"Reaction [beta]"
Eight pixels 26 Jun 2006
The colour of eight pixels cost Microsoft millions.
Why? Well, "when coloring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft colored eight of them a different shade of green to represent the disputed Kashmiri territory. The difference in greens meant Kashmir was shown as non-Indian, and the product was promptly banned in India. Microsoft was left to recall all 200,000 copies of the offending Windows 95 operating system software to try and heal the diplomatic wounds."
In another localisation blunder, Microsoft managed to upset the female population of Spain. An unfortunate error in translation meant that a Spanish-language version of Windows XP asked users to select their gender from the following list of options: "not specified," "male" or "bitch".
See Jo Best's CNET article for more examples of Microsoft's multicultural mishaps.
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