Boycott Microsoft

Microsoft is one of the giants of the IT industry. It's most well known products include the Windows operating system, the MS Office application set and the X-Box. Microsoft also produce server software, middleware and other software.

Gordon Frazer is the Managing Director at Microsoft UK and is a Vice President of Microsoft International. Gordon was appointed to the UK MD role in July 2006, prior to this appointment he spent four years as Managing Director for Microsoft South Africa. Outside of Microsoft, Gordon is on the UK E-skills Industry Board and the UK CBI Higher Education Task Force.

During his long career at Microsoft Gordon has held many key roles. Before becoming Managing Director for South Africa he was responsible for the Enterprise and Partner Group, focusing on Microsoft’s largest customers and partners in the country. Prior to this, he was head of the Business Solutions Group, working with Microsoft partners to develop and deliver line of business applications to organizations. Gordon joined Microsoft in November 1995 in a marketing role, where he concentrated on intellectual property and software licensing issues.

Before joining Microsoft, Gordon was Technical Director at a software development company and had previously worked in financial services and the mining industry. Gordon holds a Bachelors degree from Rhodes University in South Africa.

On 18th October, Gordon Frazer signed an open letter calling on the Chancellor to continue the coalition government's plans to reduce the public finance deficit in one term, plans which included swingeing cuts on the poorest members of society and which risk pushing this country into a double-dip recession, the likes of which has not been seen since the last time the tories took power and tanked the economy in the early 80's.

For this reason Gordon Frazer is considered to be a fully signed up member of the Big Business Society and we urge people to boycott all Microsoft products.

Microsoft will be one of the hardest companies to boycott due to their saturation of the operating system market. Most people don't buy Microsoft PC products, they find them pre-installed on their new laptop or desktop and either choose not to remove them or don't feel technically capable of removing them.

Alternatives to the main MS products include

Windows > Linux or Apple
MS Office > Open Office (free)
Internet Exp. > Firefox or Google Chrome (see comments below though)
X-Box > Wii or PlayStation Move
Bing > Google

Please suggest others.