Lodahl's blog: Disgusting is what it is

14 April 2008

Disgusting is what it is

Microsoft wanted that approval at any cost.

We didn't cheat. It wasn't fraud. It was clean and honest.

All' right then. Then we dont use the same definition of those words. We don't share the same moral.

Take a look at these 37 letters that was received at Standard Norway just before the vote:
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2007/ooxml/37-brev.pdf . 37 letters with exactly the same words. Some of the senders didn't even care to remove the 'Type company name here' text.

Simular letters has been circulating in Denmark as an e-mail from the Danish MD Jørgen Bardenfleth to customers and business partners.

I call it fraud, cheating and disgusting. If I wasn't anti-Microsoft before, I am now. Disgusting !

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6965

2 comments:

Yoon Kit said...

Hi Lief,

This is just as bad (or worse) as in the case in Singapore, where they also had copies of these form letters sent to the ITSC, who are responsible for the decision.

Obviously this banal tactic works on bureaucrats as Singapore voted "Approve"!

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/microsoft-lobby.html

You've gotta love the form from a the "Crescent Girls' School". Did Norway have anything similar?

Its quite pathetic.

yk.

Victor said...

Vorherre bevares, noget vrøvl!

Or in english, what a load of sore spirited whining...

Form letters are often the standard, when it comes to influencing politicans and corporations. The point of these campaigns is afterall not to show how well an individual can address the issues, but how broad the support is.

Your past involvement with the atrocity that is Open Office (Yes I've tried it, and it was very lacking, to say the least, compared to MS Office) shows. Microsoft beat you (And is consistently wiping the floor with FOSS Office competition) fair and square, and I guess that still hurts.
That Microsofts file format has been elavated to a standard, benefits everybody, ESPECIALLY end users, and it makes perfect sense for the ISO to do this, since .doc and .xls were already defacto standards.