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Israeli Government Suspends Microsoft Contracts 597

Posted by simoniker from the do-not-pass-go dept.
MartinB writes "According to The Register, in a double blow to Redmond, the Israeli government has both suspended all government contracts with Microsoft until at least the end of 2004, and Israeli Antitrust Authority director general Dror Strum has ruled that Microsoft is subject to US court limitations. At issue in part is Microsoft's refusal to support Hebrew in Mac versions of Office."
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Israeli Government Suspends Microsoft Contracts More

Israeli Government Suspends Microsoft Contracts

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  • Tunnels (Score:3, Funny)

    by SoSueMe ( 263478 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:08PM (#7224745)
    Hope there are no tunnels at the Microsoft compound that could be used for smuggling.

  • More than just convenience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the man with the pla ( 710711 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:09PM (#7224761)
    I am an Isreali citizen living in the United States. It's true that I as a professional do almost all of my work in English. But I am writing to say that being able to use my native hebrew means an awful lot to me and my family. It's not a matter of convenience, it touches on our religous and cultural beliefs. I am very glad to see the government take this action.

    • Re:More than just convenience (Score:5, Informative)

      by twistedcubic ( 577194 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:26PM (#7224957)
      No disrespect, but you can get OpenOffice for free, which supports Hebrew, as people are saying. So if Microsoft gets cut off, your options are still the same-- use OpenOffice or another word processor that supports Hebrew. You should make the transition today, and tell everyone you know! :)

      • Re:More than just convenience (Score:4, Interesting)

        by BlueGecko ( 109058 ) <benjamin@pollack.gmail@com> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @07:29PM (#7225290) Homepage
        On the one hand, I'm glad that packages such as OpenOffice are available, but you have got to realize that, if you really need to exchange a large number of Office documents, there is no real alternative except Office. I wish that weren't true, I try to minimize how much Office I use by using alternative products, and I wish OpenOffice the best of luck in the world and look forward to when I can use it in place of Office. However, for the moment, there are times--many of them--when I absolutely have no choice except to use Office, and the simple matter is that Microsoft has steadfastly refused not only to support Hebrew, but also Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese--really, any non-Latin language--in the Macintosh version of Word. That is wholly and entirely unacceptable, and I think that the Israeli government probably has a perfect valid point. Their reaction is perhaps a tad bit overkill, but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

        Disclaimer: I am a US citizen whose native languages are American English and Southern and I am happy that way. :)
        • It's an interesting perspective. Playing devil's advocate, if the two packages are incompatible at some level, why is the problem on the OpenOffice side?

          It's not like MS Office is compatible with everyone except OpenOffice. And there is that whole convicted monopolist thing going against Microsoft, too.

          As Microsoft is the current market leader, shouldn't they be endeavoring to improve compatability with other software their customers use? MS Office doesn't run on every platform, so compatibility is a r
      • "No disrespect, but you can get OpenOffice for free, which supports Hebrew, as people are saying. So if Microsoft gets cut off, your options are still the same-- use OpenOffice or another word processor that supports Hebrew. You should make the transition today, and tell everyone you know! :)"

        Bad recommendation. As of today, you are asking this guy and all his Mac-using friends to DL and install Apple's X11 package and then DL and install OpenOffice.org's suite (which is a significant upgrade behind the x8

  • OpenOffice supports Hebrew (Score:4, Informative)

    by jkauzlar ( 596349 ) * on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:09PM (#7224765) Homepage
    I just checked and it seems to be true, though there may be some issues with it.
  • At issue in part is Microsoft's refusal to support Hebrew in Mac versions of Office.

    This is particularly important because the font handling in OS X is beautiful with native support of Hebrew making implementation issues for Microsoft trivial.

    • Partly (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 )
      Well, you're mostly right.

      Implementing internationalization for hebrew is trivial in Cocoa-based apps. It is significantly more difficult for Carbon based apps (which MS Office likely is). Microsoft also has a *serious* NIH syndrome when it comes to anything Apple-based and seems to prefer to implement their own versions of everything rather than use Apple's built-in libraries, so even if they could use Apple's internationalization (which I should add is absolutely gorgeous for Hebrew), I have a sneaking
      • Microsoft also has a *serious* NIH syndrome when it comes to anything Apple-based and seems to prefer to implement their own versions of everything rather than use Apple's built-in libraries

        You'd better believe it! Anyone remember Office 6 for Mac? Ran slow as a turtle. Office 95 for Windows running under Virtual PC actually ran faster! Apparently MS built in a crappy Windows emulator for Office 6, just so they wouldn't have to use waste time replacing Office 95's DLL files).

