For a fact, Microsoft might soon enter debt and we have been studying for quite some time the true story behind Microsoft’s PR and accounting walls. Not so long ago we returned our attention to the issue of misconduct, including systematic kickbacks. There is more to bribery then just kickbacks, which themselves as a subtle form of bribery more severe than lobbying, which is legalised to a greater or lesser degree.

Microsoft is said to be selling Windows XP "below cost to OEMs"

Governments contracting IT work could conclude that Microsoft's antitrust history constitutes "grave professional misconduct" and ban the company, according to the European Commission.

Bashing Microsoft for being closed and proprietary has been a popular pastime in the media and the IT industry for many years, and there is no doubt that much of this has been well deserved...Apple’s business is evolving and see a lot of similar traits to those that were apparent as Microsoft was gaining power.

MICROSOFT'S "academic kickbacks" are no news to us. Microsoft pays hundreds of dollars to professors who secretly promote its products (and bullies those who don't). Microsoft was doing almost exactly the same thing to throw fire at the GNU GPL version 3. The company from Redmond routinely pays academia to promote its agenda and here is the very latest example which comes from the New York Times.

"Microsoft is actually paying for using Windows [...] Asus speaker confirmed this in Germany," says an informant

Ecuador's Internal Revenue Service, or SRI, said Thursday it has closed the offices of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Ecuadorian branch for seven days.

A YEAR ago, ASUS told the press that it was "closely tied up with Microsoft.” This happened just months after ASUS had expressed its future commitment to the GNU/Linux platform and recently we learned that Microsoft probably offered kickbacks to ASUS. It is almost confirmed now. The effect on ASUS appears to be devastating as liaising with Microsoft did not really pay off.

Recently the Dutch government adopted a plan called - translated - 'Netherlands Open in Connection' * which describes how the system of tenders should be changed to migrate to open source software and software conforming to open standards. However, the very same Department of Finance that wrote this plan - because the parliament asked for it - has written a 'closed' document covered under copyright for a closed tender which is called 'GOUD' (Gold). For a large part, the tender indirectly only allows Microsoft software it seems**. Last time there was a closed tender, Microsoft was awarded a deal of €156M worth of software and Michael Robertson's Linspire €6M alternative was not even considered***.