The Accelerate HR Blog
Microsoft takes over Bahrain (Wed Dec 05 2007)
Microsoft might have its difficulties with the regulators in Europe and the US, but not here in Bahrain. According to the Bahrain News Agency today, Bahrain "has become the first country in the world to sign an agreement with Microsoft to give every citizens (sic) a free Windows Live Email Account , allowing them access to a range of government services."
Not just government services, it seems, if we follow the story further with Dubai-based business news agency AME.
"The integrated platform provides tools to use email, photos, file sharing, search, share, blog and communicate online, all under the Windows Live brand. These robust and innovative communication tools offer citizens new ways to interact with their online and physical communities. All these services will be offered by the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain at no cost to the individual end users. With a localized domain to the email addresses, it offers more flexibility and more personalization for the end user."
But hang on a minute. This is Windows Live they're talking about, is it not? The same Windows Live that offers email, photo and file-sharing, blogging ...? The same GET WINDOWS LIVE - FREE that's plastered all over MSN?
So who's kidding who? The Government's signed a contract to give freely to all its citizens a product that was always free anyway. Has anyone told the Government?
But wait ... there's more. Here's AME again:
"With Windows Live@Gov, the Government of Bahrain will provide every citizen with a Windows Live email account and identification, giving them access to a myriad of services through a custom government domain such as citizen@bahrain.gov. The email address issued by Windows Live@Gov will be accessible and hosted by Windows Live Hotmail and may be accessed through a number of websites including mail.live.com. In addition to Windows Live Hotmail, individuals will be able to use their ID to sign up for services on Windows Live ID sites such as Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Messenger."
So users log on to their accounts via a government domain. And then use it to blog, and express their views and opinions, send their mail. There's something about this that makes me feel more than a little uneasy. Here's one of the reasons why. And if you scan halfway down the home page of the wonderful Mahmood's Den, from the doyen of Bahrain's bloggers, Mahmood Al-Yousif, you'll find two lists that might make you uneasy about government-sponsored domains too.
No-one can argue with the statements of intent. It's all about 'providing people with the tools and opportunities to achieve and excel', says Microsoft. They're aiming to 'create opportunities for GCC nationals to participate in the growth and development of the country'.
In a must-read article last week, Andrew Orlowski suggested that 'Web 2.0 evangelists make the Microsoft monopoly stronger'. It's fashionable, says Orlowski, to argue that "Microsoft is dead, dying - or at the very least, irrelevant. And since in the wonderful new open-source world Microsoft belongs to a 'distant era', who gives a hoot about regulation? Well, says, Orlowski, that's exactly the argument Microsoft themselves are now putting forward in the courts.
One of the evangelists Orlowski mentions is Tim O'Reilly, who gave us the landmark definition of Web 2.0. But let's check out the O'Reilly article again. He doesn't say that Microsoft is irrelevant - just that the battlefield has changed, and Microsoft will find it difficult to adapt:
"While Microsoft has demonstrated enormous ability to learn from and ultimately best its competition, there's no question that this time, the competition will require Microsoft (and by extension, every other existing software company) to become a deeply different kind of company."
And O'Reilly has a little conditional here that may turn out to be prescient:
"Communications-oriented systems, as the internet-as-platform most certainly is, require interoperability. Unless a vendor can control both ends of every interaction, the possibilities of user lock-in via software APIs are limited."
(My highlight)
Here, I think, is the real story today. This neat little scheme in Bahrain isn't just about free software being donated to us citizens for free. It's a very smart way to control both ends of every interaction. It's a monopolist's monopoly. And it puts a big exclamation mark at the end of Andrew Orlowski's assertion that the Web 2.0 revolution may be becoming "a concentration of power with the people who had it already".
Ah, you say. But this is in another country. And besides, Microsoft's (almost) dead.
Well let me tell you that Bahrain's been a pretty useful and convenient test market for big ideas in the past. It was here that Pepsi piloted their Blue rebranding scheme back in the mid-90's. Today, Pepsi is blue worldwide.
Could this be the thin end of a very thick wedge?