      • Speaking of NIH, some MS apps dont work with Winshade X because they dont make system calls to draw windows. [unsanity.com] Of course it doesnt work on apps running as root either. I hope over time there will be less and less need to run apps as root (privlidge elvation) [slashdot.org]
  • How hard is it to add Hebrew to software?

    I thought software internationalization
    took some real time to set up initially,
    then was easy for each additional language.

    What are the technical issues involved?

    Thanks, Joel

    • The main difficulty is that it's a right to left language instead of left to right like english. So editors, i.e. Word, need to be reprogrammed so that as you type the cursor moves to the left, instead of to the right.

    • Re:Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:24PM (#7224933)
      Hebrew and Arabic are written right to left, except for numbers and snippets of other languages, which are written left to right within the right to left text. This requires Bi-Driectional (BIDI) text support, and is very hard to support correctly and efficiently for read-write programs where the user can just put their cursor anywhere and start typing. Most software either does BIDI correctly or does something resembling it efficiently, seldom both.
      • You can either use the operating system's built in text layout widget, which supports all of this correctly with no work, but doesn't give you any control over what's going on, or you can code your own layout engine, giving you complete control, but you'd have to add support for everything yourself. Given the control you'd need for a real word processor, I am sure that MS coded their own layout engine, so it'd be an immense amount of work to add support for bi-directional languages, etc. If MS supports any
  • on Jesus's palm pilot [lostbrain.com]

    tcd004

  • Deuteronimicus 13:37 (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:16PM (#7224846) Homepage
    "And yea, the Lord spake unto the Israelites saying unto them, 'Lo, go forth and build unto me a nation worthy of praise and power. Build thy nation upon the backbones of small bird that are black and white, that stay where the cold winds blow. And when thine enemy arrives in the night, thou shalt see him wearing portholes like unto windows, bearing wares which thou shalt not take, for I have set the aside to be a land free of gates and minions who roam everywhere in thy houses.' And the Israelites did so, smiting the foes who doth galavant in the street like large apes with too much wine, shouting that their ways are superior. And so it was good, for they did not bow down before the false idols of the Mik-roh-softi."

    Amen.

  • The real reason (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:22PM (#7224909)
    They were pretty happy that MS products didn't work on the sabbath. What really got them mad was that they didn't work any other day either.
  • This story showed up on The Register a couple of days ago and then Newsforge cited The Reg article after that. But, as yet I have not seen anyone else report it or corroborate the story. It would be really great if some "News" site were to investigate the validity of this story.
  • ... for fighting for Urdu and Arabic language support in Microsoft Office! I wonder if native Arabic speakers appreciate this...
  • Ya think Ballmer will be flying to Israel in First Class, or Business Class? Or maybe they bought an old SR-71 to get out to these upstart countries _Real Soon Now_? :)

  • No compile Loc? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by soft_guy ( 534437 )
    Under MacOS X, you can *sometimes* do a no-compile Localization, even if you are not the original developer.

    I *know* that Office for Mac isn't exactly a well-behaved "normal" Mac app - heck, it isn't even a normal *Carbon* app. I did work at Microsoft as a Mac developer, so I am somewhat familar with the architecture of Office.

    My suggestion is that they could look at the possibility of doing a no compile loc themselves, if they have Arabic support (very ironic!).

    Both Arabic and Hebrew are hard to support
  • I know KDE (and its related tools) support both Hebrew and Arabic, but does OpenOffice do it as well? If not, what are the alternatives?

    Slightly off-topic: I've recently tried OpenOffice the latest version and was very impressed how well it converted PowerPoint presentation. I really *hate* when some scientific presentations use PPT format (and give no other alternatives). It doesn't happen that often, but unfortunately it *does* happen. I wish scientific community were a bit more aware of the 'open vs clo
  • There is an ambulance service here in NYC called Hatzhola EMS. They cater to the jewsih community, are mostly volunteer, and respond to calls from work or school, usually in whatever attire they happen to be in at the time.

    One day I was working with an old timer, and he started to sing a tune as we watched one the Hatzhola guys race past us:

    Oy vey!
    Outta the way!
    The Matzah box is on the way!
    (mimicks siren)
    Heeebreeew Hebreeeew!

