Microsoft News Tracker

The good news is that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in Vietnam to sign a software deal requiring all of Vietnam’s government offices to use licensed software. Later in the day he was at the ceremony where the state-run Vietindebank signed up for 6,000 Microsoft licenses.

As I’ve mentioned before, this seems to be part of Microsoft’s “gentle” strategy in dealing with governments of countries where piracy is rampant. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Vietnamese government got quite a break on the deals.

The bad news is that Microsoft’s antipiracy efforts have drawn a strike by retailers in India:

Computer dealers in India are growing increasingly agitated at Microsoft’s attempts to clamp down on the use of pirated software in the country.

Dealers in the western state of Gujarat went on strike last week to protest notices served by Microsoft to 13 dealers, accusing them of shipping pirated copies of Windows with their computers. They now hope to extend the action to other states.

Bharat Randeri, president of the South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA), said it is never a policy at computer dealers in the state to install pirated software. “We are not installing pirated software on the computers we sell,” he said on Monday.

However, he admitted that individual staff sometimes install pirated software at the request of customers. Some customers want to use pirated software because the price of legal software is too high for them, Randeri said.

SITA hopes to extend its strike action to other states and is prepared to try and pressure Microsoft into withdrawing its complaint notices.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. 

Last but not least (and not strictly Asian), the crackers apparently have developed a clean hack for Vista copy protection. Microsoft says it is studying the problem.

In the internal Microsoft email announcing Friday’s aQuantive acquisition, Steve Ballmer also announced a significant reorganization:

Microsoft has reshuffled its organizational chart again, this time adding the Developer and Platform Evangelism team to its Server and Tools division, and then moving that merged entity into the Business division.

The server and tools business, which falls under the leadership of Senior Vice President Bob Muglia, was moved “intact” from the Platform and Services division to the Business division, whose president is Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK.

…

The developer and platform evangelism team, led by Corporate Vice President Sanjay Parthasarathy, has been merged into the server and tools business, and now reports to Muglia. The changes are effective May 18.

The Business Division is mostly Office although it also includes the old Microsoft Business Solutions and had already picked up Exchange Server as part of the Unified Communications push.

Various explanations are bring offered by Microsoft and the punditry (see above links) for the reorg including that Raikes has now been anointed as Steve Ballmer’s successor. More interesting to me than the executive kabuki dance is why Server and Tools doesn’t rate as a completely separate division as its financial performance would certainly warrant (e.g. here).  It still seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of Microsoft business units. Anyhow, although there has been no indication to the contrary, one certainly hopes that the practice of breaking out Server and Tools financial results will continue.