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| Hot Water for Danish Prime Minister Because of Visit to MS |
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Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 11:18 AM EDT
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Groklaw member Karl Jorgensen sends us an interesting article from Denmark. Actually three of them, from ComputerWorld Denmark. Of course, all three are in Danish. For those of us who can't read them, then, he provides this information and some translation help. Do you remember the visit the Danish Prime Minister made to Bill Gates and Microsoft, right after the Danish Parliament decided to introduce open standards? It seems there is some unhappiness at the visit, which happened immediately afterward. The matter was raised in Parliament, with some asking the PM to tell what was discussed at the meeting.
A second article has the headline, "Is Denmark a Microsoft Protectorate, Fogh?" It's an editorial by ComputerWorld's editor-in-chief, Mikael R. Lindholm. Here's a bit of it, and as you'll see, he's unhappy about the visit too: Prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's visit this week to Bill Gates in
Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond was surprising, unfortunate and
raises a number of questions about the framefor for Denmark as a digital
economy.
Apparantly, Fogh's visit to a not-too-interested Gates was caused by a
well-meaning wish to strengthen Microsoft's already-strong position in
Denmark.... But it is a very unfortunate signal that Denmark sends to the rest of
the world, when our prime minister makes a friendly visit to a foreign
business man who in his home country has been convicted for abusing his
dominant position....
The signal is that money is more imporant than law. ... But IF (that this is a *big* IF) we are going to become a pure Microsoft
country, then we need to negotiate the terms for the loss of
independence this implies.
What Fogh is doing now does not look like negotiations, but rather an
unconditional surrender.
This is neither good diplomacy nor is it good business.
And finally, here's an article on ODF, in which an analyst, one of Denmark's leading analysts, Per Andersen of IDC, says Microsoft is
isolating itself by refusing to support ODF:
Microsoft is about to overestimate their significance in the IT market
place.
This is how one of Denmark's leading IT analysts bluntly puts it,
executive director in the analyst house IDC, Per Andersen.
He believes that Microsoft is isolating itself by its support of the
Open XML format...
"Obviously Microsoft will certainly not support a format driven by the
open source movement. It would rather isolate itself and bet their money
on their ability to convince the rest of the world that the Microsoft
standard is just as good and open as the standard used by the other
significant vendors," says Per Andersen.
This is doomed to failure, opines the director, who remains critical
of Microsoft's strategy.
"The biggest threat to a successfull IT company is arrogance and
ignoring new market trends and the resulting attitudes in the market" he
says.
"If Microsoft closes it's eyes to the developments and isolates itself,
it will be left behind. And just as to many others before Microsoft,
this means big strategic challenges in the long term -- and even survival
itself" says Per Andersen. You may find it instructive to watch this video (MP3) (or listen to this audio - Ogg or MP3 of the Q&A only) of Federico Heinz, president of Free Software Foundation Latin America, speaking in Ireland in April on the subject, "The Imperative for Free Software in Government & Public Administration." Heinz was involved in the effort by Peru to adopt Free Software in government, which ended up with a somewhat watered down resolution. If you wanted to know the inside story of what happened, you'll find it instructive, and yes, I see a connection. He speaks about it at the end of the talk, during the question-and-answer session.
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| Authored by: Totosplatz on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 11:25 AM EDT |
Make links click-able.
---
All the best to one and all.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 11:29 AM EDT |
Hot water indeed... The use of "Protectorate" in the title of the
first article tells a great deal. During WW2, Denmark was
called (by the German government) a "model protectorate", and
held up as an example of how 'nice' it was to be under German control.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: FrankH on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 11:31 AM EDT |
| Tpyos and speling misteaks. You know the drill [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Jude on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 12:19 PM EDT |
Politicians. They're the same everywhere.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 12:32 PM EDT |
"if ... we are going to become a pure Microsoft country, then we need to
negotiate the terms for the loss of independence this implies."
The Danegeld strikes again.
:-)
--
MadScientist[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jmc on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 12:35 PM EDT |
They round on the PM after his visit to Bill.
Bill comes to see Tony Blair and gets a knighthood. The poodle at Westminster
doesn't turn a hair.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 02:27 PM EDT |
What's with the trend of Bill G. hosting visits from foreign heads of state and
government officials? Is he buying off decisions from them? How is such a
visit even legal without U.S. government presence during such meetings? Yeah, I
guess most people in general should have the right of free association...but in
a small number of cases like these, something smells not quite right, and leads
to worries about a) national security, even if only via job security; b) correct
representation of peoples, both in the U.S. and those foreign countries; c)
legitimate bases for business decisions.
Our founders said there would be no aristocracy in the U.S. We see now that
there is: the new royalty are the corporate elites. Apparently, they have the
power and broker deals with foreign nations, even without the involvement of our
government.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: erem on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 03:09 PM EDT |
Could someone please help us non-native speakers with the hot water bit? It
seems an odd word combination and suggest an esoteric meaning that exceeds my
set of references. Thank you very much.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 04:57 PM EDT |
<b>What Fogh is doing now does not look like negotiations,
but rather an unconditional surrender. This is neither
good diplomacy nor is it good business.</b>
<p>
Doing it for his country? I don't think so. Look for a
secret Swiss bank account recently credited with a lot of
money.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 05:44 PM EDT |
If you think Microsoft isn't working on ODF, think again.
I guarantee you they have a very small team of very senior software engineers
(people they can trust) working outside the Office team, but making sure Office
can support ODF natively or (at the very least) as a "Save as"
option.
They just won't tell anybody about it, at least not until they've lost all hope
of pushing their format.
Nice thing about software: you can bet on Betamax but then release a magic VHS
adapter if your plan fails.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 06:06 PM EDT |
Interesting article on the BBC web site Delays in openness
laws attacked.
The committee also accuses ministers of being
complacent about preserving digital records on computer systems.
The National
Archives has warned that computer records can disappear a few years after being
created unless they are managed properly.
The MPs say Constitutional Affairs
Minister Baroness Ashton has failed to recognise this is a serious threat.
A sort-of governmental amnesia is happening; 'we made that
decision a few years ago, it affected you, but we cannot explain why we made it
because we cannot read our records'
Keeping vital data like that in an
unencumbered standard such as ODF XML is a fairly fundamental requirement for a
government. Especially one that wants my vote.
Microsoft are good at making
word processing software, and by this stage they are pretty much the only people
selling it. Everyone else is giving it away. Some of us use 'pencil, paper, and
brain' ... which works as well. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 29 2006 @ 02:50 AM EDT |
The party which took up the case in the Danish Parliament is Enhedslisten (The
Unity List). The party was founded as a coalition between the Left Socialists,
Danish Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party and received 3.4% of the
votes at the last election in 2005. As you might have guessed it is a party on
the extreme left of the Danish political spectrum. For example they are in favor
of nationalisation of banks.
I don't think that the Danish prime minister or Bill Gates is lying sleepless
because they raise the issue in the parliament.[ Reply to This | # ]
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