A litlle mouse

Paris. 25/03/2011.17.15. A young woman is having a conf. call with work colleagues using her PC from home. In another room her 15 years old daughter is playing with the Xbox 360.

The operating system of the PC is made by Microsoft, but the mouse, the webcam and her daughter's console are also sold by Microsoft.

Microsoft is one of the most important companies in the world with an annual turnover of more than $60 billion and a market capitalization (Nasdaq. MSFT) of more than $215 billion in march 2011. Nobody is surprised that his founder, Bill Gates is the second richest of the world according to last Forbes list.

What is not so well known is that the mouse and the webcam had made a long journey to Paris. Microsoft, as many other companies, who compete on a global market, manufacture their products (or part of them) through vendors:

http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/Compliance/Buscond/Default.aspx

Therefore, they have to maintain flexibility and cost-effectiveness. The Microsot Vendor Code Conduct could be found in their web:

One of the vendors of Microsoft is KYE Systems Corporation. 

http://www.kyecom.com/ 

They manufacture mouse and webcams for Microsoft. It is based in Taiwan, but the factories are located in China. According to last financial information, they have an annual turnover of $375 million, an maintain cash and investments for $80 million. Its quoted in the Taiwan Stock Exchange (2365)

Let's see, a Taiwanese company with factories in China selling products to a USA company. Business does not know about political frontiers!

Why in China? Remember, cost-effectiveness!

And they have very strict labor rules:

However, as always the non profitable driven organizations have to make certain claims:

http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0034

What KYE said?

http://www.visitchn.com/2010/04/microsoft-plants-break-labor-rules-group-says.html

What Microsoft said?

If you go to their web:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/default.mspx

and click:

The Microsoft Blog

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/

you will find very interesting articles about computing, software, the Imagine Cup,smartphones, etc. but if you go to the archives, in April 2010, to the bottom you will find:

and the article continues:

So far, after 11 months seems that nothing has happened, probably indicating that everything was right or that invstigation could take very long (ie: it's not that easy to find out the age of a Chinese girl).


So awake lazy girls!

I'm waiting for my mouse:

and you are very well paid for doing them: