MICROSOFT has learned the hard way that global domination requires a touch of cultural sensitivity. Last week, a senior executive admitted that a series of politically incorrect gaffes in its software had cost the company millions of dollars in lost sales.
Tom Edwards, head of Microsoft鈥檚 Geopolitical Product Strategy team, says it was forced to withdraw 200,000 copies of its Windows 95 software because programmers had made eight pixels in the wrong colour. Of the 800,000 green pixels making up a map of India, a handful representing the disputed territory of Kashmir were coloured in a different shade, suggesting it was a separate political territory. India promptly banned the product.
Speaking at the International Geographical Union congress in Glasgow on 18 August, Edwards also admitted to a blunder that offended women. A Spanish version of its XP operating system destined for Latin-American markets gave users the option of selecting their gender from the options 鈥渘ot specified鈥�, 鈥渕ale鈥� or 鈥渂itch鈥�. The error was blamed on a mistranslation.
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These gaffes happened some years ago, and Edwards says the company has since learned from its mistakes. It now has advisers on culture, linguistics, ethnography, usability, cognitive psychology and geopolitics.