Microsoft's Absurd Gambit in Massachusetts

Kindly, Shane Warden (a.k.a. chromatic) and Michael Smith have peeled back the Wizard's curtains to reveal the folly of CAGW, or Citizens Against Government Waste, a Microsoft-aided organization now dedicated to promoting that company's interests in saving the State government market for its office suite software from gradual erosion and utter disappearance.

Questionable tactics are Microsoft's middle name. Jupiter researcher, Thor Olavsrud, in August 2001 uncovered a queer gambit unfolding in Utah, where Microsoft is doing its thing in court. There, in a lobbying effort by CAGW and another Microsoft-proxy group, Americans for Technology Leadership ("ATL"), the groups were caught sending letters return-addressed from deceased individuals in a "grassroots" campaign to influence proceedings.

We should expect similar findings to feed entertaining news stories in the Massachusetts situation for a while, but need not be concerned because the Mass ITD people have done their homework.