Microsoft's Wavering Stance

Regarding the article mentioning Microsoft’s corporate and social responsibilities, I believe their first mistake was not remaining neutral on the idea of publicly announcing their support of gay civil rights. Whatever Microsoft’s stance on this issue may be, it did not need to be made public and in the manner that transgressed. It is one thing to support a policy but it is very different to openly publicize a company’s stance. Additionally, the company should not only remain neutral on this subject, they need to maintain a consistent stance. Its apparent that Microsoft first supported the bill, then stepped back, and then was all for it again – all this flip flopping does is frustrate employees, civilians, shareholders, etc. and provide an unstable picture of what Microsoft is all about.

Microsoft addressed the concern about not receiving the best recruits if the company did not support this legislation. That may be true, however; there is also the possibility of Microsoft not receiving the best recruits if they do support this law. While I agree with non-discrimination acts, I believe Microsoft’s reasoning is faulty and insubstantial.

I also think the author makes a very important point about how individual citizens should have the responsibility to decide the social policies, not corporations. While I realize businesses have a lot of influence in this country, there needs to be boundaries drawn as to how much power corporations have. Democracy involves social issues and individuals should have the right to vote on this type of legislation, not corporations on their behalf.

Unfortunately, this social issue is a topic that is extremely controversial and regardless of the action that companies take, people will be against the overall decision – it cannot please everyone.