Microsoft Malta’s first country manager resigns

Microsoft Malta country manager Pierre Mallia has resigned, The Times Business has learned.

The news came a few days ago to the astonishment of colleagues and industry observers.

Mr Mallia was the first person employed by Microsoft to open its representative office in Malta in September 2003. It was the result of the vertical strategic alliance between the government and Microsoft signed the previous January, immortalised with the photo of Minister Austin Gatt shaking hands with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

A graduate in computer science from Kingston College of the UK, Mr Mallia began his career in ICT in the early 1990s with MSU-MITTS (the forerunner of the Malta Information Technology Agency), drafting the first strategy that eventually led to the birth of e-government in Malta. He later held positions with local private industry until his employment with Microsoft.

Over the years Microsoft Malta implemented the ambitious agreement between the Maltese government and Microsoft, including the release of popular Microsoft software at nominal prices. Microsoft’s investment in Malta was calculated in the tens of millions of Maltese liri over several years.

Mr Mallia expanded his team to be able to rise to the challenges and moved premises from Portomaso to new offices in Mosta last year.

However the game changed as the Maltese government started to entertain the idea of adopting open source software, which costs must less than proprietary software such as Microsoft’s.

In May last year, The Times Business’ i-Tech had revealed how the ‘marriage’ between the Maltese government and Microsoft was on the rocks and attempts by high-profile Microsoft executives to salvage the alliance failed. In the meantime, MITA did not renew the enterprise agreement with Microsoft and officially adopted open source software.

Before the international economic crisis hit Dubai hard, Microsoft was even touted as one of the first tenants at Smart City Malta in Ricasoli.

In the meantime, with the Maltese market no longer flooded with cheap original Microsoft software, Microsoft Malta felt the pinch with the rise in software piracy and resorted to the employment of an executive specifically tasked with combating such piracy in Malta, which Microsoft Malta describes as “rampant” in the small business sector. Just a few weeks ago Microsoft announced it would be investing $125,000 towards digital literacy in Malta.

Attempts to contact Mr Mallia were unsuccessful.