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Microsoft Shoots Own Foot In Iceland
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:36 PM
from the blood-from-a-stone-middleman dept.
from the blood-from-a-stone-middleman dept.
David Gerard writes "The Microsoft Certified Partner model is: an MCP buys contracts from Microsoft and sells them to businesses as a three-year timed contract, payable in annual installments. Iceland's economy has collapsed, so 1500 businesses have gone bankrupt and aren't paying the fees any more. But Microsoft has told the MCPs: 'Our deal was with you, not them. Pay up.' The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software, taking most of the country with them. (Warning: link contains strong language and vivid imagery.)"
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Or I will gouge out your eyeballs... (Score:5, Funny)
and BSOD you!
Re:Or I will gouge out your eyeballs... (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously what the fuck is with the link:
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WWBD? (Score:5, Funny)
What would Bjork do?
Re:WWBD? (Score:5, Funny)
What would Bjork do?
"Look, mom, this frog says my name when I squeeze it!"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
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Ze goggles! Zey do nothing! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh god, a 500 error! MY EYES! THEY BURN!
Re:Ze goggles! Zey do nothing! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh god, a 500 error! MY EYES! THEY BURN!
Here you go, ya' big baby! [209.85.173.132]
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Re:Ze goggles! Zey do nothing! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh god, a 500 error! MY EYES! THEY BURN!
Are you kidding? This is Slashdot, a 500 error practically constitutes foreplay. Strong language indeed! :-)
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Re:Ze goggles! Zey do nothing! (Score:5, Funny)
402; 416; 410
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Re:Ze goggles! Zey do nothing! (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes [wikipedia.org]
402 Payment Required
416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable
410 Gone
Huh, what does it mean??
Or have I just earned a huge whoosh?
And what does it mean by "practically constitutes foreplay"?
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Screw this (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what, I'm not even going to bother clicking on a link composed of obscenities, even if it is about Microsoft making another PR blunder.
I'd like some anti-Microsoft news that at least appears reputable, and not overly sensationalized "ZOMG Balmer blew up M$ eats babies" crap like the stuff I've seen here for the past few weeks.
Give me something to read, please, not something designed to assimilate me into another angry mob.
Re:Screw this (Score:5, Funny)
I agree. "Skull-fucking"? What kind of journalism is that? There has to be a report on the subject that includes some amount of class and professionalism -- especially if it's going to make it to the front page of Slashdot..
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Re:Screw this (Score:5, Funny)
There has to be a report on the subject that includes some amount of class and professionalism -- especially if it's going to make it to the front page of Slashdot.
This is a joke, right?
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Re:Screw this (Score:5, Insightful)
this article should have in giant letters at the top "WRITTEN BY A TOTAL ZEALOT!!!" in giant red letters, so those of us who would actually care about the facts wouldn't bother.
We already have that.
Posted by kdawson
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Re:Screw this (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like some anti-Microsoft news that at least appears reputable, and not overly sensationalized "ZOMG Balmer blew up M$ eats babies" crap like the stuff I've seen here for the past few weeks.
You're new around here, aren't you?
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Re:Screw this (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like some anti-Microsoft news that at least appears reputable, and not overly sensationalized "ZOMG Balmer blew up M$ eats babies" crap like the stuff I've seen here for the past few weeks.
You're new around here, aren't you?
Or more likely, been around long enough to get tired of all the childish crap and instead want sane discussions about what happened and sane arguments over what to do about it.
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Just so you know what you missed (Score:5, Funny)
Here's my translation for ya:
[rumor] Microsoft [rumor] Economic Crisis [rumor] I can't confirm this but [rumor]. Open Office is better than Microsoft Office. [rumor] [bad logic] [rumor] [rumor] Pitiful prediction.
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Re:Just so you know what you missed (Score:5, Interesting)
I particularly liked the part about how, unless Microsoft permanently reduces the cost of all their software to zero it's an attack on Icelands sovereignty.
