Disclaimer: I cherish my personal relation and friendship with many of my ex-colleagues from Microsoft and Microsoft Bulgaria (yep, these are different things, you’d know if you were in both). However, I cannot hold my disappointment today, so I needed to post this. Friends and colleagues, I still do love and respect you and I’m your friend. This post has nothing to do with you, it’s not against you personally, it’s against this, which makes even you suffer much at work! 
And now, the post…

Today I red in the Windows Phone Developer Blog that Windows Phone Marketplace support is being extended to support the following countries: Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and the Philippines. The news filled me with joy, since I always believed that Windows Phone Marketplace support is normally first for the larger economies, then for the smaller, etc. etc. And now since we hit Philippines, it means that Bulgaria should already be a supported country, right? RIGHT?

Hmmm, quick check! Alas, no! Not yet! Can’t buy a rusted penny from the Marketplace, because… my credit card is not supported, my country is not-yet-supported! Almost 2 years since the platform was announced!

Damn!

Let’s do some economics and math: Bulgarian GDP – per capita (PPP) is $13,500 (2010 est.), Philippines’ GDP – per capita (PPP) is $3,500 (2010 est.). WTF, this is like 4 times more than Philies!

Now, please stop telling us that “market size”, “country wealth” etc. are guiding points for all the bureaucracy, which takes decisions about Marketplace support per country. The facts above are rock-stone solid: average Bulgarian is 4 times richer than the average Philippine and Microsoft still prefers to give Philippine the Windows Marketplace, but not to enable it for Bulgaria? Am I allowed it to ask again: WTF?

I am really jealous, of course! But I’m more insulted than the reasoning, which we’ve been given by Windows Marketplace executives, when we asked about Bulgarian support. “Market size”, my hairy a**! I see above how much this “market size” matters.

And it’s not only Windows Phone Marketplace! It’s also XBox Live, it’s Office 365, it’s many other services, which make us “third class citizen” from Microsoft perspective. I’d be offended, if I was not too much insulted by such behavior!

Please, please, oh pretty please, can someone really tell us why? And when?

Disclaimer 2: I’m writing this text before ACTA is accepted and in order in my country. After that I’ll be most probably forced (I do not write “sued” here, because there’ll be no need for court order!) to remove it by Microsoft for infringing their copyright on the name, because that’s how the big companies will be able to fight the criticism: not with expanding their services and keeping their customers happy, but mainly with repressing measures for the ones, dared to mention their name in the critic materials! That’s why ACTA has to be stopped at once!

Image (cc-by) Luca Hammer.