Warning! bad Language!
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Microsoft has made a business out of selling licenses to run software that can be copied at no marginal cost, this everybody knows. Essentially, they manufacture software, but their product isn’t computer code, it’s legal code. Contracts.
They make deals with companies, the most common type being three year non-exclusive non-transferable usage rights contracts for the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office software package. A severe amount of licenses for Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision Financials, and I shall refer to it as Navision) are sold as well.
The companies and institutions that buy these generally don’t buy these directly through Microsoft. Instead, they sell contracts in bulk to 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.
Now, the licensing term is three years, but the licensing fee is made in the form of annual payments. Here is where the fun begins.
Now, say an economy collapses. Say some fifteen hundred companies in your local economy go bankrupt. Now, say that Microsoft comes to collect its annual fee from the MCP’s. The MCP’s say, of course, “wait, the company that we sold this license to has gone bankrupt, we shouldn’t have to pay.”
“Aha!” says the suit from Redmond. “You made a contract with us, and another with them. Their inability to uphold their end of the contract does not invalidate your commitment to us.”
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More at link ( its google cache, writers site got hit so hard by /. it went down )
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:X9gxL2vZ5soJ:smari.yaxic.org/blag/2009/03/06/microsoft-skull-fucks-icelands-economy-contracts-syphilis/+microsoft-skull-fucks-icelands-economy-contracts-syphilis&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a