That made me giggle a little. And then depressed that the guy who wrote it believes it.
"Unless, and this is important: Microsoft can redeem themselves towards the Icelandic economy if and only if they immediately reduce the price of all of their products to zero, permanently. Anything less will be an act of non-compliance towards the needs of the Icelandic economy, and can be considered an attack on the nationâ(TM)s sovereignty. Such an attack will inevitably be responded to by the market by way of an across-the-board adoption of free software."
Puuuuke.
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Re:Just so you know what you missed (Score:5, Insightful)
I particularly liked the part about how, unless Microsoft permanently reduces the cost of all their software to zero it's an attack on Icelands sovereignty.
It's not, however it's a good reminder not to rely on foreign companies too much.
As retarded as he sounds writing that, he might have a point: If they can't pay, they're likely to migrate to free alternatives.
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Re:Screw this (Score:5, Funny)
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This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hey, I only joined the military for the free college tuition. I never said anything about shooting people!"
These MCP's were all happy to sign up, resell MS's products and take their cut for doing almost nothing. Now they're not selling and they don't want to pay their bill? Puh-lese. The cheese section is apparently in Iceland, along with the whine.
Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the complaint of the MCPs is Microsoft is demanding payment for product the customer isn't paying for. Specifically, my impression is that Microsoft wants to be payed for the full 3 year contract (over 3 years), even though the customer that purchased the software went bankrupt after the first year. It's a good deal from Microsoft's point of view ...
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Informative)
The legal doctine in common law countries is Force Majeure [wikipedia.org]. If something sufficiently big happens, all bets are off.
The other business doctrine is that a big company shall not bankrupt the organizations selling their products:
No sales companies = No salesmen = No sales.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the line between Force Majeure and simply a regrettable business decision? Globally, lots of people in all walks of life are suffering from their decisions (whether sound at the time or not) made during better times that are haunting them in these rough economic times. What about this situation is unique to the MCP? How would the situation look if we allowed people across the board to declare Force Majeure?
As for no salesmen = no sales, it's commonly accepted that Microsoft is a de facto monopoly. If we take that to be true, then there may not be much cost to MS in hanging the MCPs out to dry. The MCP's customer still needs the MS product, and a new MCP undoubtedly will fill in the void when times get better.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
As for no salesmen = no sales, it's commonly accepted that Microsoft is a de facto monopoly. If we take that to be true, then there may not be much cost to MS in hanging the MCPs out to dry. The MCP's customer still needs the MS product, and a new MCP undoubtedly will fill in the void when times get better.
Exactly correct. Whereas there is an effective water monopoly in place as a supplier, resellers are infinitely replaceable. One man goes to the wall, another will take their place. No martyrs, only failures.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Informative)
If something sufficiently big happens, all bets are off.
This is incorrect - the principle of "Force Majeure" is that it has to be completely unexpected - that is, a reasonable person would be unable to forsee the event, and would not have taken measures to mitigate it.
Say I run a fishing company and all my boats are at sea and are sunk in a big storm. I can't really claim Force Majeure on your supply contracts, as it could be expected that, when fishing, one could encounter storms that might sink your fleet. However, if my boats were docked in a harbour with a narrow inlet with high cliffs and some construction work collapsed the cliffs and blocked the harbour preventing my boats from getting out, well that would fit under "Force Majeure".
In the MCP's case, one can get insurance for loss of business income, and if one is beholden to continuous payments to a third party, it's a good idea to get it. This is basic financial disaster management - plenty of businesses will sit down and think, "what would happen if the building caught fire?", but few will think, "what happens if my customers suddenly can't pay?"
