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Microsoft Threatened the UK Over Open Standards

posted by janrinok on Friday May 22 2015, @11:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the threatened-or-lobbying? dept.

sigma wrote to tell us of a story that appeared in The Enquirer:

When the UK government announced plans to shift to the .odf Open Document Format, and away from Microsoft's proprietary .doc and .docx formats, Microsoft threatened to move its research facilities out of the UK.

The prime minister's director of strategy at the time, Steve Hilton, said that "Microsoft phoned Conservative MPs with Microsoft R&D facilities in their constituencies and said we will close them down in your constituencies if this goes through" "We just resisted. You have to be brave," Hilton said.

Although I am not a great lover of Microsoft, I'm not sure that this is any different than many other companies who will try to protect their profits - and, arguably, the jobs of their employees - when they can see the potential for the loss of business. But perhaps other companies are a little more subtle - especially when it is obvious that official papers will one day become public knowledge.

[Editor's Comment: This submission has been significantly edited - comment is not attributable to sigma]

[Editor's Comment: Please see public apology regarding this story.]

 
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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Saturday May 23 2015, @03:33PM

    by TheRaven (270) on Saturday May 23 2015, @03:33PM (#186883) Journal
    If by 'we Brits' you mean 'the authoritarian wings of the UK parties,' then you'd be correct - they most certainly don't like being told that there are limits on their power. And they're very happy to encourage The Daily Mail and similar organs to frame the argument in terms of sovereignty, rather than checks and balances. The unelected bit is also quite entertaining, given that the electoral system used for MEPs results in a far closer representation of vote than the Westminster Parliament (I'm no fan of UKIP, but a party with over 12% of the popular vote getting under 0.2% of the seats ought to tell you that something is wrong there. But given your comments, I bet you voted 'no' in the electoral reform referendum too). Or are you referring to the Council of Ministers, the organisation that has the most power in the EU and is composed entirely of the people who you want to give the power currently shared among the institutions in the EU to?
    --
    sudo mod me up
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