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http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=340

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but from the tone of your other posts in this tread I'm thinking you're not. Apple attempted to rewrite computer history with this lawsuit and they were correctly dismissed. They should be hit with frivolous lawsuit fees.

What Computer History would that be? Point out another venture called an "App Store" (specifically) before Apple.

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=340

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but from the tone of your other posts in this tread I'm thinking you're not. Apple attempted to rewrite computer history with this lawsuit and they were correctly dismissed. They should be hit with frivolous lawsuit fees.

The search giant wants to be able to store users' existing music libraries on the company's servers

http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=336

To be a file-swapper you have to upload and/or download files.

Not according to the RIAA, which recently argued (unsuccessfully, fortunately) that simply making a file available was an act of copyright infringement, even if no download had actually occurred.

In the current litigation involving MP3tunes, they're even arguing that simply linking to freely available files on their own sites is copyright infringement.

It's already been done (sort of) and looks like it didnt work.
It was called "Anywhere CD" and the man behind it was serial enterpreneur Michael Robertson (he of MP3.com fame).

nda

Microsoft has settled its trademark-infringement lawsuit against Lindows.com and will pay $20 million to the San Diego-based startup, bringing an unusual end to a case that made Lindows famous.

In the final analysis, getting sued by Microsoft might have been the best thing to happen to Lindows. The company has received vast amounts of free publicity from the lawsuit, positioning itself as David to Microsoft's Goliath. And now, David is embarrassingly richer, and Goliath is richly embarrassed.

"We may wake the giant, but we're ready."

http://gizmoproject.com/

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=177

http://www.petefreitag.com/item/522.cfm

http://www.randomthink.net/blog/2005/07/08/skype-v s-gizmo-project/

http://voip.about.com/od/voipsoftware/a/gizmoproje ct.htm

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=224

Or, skip straight to the "Free To Choose" show on: http://ideachannel.tv/

Speaking of the Xbox 360, did any one else have trouble buying the loss-leader $100 core version offered by Amazom.com for 1 minute yesterday at 11 am PST?

Why would anyone think to use a gaming console for video? They can't get their Zune right (you got zuned), but they can somehow be expected to get video right?

All that needs to be said is, "You got zuned!"

This is funny too.

There's a phrase for this:

You got zuned!

Does this version zune you?

I can see the marketing material now: "Zune does not contain Mac viruses!" with no mention of the fact there are no significant mac viruses anymore.

Even with that, there is something for all the Microsoft Zune supporters to be aware: Watch out or you might get Zuned!

--

I found myself unable to stop stroking the device, so much that the demo assistant asked me to put it down."

Sounds like a ninenine customer...

Then again, there are some things that can deflate your expectations.

"Zuned" will be a verb all right. Just like "Osborned" or "Borked".

It's already a verb, meaning 'Caught out by non-portable DRM' :

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=219

Zune might not be an iPod killer (and it's not yet the biggest flop of 2007), but it certainly can be a music killer. Watch out, or you might get zuned too!

Johansen has now moved to the US and is working in MP3tunes' San Diego offices as a software engineer. His first project: a new digital music product, code-named Oboe, which is designed to "bring digital music into the 21st century," according to Robertson, the company's chief executive officer

I'm not normally one to defend Bill Gates, but in this case its I feel I need to. For those who remember the Seinfeld episode, poor people don't want Muffin Stumps.

see http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=170 for an explanation.

Whats the point of having a "PC" if it can't perform to the level an average user would expect. Tell you what, I'm gonna create car for the poor. The catch is, to make it cheap enough it only goes 20mph (yes I'm in the state :) ) and runs on urine. Guess you'll be drinking a LOT of water.

People keep on dismissing Gates' donations by saying all of the money microsoft makes is from breaking the law, or unethical practices. Correct me if I am wrong, but the only "illegal" activities that have even come close to sticking to microsoft are their actions in relation to IE and windows media player.. both of which are free, and compete against free alternatives.

This sounds like trolling, but I'll reply just in case it isn't.

Here are a few hilights from a random web page, which in turn has links to its sources (just search for something including DOS and sabotage to see similar pages):

Gates gave orders to executives at Microsoft to purposely sabotage DR DOS. "Make sure it [DR DOS] has problems running our software in the future." And where it didn't have problems, programmers were instructed to create bogus error messages saying that it did. The tactic worked and DR DOS was forced out of business, leaving the Microsoft monopoly. Years later, MS paid more than $100 million to settle this case -- long after DR DOS was no longer a threat.

