Microsoft's multicultural missteps
Company offends foreign countries with software gaffes
Jo Best, Cnet News.com
Monday, August 23, 2004
sfgate.com
Microsoft's lack of multicultural savvy cost the
Redmond, Wash., behemoth millions of dollars,
according to a company executive.
The software giant has seen its products banned in
some of the biggest markets on earth -- and it's all
because of eight wrongly colored pixels, a dodgy
choice of music and a bad English-to-Spanish
dictionary.
Speaking at the International Geographical Union
congress in Glasgow last week, Microsoft's top man
in its geopolitical strategy team, 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 political faux pas.
When coloring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India,
Microsoft colored 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. Microsoft was left to recall all 200, 000 copies
of the offending Windows 95 operating system
software to try to heal the diplomatic wounds.
"It cost millions," Edwards said.
Another blunder from Microsoft involved the use of
chanting of the Quran as a soundtrack for a computer
game, which was roundly denounced by the
government of Saudi Arabia.The company later
issued a new version of the game without the
chanting, keeping the previous editions in circulation
because Microsoft's U.S. staff thought this wouldn't be
spotted. But the Saudi government banned the game
and demanded an apology. Microsoft then withdrew
the game.
The software giant managed to further offend the
Saudis by creating another game in which Muslim
warriors turned churches into mosques. That game
was also withdrawn.
Microsoft has also managed to upset women and
entire countries. A Spanish- language version of
Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets,
asked users to select their gender between "not
specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an
unfortunate error in translation.
Edwards said that staff members are now sent to
geography courses to try to 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.
Microsoft spokesman Ricardo Adame added, "It is
complex to do business globally and in multicultural
environments. Like any large company, we have
made mistakes, and this is to show that we have
definitely learned from the past."
Chronicle staff writer Matthew Yi contributed to this
report.
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