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’s 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…
