A spiffy little article about how Micro$oft’s impolitic software decisions has cost the company millions of dollars — though, in at least some of these cases, it’s a matter of not being hyper-sensitive enough to avoid goring local political or cultural oxen.
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 and heal the diplomatic wounds. “It cost millions,” Edwards said.
(via GeekPress)