Summary: Microsoft signs more deals that help exclude rivals, starting with Dubai and moving further east to Taiwan

LAST week we saw Microsoft making moves to control Dubai's ICT -- moves that we now see continuing. They got themselves a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) over there and this week it's Taiwan which signs an MoU with Microsoft, despite accusing Microsoft of antitrust violations last year. MoU-type deals are explained in this presentation from Microsoft and we also gave recent examples in:

• Will Microsoft Sign an MOU with Indonesia?
• Urgent Need for Transparency in Procurement, Standards-Setting Process
• Does Microsoft Use Extortion to Sign MOUs?
• Microsoft Dealt Another Big Blow in Europe (UK), Pawns Exposed Further
• The Ukraine's GNU/Linux Ambitions and Microsoft's MOU Response

Here is the latest, via the Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft, Taiwan Sign MOU On Cloud Computing Research Hub

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and the Taiwan government signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday to jointly set up a research center for cloud computing in Taiwan, the U.S.-based software giant said in a statement.

Why is the government involved in this? Watch the role of ministries:

Microsoft Corp. and the Taiwanese economics ministry said they are in talks of setting up a cloud computing research centre in Taiwan by next year.

It's a government partnership:

As for its partnership with Taiwan's government, Microsoft and Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs will jointly invest to establish a Software and Service Excellence Center in Taipei, with focus on R&D of applications of cloud computing technologies. This reveals Microsoft's intention of establishing a hardware supporting system to realize cloud computing applications.

What makes no sense here is that they are using taxpayers' money for this. Another fine example of "constructive capitalism" printing cash for Microsoft at the expense of those who will later pay some more, to the very same company whose operations and establishment they fund too?

What Microsoft is doing with Chinese banks at the moment is also worth paying attention to. Steve Ballmer has just signed a deal in Beijing. We wrote quite a lot about Microsoft in banking recently, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. ⬆