By Jo Best, 19 August 2004 12:40
NEWS Microsoft's lack of political savvy has cost the Redmond behemoth millions and seen its products banned in some of the biggest markets on earth - and it's all because of eight wrongly coloured pixels, dodgy choice of music and a bad English-to-Spanish dictionary.
Speaking at the International Geographical Union congress in Glasgow, Microsoft's top man in its geopolitical strategy unit, Tom Edwards, revealed how one of the biggest companies in the world managed to offend one of the biggest countries in the world with a software slip-up. When colouring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft coloured eight of them a different shade of green to represent the disputed Kashmiri territory.
The difference in greens meant Kashmir was shown as non-Indian and the product was promptly banned in India. Redmond was left to recall all 200,000 copies of the offending Windows 95 software to try and heal the diplomatic wounds. "It cost millions," Edwards said.
Another social blunder from Microsoft saw chanting of the Koran used as a soundtrack for a computer game and caused great offence to the Saudi Arabia government. Microsoft later issued a new version of the game without the chanting, while keeping the previous versions in circulation because US staff thought the slip wouldn't be spotted, but the Saudi government banned the game and demanded an official apology. Microsoft then withdrew the game.
It managed to further offend the Saudis by creating another game where Muslim warriors turned churches into mosques. The game was also withdrawn.
Microsoft has also managed offend women as well as entire countries. A Spanish language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, gave users an option to select their gender from not specified, male or "bitch", due to an unfortunate error in translation.
Microsoft has also taken its Prince Philip style of diplomacy to Korea, Kurdistan, Uruguay and to China - where a cartographical dispute saw Chinese employees hauled in front of the government.
Edwards said that staff are now sent on geography courses to try and avoid such mishaps. "Some of our employees, however bright they may be, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world," he said.
Comments
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1. anonymous
What a great quote: "Some of our employees, however bright they may, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world". The scary thing is, you can substitute the word "Presidents" for "employees" and it's equally true.
2. anonymous
Americans with "a hazy idea of the rest of the world"? I'm stunned! I would never have beleived such a thing possible. (etc etc)
3. Andy Fox
Anyone really surprised at this sort of cock-up from any company based on Planet USA? After all the rest of the world isn’t really that important.. is it?
4. anonymous
I can well believe it (hazy idea of the rest of the world).
When I visited MIT (yes, the well-known uni in Cambridge, Massachusetts)a group of students in the main entrance hall were offering a free coffee and coffee roll (like a danish pastry) to anyone who knew what the capital of Australia was (not a small unknown country really).
Obviously to a Commonwealth citizen the answer was a piece of cake (or coffee roll).
They were amazed and congratulated me heartily when I gave the correct answer...
I wonder if GW knows the answer ???
5. David King
Typical ignorant Americans -- but you cannot totally blame Microsoft or its employees, the US government is responsible for the educational system in the USA, which is so pathetic that US students are years behind European students, because in the USA there is a xenophobic attitude which goes into education, so that students learn nothing of the world beyond the USA, except maybe a little about Canada, which to the Americans is the rest of the world. The USA refuses to convert to the modern metric system, refuses to understand the cultures and languages of foreign countries, and even President Bush at one time was clueless about anyone in power outside of the USA. Microsoft needs to set up its own education program for its employees, to bring them up to the standards that the rest of the world uses.
6. anonymous
I'm surprised they just didn't cover the rest of the world in the Stars and Stripes!!
7. rec
haha, male or bitch :P
makes total sense tho. anything outside of the US of A is considered as unimportant therefore we shall not consider them.
8. Ian Proud
In 1991 when I used Microsoft word for the first time, the package had a selection of images to copy onto documents, etc. Amongst them were the flags of the world. And guess what, the Union Flag was upside down. When I finally made contact with Microsoft to point out the error, the gist of the reply was "never mind, who will notice?"
Flying a national flag upside down is internationally recognised as a sign of distress, but what made this case so distressing was that Microsoft was unable to see the insult of having the flag upside down.
9. Alfred Reading
I purchased the first version of Encarta, a much advertised aid to education. I returned it for a refund as being "not of merchantable quality" the then legal way of saying it was rubbish. It had a mirror image of Holbein's "The Ambassadors", Fahrenheit to Centigrade conversion the wrong way round and credited RCA with inventing TV in the 1940s with no mention of BBC broadcasts before the war, Alexandra Palace or John Logie Baird. Though I got my refund they did not withdraw the rubbish.
10. anonymous
Steady on! And you lot have never made a mistake? Considering MS is so large and spread across the whole world I'm surprised there isn't more mistakes. And apart from the translation error the others seem to be a judgement call which would offend some and be quite acceptable to others.
This was just an opportunity to jump on Americans, chill out and focus on the Garlic Munching Surrender Monkeys instead! Far more productive.
(I'm English by the way).
11. Nick Tee
So typical of those from the Land of Doodle Dandy.....the world starts at LA and finishes at NY. Maybe it's about time to take some of that $40 billion in cash they are sitting on and chuck out those pinball machines that the average MS employee's life revolves around, and start to get some real edumacation... Mind you, this might be a future excuse they can use to explain why all MS products are so grossly overpriced - so they can afford to pay for their mistakes. Actually that poses a question - if they tried to fix all their mistakes, would £40 billion be enough?"
12. anonymous
America does not have Kings
13. royston
if a peron hurts another either verbaly or physicaly by total accident and both parties are normal unofensive people that are kind to their neighbors and expect people to treat them how they would treat others then these kind of mistakes should be taken in humour and understood as a simple mistake. and a polite explanation of where they went wrong and a polite apology should be excepted by all. i have never understood why human beings have always been intent on , ooooh youve ofended me so i,m going to make you suffer even if you didnt mean it on purpose. its so stupid and i,m ashamed to say the planet is totaly crazy and needs a lesson in how to be human,because at the moment we are an discrace!!!
14. Alan Brooks
Not surprising when, to the average American, Foreign News is what happens outside his county and World News is what happens outside his state !.
15. Bloated_gov't
Is the Kashmir region not a disputed region? To Indians it's not...it, of course, is Indian. To Pakistanis it's not...it, of course, is Pakistani. So, in effect, MS has to "play to it's audience", kiss its ass.
I also think that MS was representing reality when it showed Muslims changing Churches to mosques. Has anybody studied life under Sharia law? If anything, MS is penalized for being too truthful.
16. jim doyle
Well, Isn't Elvis the King?
17. Elizabeth Howard Poe
Dear Me!!! Most criticisms are from England. (Thank you Wales for your compassion). Do you realize that many Americans are transplanted English people by several generations? Don't be so smug. Have you considered that your impression of Americans may be erroneous? We do not all live in NY or LA. Elvis is the King to some, but I listen to classical. Many people are ethnocentric and you critics should take a good look at yourselves. Also please realize that America is not one large homogeneous nation. There are vast regional differences here and many of us are well educated (even if we live on farms as I do) and should not be coloured with the same brush as those who write MS programs or manage to get into the news. Americans are really a nice bunch of people when you get to know them. Come for a visit to the "heartland" and see for yourself. Now excuse me, I must go feed the chickens. Elizabeth