Microsoft On List of Most Ethical Companies

walterbyrd writes "Microsoft is among the world's most ethical companies, according to a list put together by the Ethisphere Institute in New York. Overall, 110 companies made the prestigious list, including Microsoft and 35 other newcomers. The complete list was reported by Forbes."

Re:"Most" doesn't mean "very".

[Locutus]

paying contracted partners to join an industry standards organization committees around the world, give them instructions on their talking points so they vote in a Microsoft document as a standard. Oh and these Microsoft partners overwhelm the committees such that after the MS project vote they didn't continue their duties on the committees and progress all but stopped in the standards org.

Then there's the bit about assigning no less than 12 Microsoft employees in a controlled effort to direct the product article being written about a Microsoft product. That review was finally assigned after Microsoft hounded the magazine editor to do the review and of course provided the Microsoft contact(s) the author should contact. From what I recall, they had psychologists on the team helping to direct those interfacing with the article author with responses to questions and other ways to direct the author and the information provided to the author on the product.

There's also the running around the globe chasing all the OLPC partner countries and paying them millions to not use OLPC products and lock them into using only Microsoft products.

Not something a company should be listed on a high ethics list IMO.

LoB

Re:"Most" doesn't mean "very".

[dch24]

bribery, hidden agendas, employee abuse, poor environmental practices

Did you even try googling any of those? Perhaps you've been so poorly bribed that, abused by Microsoft though you may be, your hidden agenda is to astroturf on tech news sites, polluting them?

Bribery:

• 2005-2010 Bing "Loyalty Rewards" program [techdirt.com] - widely derided as an attempt to grab customers with bribes. If Bing is as good as they want it to be, why do they need to offer cash?
• 2007 OOXML ISO process bribes [wired.com] - you may want to argue about rewarding people for using Microsoft products, by "competitive behavior" maybe you mean offering incentives to a few key people to get things done. But for a standards process, that is bribery. Standards must be evaluated on their technical merit alone. [astm.org] (PDF warning)
• 2006 Bloggers bribed with laptops [slashdot.org] - when every news site is calling it a bribe, I'd say it's not just "competitive behavior."

Hidden Agendas

• 2010 - Microsoft's shell company, Attachmate, attempted to buy 882 patents from Novell. [zdnet.com]
• 2007 - Here's the same wired story about OOXML. [wired.com] I'm not going to do your googling for you; this one's obvious.
• 2005 - Microsoft's addition of PDF support [theinquirer.net]. I didn't even know about this one, but it turns up in a google search... Dude, do your own homework next time.

Employee Abuse

• Have you never heard of throwing chairs? Seriously? [wikipedia.org]
• Microsoft's continuing problems with their Chinese workforce [legalinfo.com] - remember, don't hire them directly. Farm it out to a subsidiary to distance yourself from the inevitable PR disaster.

Poor Environmental Practices
Did you mean to suggest Microsoft is a hardware company?

Or can we count all the useless trash they have pushed out the door, forcing users to reformat their machines as soon as they buy them so they can downgrade to a decent OS [crn.com], Vista ending up straight in the landfill?

Re:"Most" doesn't mean "very".

[slashqwerty]

Not surprisingly there are a lot of negative comments here, but to play devil's advocate: what practices of Microsoft's are really unethical?

1. Lying to IBM about having an OS ready. Bill Gates later bragged about this in his 1995 book.
2. Setting up contracts with vendors that required them to buy Windows licenses for every machine they sell even if the machine did not come with Windows.
   
   Making their apps use hidden APIs that worked while leaving competing products to use published APIs that were buggy.
3. Using a fabricated video during the anti-trust trial to make it look like IE could not be removed from the OS.
4. Bribing other companies to join a standards body and push their complex, unvetted standard through.
5. 'Donating' to a bunch of Attorneys General campaings which were then followed up with generous settlement offers after the states had already won their case.
6. 'Donating' $100,000 to the George W. Bush inaugural party which was followed up with a generous settlement offer after the DOJ had already won their case.
7. Spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) about the competition has long been a standard Microsoft business practice.
8. Paying SCO some $50 million dollars through foreign back channels (BayStar) while SCO was spreading FUD about Linux.

Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many, many more.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft isn't at its peak of douchebaggery, but the only explanation for the idealistic portrayal you paint is you not watching all news involving Microsoft. Someone who only knows of a company through their own product purchases should not feel qualified to comment on that company. To be fair, Microsoft isn't in the headlights like it was in the 90s, and news today is comparably enormous; most people do not read all Microsoft headlines, because there are more important things to care about.

In reading your post again I suspect I've been trolled by devxo. But I already wrote the above, so... whatever.

Re:Wow

[Kvasio]

Yes, the peak of douchebaggery are ranking-makers.

My power supplier was awarded "consumer friendly company" and "reliable company" awards last year, while they've sent all their invoices late (usually after payment deadline) and threatened customers with "outstanding" invoices with submission to the "bad debt registry".

I even called ranking-maker about this issue and learned, that companies submit themselves, then categories were created, and asked people (some 400 people in total, this was not an open vote) to indicate the most reliable companies. In largely monopolized categories (such as power supply) company can be nearly sure to be voted winner. (but that is ok, as they've paid fee for contest admission)

Re:"Most" doesn't mean "very".

[Daniel Phillips]

They treat their employees decently

No they don't. Microsoft policies are very effective at turning wide eyed grads into paranoid backbiting facetimers.