[x]Blackmoor Vituperative

Wednesday, 2006-12-06

How Microsoft subverts the government for profit

Filed under: Society,Technology — bblackmoor @ 11:57

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Some tech media outlet would send one of its bloodhounds on the trail that was left in the wake of Massachusetts’ decision to standardize on the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for the archival and retrieval of productivity documents (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.) to see what lengths Microsoft went to in order to keep that state’s Information Technology Divsion (ITD) from deciding for itself what was best for the state.

[…] Battle lines were drawn and people who probably had no business getting involved in an IT decision about file formats were sucked into the debate and suddenly, ETRM was turned into a political football. Although we in the press were at that time only exposed to anecdotal data that suggested that Microsoft was lobbying hard to turn the decision into a political one, rather than a technical one (where the state’s own CIO had the authority to make the decision — as it should be in any organization), it was pretty clear that vendors on both sides of the debate were digging their heels in in whatever way they could.

But the extent to which Microsoft was working the political knobs and levers wasn’t really known until now, thanks to ComputerWorld’s Carol Sliwa who has published a multi-part investigative report, the heart of which is titled How Microsoft & Massachusetts played hardball over open standards. Wrote Silwa:

Less than a week after he became CIO of Massachusetts last February, Louis Gutierrez sensed a serious threat to his power — one that was being promoted by a seemingly unlikely source. Within a matter of days, Gutierrez confirmed that Brian Burke, Microsoft Corp.’s government affairs director for the Northeast, had been backing an amendment to an economic stimulus bill that would largely strip the Massachusetts Information Technology Division of its decision-making authority…

…The amendment Burke was promoting had the potential to stop the ODF policy dead in its tracks by giving a government task force and the secretary of state’s office approval rights on IT standards and procurement policies…. [Gutierrez] clearly was rankled by Burke’s involvement with the amendment. Yet he made no attempt to shut the door on Microsoft. On the contrary, he did the opposite…. “While Brian will never be welcome in my office, Microsoft, of course, will remain so,” Gutierrez wrote to Alan Yates, a general manager in the company’s information worker product management group, in an e-mail….

The message, sent on March 3, is one of more than 300 e-mails and attached documents obtained by Computerworld under the Massachusetts Public Records Law. The e-mails provide a behind-the-scenes look at some of the hardball tactics used, compromises considered and prickly negotiations that ensued….

[…]Now that ComputerWorld has published this report and other government IT executives can see first hand the extent to which Microsoft might go to strip them of their authority if it doesn’t like the way things are going, perhaps the question for Microsoft is how to convince those execs that it’s a friend and not a foe. Gutierrez seemed especially forgiving when he said Microsoft was welcome in his office, but that Brian Burke was not. How many other government CIOs will now be on their guard every time someone from Microsoft comes a’knocking and of them how many will be equally as forgiving if Microsoft once again demonstrates a willingness to undermine them?

(from ZDNet, How to alienate your government customers 101?)

Personally, that would be enough for me to show a vendor the door. If this had been in a movie, I would have considered it too unrealistic for anything but cyberpunk. Yet here it is, in the real world. I guess I am disappointed. I would like to think that this sort of pernicious, manipulative evil is the realm of James Bond movies and the like. I would like to think that.

How do people like Brian Burke sleep at night? Like babies, probably. Not having a conscience is probably a great relief.