The Microsoft coup

The Microsoft coup in Sweden has had some consequences in Denmark. Sweden and Denmark are very close, and we speak almost the same language, so we read each others papers and so on.

• A representative from Microsoft in Sweden admits that they have send a mail to 'some' business partners telling them to join the TC and vote yes. 'But that wasn't what we mend to do', Microsoft says (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41083?cid=1&a=cid&i=1&pos=11).

• A representative from The municipal of Århus, Jens Kjellerup, says that the meetings in Denmark was alright and fair (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41082?a=rss&i=0).

• Microsoft in Denmark claims that they didn't put any similar pressure on Danish business partners (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3744).

• One (anonymous) Danish business partner says that he was under pressure. Repeating questions about if he had submitted his yes-comments. The comments was actually given to him by Microsoft (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3759).

• The Danish Parliament is now asking the Danish Minister of IT- and Telecom, Helge Sander about his role (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3757). The Parliament is asking for an investigation (http://comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=32455).

There has been a lot of focus on this in the Danish media. I don't know if there is any connection, but there has been more interest in open source in general ? These 3 newsmedias are delivering IT-news to almost all newspapers in Denmark.

The Members of parliament is also interested in the matter, because the discussion about implementing two parallel standards, was very much connected to the expectation, that OOXML would get approved by ISO. This case might end up, that Microsoft will get kicked out because of bad behavior.

I'll keep you up to date later.