Is Microsoft Paying To Influence UN Standards? 298
PizzaFace writes "Microsoft is reported to be spending strategically to influence the United Nations' standards for business data exchange. A UN standards-setting body, UN/CEFACT, and an industry-standards group, OASIS, had developed an open standard format for data interchange, called ebXML. Microsoft hired two people from UN/CEFACT, and a few months later the body decided to stop working on ebXML and instead to work on a Business Collaboration Framework for web services, promoted by Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft then paid for three UN committee members to travel to six countries to promote the BCF."
No - the price is too cheap (Score:5, Funny)
All technical issues aside, if a damn UN standards-setting body is influenced in their decision by a couple of hotel stays and some plane tickets (which, they would have gotten anyway), then there is no hope for any of us - we might as well accept our clippy enhanced future now.
Hmmmm... or maybe there is - hell, if could raise $10 grand maybe I could get a new standard which lets me get master control over something.
Surely not! (Score:5, Funny)
I for one will stand up and defend...err.....hold on....
What? The UN? (Score:4, Funny)
Yea right!
Moral Dilemma! (Score:5, Funny)
"Spending Strategically" ??? (Score:5, Funny)
Then it was "lobbying"
Now it's "Spending Strategically"
bs
Re:UN (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Surely not! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:UN - The Best International Organization... (Score:2, Funny)
I have experience in multi-continental vindaloo management, as well as korma transfer and naan broking
Re:UN (Score:1, Funny)
A better thing is will the rest of the world just laugh at a bought M$ standard and ignore it while people in the US actually try to implement it.
Re:Surely not! (Score:3, Funny)
Where's my check?
Serious, yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
-S
Funding plan (Score:5, Funny)
Except now we know what (2) is.
Re:Surely not! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:"Spending Strategically" ??? (Score:5, Funny)
I spend strategically, you lobby, he bribes.
Re:No - the price is too cheap (Score:5, Funny)
I can see it now:
M$: We wrote this operating system JUST FOR YOU. We even named it after you.
UN Grunt: WOW! Windows Me. I like the sound of that.
M$: (evil laughter)
-m
New category for stories... (Score:5, Funny)
The UN has *standards*? (Score:1, Funny)
Seems to me that's an utter lack of standards.
What MS really wants from the UN (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No - the price is too cheap (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft buys UN (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Question (Score:2, Funny)