I read with understanding the news, published today by Microsoft in Bulgaria, i.e. that the CEO of the Bulgarian branch is moving to work for Microsoft in Central and Eastern Europe, to be responsible for education programs.
My understanding is well based, as Teodor Milev was head of Microsoft – Bulgaria during the time the company signed a deal with the government, which was given as an example of corruption by a number of Bulgarian media, members of the Parliament, non-governemntal organizations. In short, the US monopolist rented software (MS windows/MS office) to the government at prices, which are about 2 times the street ones. The government paid about $ 900 / computer for the software used. If they have bought from the first computer shop the same software, instead of renting it, they would have saved immediately about $ 22 million. Instead, the government was “preferred” to pay $ 44 M for Windows and Office. Many of the computers, which were already bought by the government, came with pre-installed MS Windows, so the laundered money seems to be actually higher.
You can read more about this case at the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times (may require subscription or registration to read it; in this case, you can find the same article quoted at the web site of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry), heise.de, as well as in my blog, and at portal.bg – just follow the next links:
my blog
and in Bulgarian (47 articles)
June 14th, 2007 at 0:35
[...] It corrupted the political system – the previous government signed a deal with them for using (not even buying!) MS Windows and MS [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 23:58
[...] deals in new EU member states have raised concerns over corruption before, e.g. in Bulgaria. But while Microsoft seems to raise such questions more often than others, it should be noted that [...]