Microsoft Pakistan says the trip did not violate any company policy. PHOTO: FILE
Refraining to mention anything about the official's spouse who had also been on the trip, Microsoft described the trip as a necessary reference site visit.
The Wall Street Journal had reported on August 21 that Microsoft had allegedly authorised a consulting firm to pay for a five-day trip of a Punjab government official and his wife to Egypt in order to secure a tender worth $9 million.
The report also said that Microsoft's relationships with business partners in Russia and Pakistan that allegedly bribed foreign officials in return for contracts was being investigated by US Department of Justice.
The Pakistani subsidiary of the Washington-based tech giant denied the allegations and clarified that the visit complied with company policy.
The company also denied the involvement of a consulting firm saying that the contract was a direct one between the Punjab government official and Microsoft Pakistan.
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@KH: It tells how less you know about Opensource and IT companies.
Companies like Google, Facebook and many other are running Opensource softwares.
Opensource does not mean free, infact many opensourcesoftwares has support and paid. Opensource softwares get much rapid patches than paid one.
Guys, hold on. Bribe are never documented. I guess most of you have not worked in international firms and are unware of this, that most of the reputed firms have similar policies, where they CAN provide hospitality & other business oriented events, foreign trips to others, PROVIDED that all transactions that take place are well documented and audited. There are internaltional guidelines for this. For-example providing a prostitute services is not legal and cannot be documented even if you want to. But providing the air tickets to the family of whom they are sponsoring can be done. There is a catch. The relationship between PROVIDER and RECIEVER has to be established in the documents, along with mentioning of any on-going business discussions and or future tender related information, so that it becomes clear that this transaction (trip costs etc) is not by any means going to BENEFIT the PROVIDER in the specific tender.
Bottom line is that do not create such a mess out of this news. If Microsoft wants to do something in Pakistan for Pakistan, Welcome this. Do not create your own judgement just by looking at few paras of the NEWS above.
@Sarfraz Khan: Dear Khan are you out of mind? Competition requires Quality, Quantity, Reference of time and other means not foreign trips offering, gifts etc.
I wonder what is criteria of publishing comments. I had sent my comments in relation to what Mr. Sarfraz had said that what is wrong in this case. I tried to explain why it is unprofessional and unethical and against personal and professional integrity. I suppose you need to read it carefully to understand beofre you let it print. Regards. Nasir
I have another example here. . A senior minister from Sialkot had his home renovated just 2 months before elections.Total cost fell a little more than two million rupees, and the bill was settled by a local factory owner / exporter. I can solemnly say that, since the contractor is my cousin. Can anybody define it, whether it can be called bribe or gift.
@GS@Y: You can read its history to learn it was born out of Nazi Eugenics movement with patron Margaret Sanger.
@Khurram Awan: Khurran how much experience do your friends have in IT. I have been a developer for more than 9 years, and when you decide system landscape, no IT head will go for an open source software, it is not a university project.
You are talking about reliability, scalabitlity. And I dont want to be dependent on an open source Operating system and a small scale database.
@Sarfraz Khan: What you are saying is partially right. How ever do not forget that you have to protect the interests of the organization you work for(your personal and professional integrity). The theory behind is that if you take bribe or favors from your supplier then you will not be able to take decision independently or impartially and therefore be detrimental to the organization. What suppliers do in such cases is to increase their price to recover money they spend on bribes or favors, in this case trip cost. This also results in extra cost to the organization you work for and you may also compromise on the quality and other deliverables, if supplier is unable to meet your organisation's requirements. I hope this is not too difficult to understand. Just think about this rationally.
@Sarfraz Khan: What you are saying is partially right. How ever do not forget that you have to protect the interests of the organization you work for(your personal and professional integrity). The theory behind is that if you take bribe or favors from your supplier then you will not be able to take decision independently or impartially and therefore detrimental to the organization. What suppliers do in such cases to increase their price to recover money they spend. This also results in extra cost to the organization you work for and you may also compromise on the quality and other deliverables. I hope this is not too difficult to understand. Yt Just think about this rationally.
