How 8 pixels cost Microsoft millions

Microsoft products have been banned in some of the biggest markets, including India because of eight wrongly colored pixels, a bad choice of music and a bad English-to-Spanish dictionary.

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.

If this was not enough, Microsoft used chanting of the Koran used as a soundtrack for a computer game, which led to great offence to the Saudi Arabia government.

The software giant managed to further offend the Saudis by creating another game in which Muslim warriors turned churches into mosques. That game was also withdrawn.

Microsoft has also managed to upset women and entire countries. A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation.

Edwards said that staff members are now sent on geography courses to try to avoid such mishaps. "Some of our employees, however bright they may be, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world," he said.