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
Mr. Chair Thrower, probably because of the hidden macho inside him, turned tables around and made it possible for guys like RMS to declare it is a war against commercial software. Thus OSS supporters would only need to use negative samples against incumbent commercial software, instead of positive samples of their own. If they were trying to get into a market, just only by benefits and positive aspects of OSS products, they would need positive samples of those. Again theory says that you would need (I might need a correction here, but...) from 10%-30% positive samples for a stronghold in the market. This is what they try to hammer in business schools to people: If you do no have a competition, market is naturally yours. If there is competition, every small gain made by new competitor(s) are bigger losses for the incumbent.
In my country BSA tried to claim, as a scare tactic, you can not have a license free software for office usage, and if you do not have a printed license then there is no license. They performed extensive computer scans in license free offices etc. This of course is complete BullCrap(tm). However as people (especially in rural areas) bought the idea for a while, MS hold the market in that sector of economy. But then one or two small companies started giving printed licenses with their OSS based products. They just sold licenses for one tenth or so prices of MS Office. You can guess the outcome. Competitor(s) made a small gain, MS lost ten folds of money.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, wait...
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
This remark is particularly insightful, IMHO. However, the goods WERE sold. The question is more along the lines of "why can't they simply repossess them?"
THEN you get to the "Oh, wait..." :)
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
The country controls their own court system.
A company that's hostile to all companies in your country is probably not going to do well, regardless who is or is not right.
And it all comes down to: Honor contracts to a foreign company with a failing financial market, or ignore contract disputes and switch to Linux and FOSS.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they'd all like to be paying their bills, but when you set up a fiscal triage line, how important do you think payments to a multi-billion dollar corporation that sells software is going to be compared to say, keeping the lights on and paying the employees?
This is actually quite common in business. Just like how you or I would pay for electricity and food over our credit card bills if we wanted to survive.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
If the flaming article is right, and if I've understood it correctly, that "cut" was negative: "Microsoft Certified Partners (MCP's), which are local companies that lobby the software, generally at a loss to themselves, as they know that Microsoft's lock-in is powerful enough that they can only get service contracts from the company if they offer a substantial discount on the Microsoft products." In other words, the MS licenses were a loss leader.
There's still a good argument that they're just like any business that gets stuck with unsold inventory when its customers get shot out from under it, but it doesn't sound like the MCPs were on a gravy train.
Of course, any other business whose retail customers disappeared could eliminate the bills from their wholesaler by simply stopping their wholesale purchases.
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Re:This seems strangely familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a point. Clearly MS is within their rights in terms of the contracts.
However a wise businessman in their position would be willing to "work with" their "partners" under such circumstances. Sticking to their rights here will blow up in their face, and cost them in the long run.
Which is really a good thing, anyway, both for Iceland and the world, if it results in increased Free Software awareness, usage, and development.
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xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
xkcd is everywhere...
Maybe Microsoft revoked their license for IIS? (Score:5, Funny)
"The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request."
Maybe Microsoft revoked their license on the webserver? Possible?
LOL.
Ah well, it seems somebody over there saw this article and decided to pull it to save grace.
Optimism (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software
Software resellers are moving headlong to Free Software? What is their business model supposed to be?
I'm going to assume this line is trying to say "The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are going to bankrupt themselves for the Free Software cause, for no particular reason".
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA isn't a masterpiece of unbiased discourse; but that part is fairly clear.
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I gathered from the article, most MCPs were selling licenses at a loss anyhow since that is how they could compete with the other MCPs - all with the hope that they could make that up in support contracts.
If that's true, then they were starting with a loss - and sold support.
Why not start at $0 and sell support?
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I feel so sad for these poor MCPs... NOT! (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight; several MCPs in Iceland decided to dance with the devil, buying three-year software contracts from Microsoft for Office and some other applications. After purchasing said contracts directly from Microsoft, these MCP then turned around and sold the same contracts to other companies in Iceland, charging an annual fee to those companies while, I imagine, paying Microsoft on some type of installment plan. Now, when the economy tanks and the folks who paid last year aren't around this year when the bill comes due, these MCPs are surprised, shocked if you will, that Microsoft wants them to pay for the contracts they purchased directly from Microsoft? Truly, am I missing something here?