@Rand0m: Open source software dominates servers. Linux is the most widely used server operating system, Apache and Nginx are the most widely used web servers, MySQL the most widely used RDBMS, PHP the most widely used server side scripting language, Xen, OpenVZ and KVM the most widely used virtualization platforms etc. The list goes on and on. This site too runs on an open source stack - LNMP stack and WordPress. So it is ironic that you should complain about open source software on a site powered by said software.
All those advocating open source and cloud computing do you know how buggy and insecure open source applications are? For cloud computing Microsoft System Center solutions are the best, be it a hypervisor, operations manager or config manager it is Microsoft that is leading and all these tools can be used with MS OS and did I miss the advantages of Win Server 2012, Share point and Exchange? These Software don't just perform very well but they are also industry bench mark. Here in Australia 99% Government departments run on MS applications and have Volume licence agreements with MS. Its is quite normal for an organization like MS to sponsor foreign trips you can name it anything as long as it brings more cutting edge technology to Pakistan it is a good thing.
@abdussamad: I know it but when i comment i never have a glance even for the second time and i dont think it is important as well. If my message could come across pretty well then that is what all i need.
@Muhammad: "In America, people call it ‘lobbying.’ It’s one of the disadvantages of democracy…" Sir, are you saying that during the dictatorial rules or under the Kings or Sheiks there is no lobbying? As the saying goes democracy is the worst form of govt except all the others. Regards, M
Google is the the future Microsoft. Welcome them.
@Khurram Awan: It's great that you are a fan of open source software. I am too (see my site). But you should know that the plural of software is also software. There is no such thing as "softwares".
Even EMC does the same thing and is quiet known to do so -
They give gifts and trips in order to ensure they win the tender
In America, people call it 'lobbying.' It's one of the disadvantages of democracy...
This is not true but totally false. Punjab govt has been running their province better than rest of Pakistan without corruption. The trip by govt official and his wife was a “pilgrimage” and not a bribe. Muslims do not accept bribes it is a conspiracy to malign good Muslims.
The Punjab IT board is fully corrupted by Microsoft. They had introduced tender for cloud services but it was all based on Microsoft specification and as usual Microsoft won this tender. No local companies was allowed to participate such as Viper.
See the website now http://www.pitbcloud.pk/
Everybody knows Microsoft is still far back in cloud hosting services. They only have Office 365 product that is running from Cloud in America.
Shabaz Sharif was made fool by the government officials on payroll of Microsoft.
What's the news??? :S Is it some thing new for Pakistani Government Officials? Oh you mean, its weird because it involves Microsoft, right??? =)
ET should disclose the name of the Punjab Government Official and his spouse so that the Electronic Media in Pakistan should take it from there.
what does that mean?
And who was that Punjab government official , the people of Pakistan has the right to know their officials who are taking these disguised bribes. And let it be a lesson to the future receipients of any kind of bribes from foreign corporations that eventully their names will be exposed. Greed has no limits.
@Ashkenazi: What's your problem with Planned Parenthood? It provides health services to millions of poor women. Stop pretending like that affects your limited existence.
Definitely a bribe. Why else the wife's trip was paid? There are very strict US laws against bribing foreign government officials. I do see a fine coming. Regarding the punjab government, it's filled with corruption, so no news at that end.
I have a discussion with some of my friends who are working in IT department of the Punjab government and they were stating that due to many Official trips and sponsors the government has finally decided to dump all types of Open Source softwares so that top officials could earn good amount of kickbacks through proprietary software. Many consultants have suggested the switch of Windows to Linux operating systems to cut costs but Punjab government flatly refused it. As a result now Windows Operating System is the first choice rather than Linux and Oracle database is now the first choice rather than MySQL.
Bribe by another name.
What can you expect from Planned Parenthood financiers.