Posted on 03/11/2004 9:42:41 AM PST by cc2k
Microsoft has been mailing free copies of its pricey Office productivity software to government employees, but CNET News.com has learned that at least two federal agencies are warning recipients to return the gifts or risk violating federal ethics policies.
Since the launch of Office 2003 last year, Microsoft has given out tens of thousands of free copies of its flagship software, which retails for about $500, to workers at its biggest customers. The giveaway was expanded to government workers this year, but ethics offices at the Department of the Interior and Department of Defense have said the offers constitute unauthorized gifts and must be returned.
The Department of the Army went a step further, calling on Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to stop sending the software to Army personnel.
"We ask that you cease immediately the mailing of free software, and other types of gifts, to the Department of the Army personnel," Deputy General Counsel Matt Reres said in a Feb. 19 letter seen by CNET News.com. "Your offer of free software places our employees and soldiers in jeopardy of unknowingly committing a violation of the ethics rules and regulations to which they have taken an oath to uphold."
The issue comes up as many governments are looking at open-source alternatives for Office and the Windows operating system. The British government has been evaluating a switch to the Linux OS, while open-source software is also being eyed in Korea, China, India and even at some local agencies in the United States.
Microsoft's giveaway also comes as the company faces ongoing oversight by the Justice Department as part of its settlement of antitrust allegations.
A Microsoft representative said giving away the software is a way to let some customers experience new features. "The goal of the program was to give customers a taste of the software and allow them to learn how it might be of use to their organizations in a positive way," Microsoft spokesman Keith Hodson said.
Although Office has captured more than 90 percent of the market for productivity software, convincing customers to upgrade to the latest versions of Office has become a growing challenge for the company. And upgrades are essential to Microsoft: Office and Windows produce substantially all the company's profits.
To address ethical concerns, Microsoft includes a note with copies of the software letting government workers know that they can send the software back to Microsoft without charge if receiving such a gift violates their agency's rules.
"Government Entities: Microsoft intends that this product be used in accordance with applicable laws and regulations for the evaluation, use and benefit of your government agency only," Microsoft states in the note. "You may, at your discretion, return this product package to Microsoft at its expense."
Hodson said the company hoped such language would allow any agency that did not appreciate the offer to easily send back the software.
"Not every government organization, as we're learning, finds it to be a valuable program," Hodson said. "We would like to think that there will be a variety of government organizations that will find value in the program."
For now, Microsoft said it will continue the strategy but will stop sending software to any particular agency that requests the company do so. The software maker did not say how many copies of the program have been sent to government employees.
According to the Department of Defense, delivery of the software was preceded by a card explaining that Office would be arriving "in the coming weeks" and that the software was being sent "without obligation."
The Defense Department's Standards of Conduct Office was among the first to take action, warning its workers in a Feb. 13 advisory not to accept the software.
"These items have been determined to be gifts from a prohibited source, and may not be accepted by (Defense Department) employees," the agency said in its advisory. "If received, the items should be returned to Microsoft."
The ethics office of the Department of the Interior said it had not heard reports of its employees receiving the software, but decided last month to warn its 65,000 workers after hearing about the Department of Defense's reaction.
"We looked at it as a marketing gambit," said Arthur Gary, deputy director of the Interior Department's ethics office. "We just wanted to apply the gift rules to it."
The department, which oversees national parks and other federal lands, concluded last month that the software constituted an unacceptable gift--one valued at more than $20 and from a party with whom the department does business or whom it regulates. Since issuing the memo, Gary said, the agency has heard of at least one employee receiving the software.
"We just kind of wanted to spread the word," Gary said. "We want to head off any problems."
If the response of those two government agencies is any indication of how other departments will respond, Microsoft may back away from the program.
"Based on an overall response we receive from governments," Hodson said, "we may look at doing things differently the next time."
Er, giving a gift over $50 to a government employee whose agency does business with you or regulates you is every bit as "clearly illegal" as a storage locker full of crack cocaine.
cosine wrote:That depends on what products they are offering as samples. Are we talking about dish detergent? Candy bars? Or cigarettes?
Do you put companies who offer free samples at grocery stores, in the newspaper, and at various events in the same category?
cosine wrote:Addictive might be the wrong term. But from a technical standpoint, there is a very similar situation. Once you install some of these "samples," it can be very difficult to remove the "sample" and restore your computer to the state it was in before you tried the sample. It's not always easy to go back to where you were before.
Plus you apparently find Microsoft products addictive. They're that good? Really?
I don't know specifically about this Office 2003 package, but that is certainly true from some of the "evaluation" software that I've experienced in the past.
I notice that MS has changed Works significantly, I suspect because the old Works (word processing, spreadsheet, flat file database and Outlook Express) suited the needs of too many people and was denting Office sales. When I went to the MS site, all the links from the Works home page were dead, which tells you how much they're supporting it.
