Microsoft threatens to withdraw Windows from S Korea

Some of us believe people are ultimately good. Good people do bad things. And sometimes bad people do good things.

It they pull Windows from S. Korea, they're freaking out up there.

If people are ultimately good, then these guys would have to start self destructing because their personal machinery will kick-in unconscious to them. They'll just think they're doing the correct action. They won't even know what's ahppening. They'll blame everyone but themselves.

If any country is capablble of changing to an alternate OS virtually overnight it is S. Korea. Their population is now one of the most tech savy in the world. MS steped in it big time :).

Jim: I don't think they smell it yet. I'm not going to tell them.

The wording was more cautious than indicated in the summaries, i.e. they would be forced to withdraw Windows entirely or delay upgrades (e.g. the one with the long horns) with the massive harm retarded upgrades would inflict on the South Korean economy. They (MS) will reverse course if met with steely resolve. Of course, this is assuming there is not a boat load of readily buy able politicians with temporary cash flow problems, but given some of Korea's political history that is not a great bet. Hence, for the skeptical it becomes a wager of Microsoft's winning, but perhaps negated by their blatant arrogance on how the bribes are tendered or the price being even for MS being too high (e.g. when the music pirates ... no companies wanted too high a price per ditty).

Anyone one willing to wager on this? Not I!

The fact that MS is making this threat is just about the perfect argument for why the OpenDocument XML file format need to be used by any government.

It is nice in a way that MS has grown so large that they have no clue what other part of the company is involved in.

Spread the word guys!

No new Tax.... , Sorry, No proprietary File formats.

bstadil:

I haven't thought of it that way yet, but it's indeed an unique opportunity! We should be very grateful for MS for this stupid mistake, which gives us ammo when writing we want to get rid of the closed file formats.

MS will never win in Mass now, if Sun and IBM use this story in a right way. Anyway, if they withdraw Windows from Korea, it will be made clear to the whole world, that people simply can't read their OWN documents without MS. Euhmm, well, they thought this documents were their own. Again, after Mass, MS shows its disrespect for democracy and its customers.

But this could be working out very nice for ODF, and if I'll ever have to write letters to MEP's again, because the EC decided MS 'Open formats' are open enough, I certainly will mention this story as a warning.

So thanks for the excellent idea!