their gender. Doug Mahugh quickly changes hats.

Here is another take from Malaysia:

Here goes:

1. Doug, you are claiming that you wanted a technical debate with YK and yours truly. You never contacted us prior to the PIKOM meeting and never told me that you would be present at TC4. How can you claim that you wanted a technical debate when you never bothered to get in touch with the people you wanted to debate with? Your logic simply does not compute[4]. 2. Your blog post says "they threw me out before the meeting started". Well, no shit sherlock. If you turn up at a meeting without giving due notice of your nomination as an alternate representative of IASA, you really can't be surprised if they weren't too happy, eh? There are proper processes to follow in Malaysia's standards body and IASA flagrantly violated them.

[...]

There you go. I'm not going to pursue this any further (but Doug, do feel free to write another scathing post, I've got /dev/null all prepped up and ready here). I just felt folk reading Doug's blog and OpenMalaysiaBlog should be able to see this from another perspective. Specifically mine. Either that or this is just another excuse for more sandiwara (translation: drama).

This one is the latest, some context covered here. Remember how these guys used to be stalked. At least there were no smear campaigns. No apparent ones anyway. Microsoft does these campaigns secretly, until/unless they leak out. ⬆