    He meant no harm buy it, he actually has a few friends in that particular servic

  • Don't get too excited (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hendrix69 ( 683997 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @06:59PM (#7225108)
    The Israeli government is just holding out in order to get a better deal on MS products for the upcoming years. Too much of the government and the army's software is tied too MS for a transition to Linux to take place. Besides, no other platform, sadly, has as good a support of Hebrew as MS. Although it's getting better constantly - the latest OpenOffice, for example, is quite an improvement.
    There's also the issue of MS's political power through the US government. Israel gets quite a bit of money from the US and large portions of it are conditioned on the buying of American products with this money. So I wouldn't bet on Israel doing the Munich thing. At least not for a while.
  • 1. G-d Speaks Hebrew

    2. Macs don't support Hebrews

    THEREFORE G-D USES WINDOWS!

    • Hmm, OK, I know this was a joke, but...
      2. Macs don't support Hebrews
      1) they don't support Hebrew, not Hebrews
      2) they do support Hebrew, just that the MacOS X versions of Office don't. In the article they talk about the OS supporting R to L scripts such as Hebrew (and Arabic and Urdu) since 10.2.

      Maybe this is proof G-d uses OpenOffice? =)
      • 2) they do support Hebrew, just that the MacOS X versions of Office don't. In the article they talk about the OS supporting R to L scripts such as Hebrew (and Arabic and Urdu) since 10.2.

        The Mac OS X versions of Office came out before MacOS 10.2, which is why there's no support in Office v.X for right-to-left languages.

    • Don't be silly. There's a huge hole in your logic. (I guess it might be "holy".... groan)

      God obviously doesn't use Microsoft... He uses something that works better. I would think that would be obvious on a site like /. :P

    • Nah...God uses a mac and is tired of waiting for Office support, so he 'urges' the Israeli government to sue to help fix his problem.

      Now, if only he was into gaming. Of course, that would mean that the Bungie aquisition was the work of the devil...
  • I have wondered before if some developers at Microsoft might have a hidden anti-semitic agenda. Before you brush me off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, try the following exercise:

    1. Open MS Word.
    2. Type the letters "NYC" (capitals) into a blank document.
    3. Highlight the text NYC and change your font to Wingdings.
    4. Voila!
    • "I have wondered before if some developers at Microsoft might have a hidden anti-semitic agenda. Before you brush me off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, try the following exercise:"

      Too late, already brushed you off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist.

      So tell me, why is NYC the factor that makes that message meaningful? Okay, so NYC is a well known city. Also, NYC was attacked by religious extremists. So it must mean that it's too much of a coincidence that those 3 letters happen to put up tho
      • All those make it immediately apparent that Microsoft has some extremely violent and deranged individuals in its employ. ;)
    • From Snopes Wingdings Legend Page [snopes.com]:

      Here is Microsoft's official statement on the issue:

      We can certainly understand how people would respond with some shock to this apparent issue. We did too when it first came up nine years ago and we investigated it thoroughly in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League. The conclusion was that the sequence in the Wingdings character set is coincidental and that there was no malicious intent. In fact, it impacted several software companies at the time and continue

  • its interesting that Israel is suspending all its Microsoft contracts.. i wonder if MS will send its own suicide bombers to attack..

    then what that occurs, Bush will conclude that MS has weapons of mass destruction and the marines will storm Redmond, take over, topple the statue of Bill, then get attacked by guerilla MS supporters with rocket-propelled grenades.

    Beware!!
  • Geez the racism is quiet pathetic around here. This subject is not to be used as an excuse to insult Arabs nor Israel nor Jews.

    As for Mac Office in Hebrew, well they should have to use Windows. I don't see Apple porting it's software to PC.
  • Microsoft will have to build a "fence" round Isreal?

    -1 Troll
  • spell "jew" and change the font to wingdings... Hmmm you'll find that it translates to "become a Christian and you'll be happy" if you read it right to left like Hebrew...

    and what with that two towers thing, bit much for co-incidence hey?

  • Open Office Has Had Support For A While (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Solokron ( 198043 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @08:14PM (#7225542) Homepage
    Open Office has had Hebrew support for quite some time.

    2002 Hebrew OpenOffice Files [iglu.org.il]

    Open Office Hebrew HowTo [mail-archive.com]
  • I bought a replacement keyboard for a Gateway Solo 2500 on ebay for 9.95 USD, list price is something like 60 USD. The only "caveat", which I think is cool, is that listed under the english keys, are Hebrew letters. I thought that was pretty cool.

  • Here's my chance to ask! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @08:37PM (#7225651)
    How the hell do you type nekudot (vowels) in OpenOffice 1.1? For the life of me, I've been unable to figure it out!

    Otherwise, awesome work. Assuming you install the Hebrew fonts, Hebrew support is "out of the box" in RH9, and it even has the Culmus fonts!

    -Erwos

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