It doesn't take even a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see that, if you buy a three year contract from vender 'A' and sell it with an annual maintenance fee to customer 'B', you have in fact become a creditor for customer 'B'. It should therefore come as no surprise to these MCPs that, yes, Microsoft really does want them to pay for the contracts they purchased from Microsoft. I can't imagine anyone at Microsoft stuck a gun to their heads and said, "Sell Microsoft software contracts or die." If you dance with the devil, and willingly did business with Microsoft, than you'd better be prepared to pay for the software contracts you purchased from the company.
Perhaps I'm just not enough of a Microsoft-hater, but I fail to see the 'skull fucking' here. What I do see is an angry rant from, I assume, someone who's likely receiving calls from bill collectors in Redmond. I'm sorry that MCP thing didn't work out for you, and if you want to switch from plugging Microsoft products to promoting Open Source Software, than more power to you. But please don't ask me to overlook the poor business decision you made in becoming a de-facto creditor to your customers. If you don't like the way Microsoft does business in Iceland, you don't have to join their game. Take your marbles and go play in some other park with rules more suitable to your taste.
Uhmmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I am a local grocer (the MCP) in a town, and I have just bought 10 tons of corn from the local farm (Microsoft) on agreement to pay for the corn over the next 3 years, but then suddenly all the area folks (other local businesses) cannot afford to buy corn from me anymore - what kind of nonsense suddenly absolves me of having to pay for the corn?
Sure, maybe Microsoft could be doing more negotiating on the contracts to help keep people in business - but guess what? They're a business too. Just because you don't like them doesn't make their contracts any less valid. Just because it's software and not a commodity doesn't make the contracts any less valid. If you take on the risk (the agreement to pay over 3 years, assuming you have revenue to pay for those 3 years), and your risk goes sour - you damned well better have to eat your sour grapes.
Incidentally, that's what is wrong with the bailouts in the US - the US goverment - ie, G W "Idiotboy" Bush and his Republican cronies told all the Wall Street CEOs - take on all the risk you want with other peoples' money, we got your back if it goes bad.
Re:Link contains strong language and vivid imagery (Score:5, Funny)
"imagery" is the stuff you see inside your head when you read that strong language.
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Re:Link contains strong language and vivid imagery (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Article text here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote "The easiest switch would be to go to OpenOffice.org from Microsoft Office. This switch is easy because not only is OpenOffice.org superior software in every respect ...".
Looks like a nice impartial artice.
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Re:Article text here. (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like a nice impartial artice.
You had to read 13 paragraphs of an article titled "Microsoft Skull-fucks Iceland's Economy, Contracts Syphilis" to decide it's not impartial?
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Re:Article text here. (Score:5, Informative)
And the rest of that sentence:
not only is OpenOffice.org superior software in every respect, it's also feature-compatible with Microsoft Office
Look, I like F/OSS software (and dislike MS) as much as the next geek but that's simply not true.
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Re:slashdotted... but available on Coral Cache (Score:5, Informative)
Still viewable via ye olde Coral Cache: http://smari.yaxic.org.nyud.net/blag/2009/03/06/microsoft-skull-fucks-icelands-economy-contracts-syphilis/ [nyud.net]
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Re:slashdotted... but available on Coral Cache (Score:5, Funny)
(Warning: link contains strong language and vivid imagery.)
Excellent way to get people to RTFA :)
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Re:Discussion point: time to short MSFT? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, they don't really have any place to expand their revenue, unless they can get people in developing countries to start paying for windows, and with hardware prices coming down, they are going to have to start charging less in order to remain competitive, so they are looking at reduced revenue on multiple fronts, and not many places to increase revenue.
Would I short them? Heck no. It can take a long time for all of these to come into play, and as Milton Friedman said, the market can remain irrational much longer than you can remain solvent.
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