Now, MS, who's biggest problem with Office is program bloat, is having trouble convincing people to move up. Sending out free copies makes sense to me, though, and try as I might, I can't twist it into an evil MS plot.
Richard Kimball wrote:Well, there's two separate issues here. The article is specifically about giving free copies to government employees and officials. Sending gifts to government employees and officials with a retail value of around $500 is generally against the law. It's especially against the law if the sender of the gift either does business with or is regulated by the government agency involved. So, it might not be an "evil MS plot," but it's definitely an illegal act.
Sending out free copies makes sense to me, though, and try as I might, I can't twist it into an evil MS plot.
The second issue has more to do with how organizations work. Let's say you are a department manager at XYZ Corporation. Your company uses Microsoft products, and the current "standard" is to use Office 2000. Microsoft has made a presentation to your IT department to try to sell them on a Office 2003 upgrade, but the IT folks have decided for various reasons that they will not buy the upgrade. They have settled into a 3 year cycle for replacing desktop PC's, and next year is the time they will be replacing all desktops and the software on them. This year, they are doing major upgrades to the network servers, and the budget is strictly for "maintenance only" on the desktops. Next year, new desktops will be purchased, and the organization will move from Windows 2000 to whatever the latest OS is from Microsoft, and from Office 2000 to the latest version of Office. But this year they are concentrating on servers and infrastructure upgrades.
But you signed up to possibly win a free X-Box at a Microsoft booth at a trade show a few months back, so Microsoft has your contact inforamtion at XYZ Corporation. So, they send you 3 "free" copies of Office 2003. You install one copy on your PC, one on your secretary's PC, and one on your research assistant's PC. You're pretty computer savvy, so you did this yourself, without calling the IT department about it. All is good, right?
Except that you are now saving documents on the company's servers in a format that can't be read by other users using the company's "standard" applications. When someone else tries to read a document you saved, they get a message telling them that they must upgrade to Office 2003 in order to read your document. The same thing happens when you email Word documents or Excel spreadsheets to co-workers in other departments.
Pretty soon, Microsoft sends a few more "free" copies to some other people at your company, and there's a full scale rebellion going on in your company. End users with the "free" software are putting pressure on the IT department to upgrade now. End users in other departments are complaining that they can't read and collaborate on documents they need to do their job.
This is one of the ways that Microsoft drives upgrade sales, and if you work at one of the "target" companies, it's a big PITA. It's hard on the IT department, but it's also hard on everyone else at the company that gets involved in this kind of project.
Not analagous. If a company offers me a free sample at a grocery store to try to entice me, I will be spending MY money. I won't be spending someone else's money, either my employer's or money taken from taxpayers.
To anticipate another question, I work in an industry where sampling, meals, and many other gifts are rampant. And my employees know that even taking a meal will result in their being fired.
Personally, I stay away from the whole mess. I have not a line of microsoft code on my computer, and I'm quite happy with it.
Peace, my brothers and sisters. I have no quarrel with free software. Can't we all just get along?
All of them that have fuctionality, that is.
I can.
Microsoft sends software to Employee "A" who installs it on his computer at work without clearing it with IT, and who then takes it home to install there.
Microsoft waits several months, then shows up for a software licensing audit. They discover a copy of the software on Employee "A"'s machine for which the agency can't produce a license.
Microsoft demands that the agency, now clearly engaging in software piracy since they have software for which they can't produce a license, buy the software for all of the 10s of thousands of machines owned by the agency to avoid prosecution.
It's not exactly an "evil plot" but it isn't totally innocent either. The very employees at Microsoft who decided to do this probably cannot themselves accept a gift this size from a vendor... or a would-be vendor.
Almost every big company has policies like this. If you're in advertising or promotion you're supposed to know that you just don't do this. It puts the recipients in an embarrassing spot.
Microsoft's advertising people know this. They thought about it, and then they did it anyway. I think that tells us something about Microsoft that we would just as soon not know.
Man I think I hear the theme from 'The Twilight Zone' playing in the background.
This is so strange.
Still using Office 2000, and see no need whatsoever to upgrade.
But Microsoft software is sort of like a drug. I must say I get a bit of a "rush" when I walk into a computer store and see some new Microsoft shrink-wrapped software. My pulse quickens and I instinctively reach for my wallet. I want it so bad. Sometimes I'll buy a Microsoft product I have absolutely no use for just because it was so attractively packaged. My computer room bookshelf is full of Microsoft programs I paid good money for but rarely ever used. FrontPage97, Encarta Encyclopedia, Microsoft Cinema (released around 1996 and movie reviews and audio soundclips of popular movies that I never got around to listening to), even a copy of Microsoft Access. One of these days, I have to figure out how to use Access. In the meantime, I'll keep using my Microsoft Excel as my database of choice. That Access is just so complicated. But it was worth every penny of the $199 I paid for it, I'm sure. I just have to read the manual someday and figure it all out.
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