With the MS DOS monopoly as a foundation, Microsoft continued a series of illegal actions designed to extend their monopoly to additional products, including Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. For example, they stifled competition by threatening and extorting computer manufacturers to enter into licenses agreeing to only carry Microsoft products. By the time the Justice Department caught up to them and filed two antitrust cases for a wide range of unfair and anti-competitive actions (1993, 1996), Microsoft had cemented a massive monopoly which gave them hoards of cash to fight any company -- or even the government. Microsoft settled the first case, agreeing to change its illegal marketing practices and was found guilty in the second case.

The charitable giving that Microsoft advertises is usually a business tactic, where they give away software in an attempt to gain traction in a market, such as they do with schools. The software costs them just pennies to reproduce, but they advertise the full retail value for tax and PR reasons. Microsoft rarely gives actual cash.

Actually, the Lindows/Linspire guy is trying to get in this game again. He didn't go with 'gPhotoshop' or with spelling out the GIMP acronym though. I'm not sure how well his 'Compare' tagging will fare as he repackages GIMP and puts it next to a PhotoShop box in Wal-Mart.

Packaging free software up for retail sale didn't fly too well for the major distros in the consumer-space, I don't know what Robertson's expectations are for this ploy. At the very least though you would have to say he knows how to generate buzz (for better or worse)...

SO you are fooled into thinking he is charitable, well, I PR works or there wouldn't be an PR industry would there. Check out this info from Michael's Minute, a news leter form the founder of Limdows/Linspire. And before you think it's biased there are many references to legit sources. From: http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=65 Q: But doesn't Microsoft do a lot of good? A: The charitable giving that Microsoft advertises is usually a business tactic, where they give away software in an attempt to gain traction in a market, such as they do with schools. The software costs them just pennies to reproduce, but they advertise the full retail value for tax and PR reasons. Microsoft rarely gives actual cash (See: www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/technology/26SOFT.html) . Q: Hasn't Mr. Gates given away billions of dollars? A: Nearly 20 years after starting Microsoft and only after antitrust issues emerged, Mr. Gates created a foundation and moved billions of dollars of stock, tax free, into this new organization, which he controls as the sole trustee. Mr. Gates' PR folks have convinced major publications to carry as many as 5 stories in 3 days about the multi-billion dollar foundation in an attempt to bolster Mr. Gates' image (See http://theregister.co.uk/content/4/28039.html). By repeatedly trumpeting the formation of the foundation, then announcing individual initiatives and finally announcing individual grants, readers are left with the impression that billions of dollars are routinely dispersed, but that is simply not true. In 2001, the Gates Foundation collected more money in interest from their holdings than they dispersed in grants (See: www.fdncenter.org).

So now all Jon needs is someone with power to help with the lawsuit. Someone like Micheal Robertson. ;) Hey, he's in luck!

When you sum these amounts (MDP, per computer kickbacks and Microsoft Office pricing), it's obvious that a significant amount of Dell's profitability is tied to Microsoft's largess. It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a massive chunk of their profits.

Now there's a lot of uncertainty in these figures, but it at least provides a glimpse of tendencies.

Michael Robertson

Quote "But there's something much more noteworthy about the announcement. Google is agreeing to connect to other networks - something the big three instant messaging companies have refused to do. My company, SIPphone, has agreed to join into a federation with Google to use open standards and allow our customers to trade instant messages and voice calls. "

That's from the latest newsletter, which will eventually be at http://www.michaelrobertson.com/index.php when his webmaster gets off his ass and posts the latest one.

Hmmm... I don't think Linspire does this at all. Originally Linspire aspired to bring us an OS that could run Windows and Linux software side-by-side. I feel Linspire is just a year old branch of Red Hat Linux...

It runs wine for windows apps, but the ability of this to run all windows apps is dependent on its configuration.. and it certainly does not provide all security flaws of windows (the dlls that provide these flaws exist.. but they aren't sitting there listening to your ports waiting to be exploited.. a hacker has to hack your linux flaws first.. and this would probably lead this theoretical hacker down a very different path than that travelled by a windows hacker... unless you have sql server open for inspection - but does that even run in wine?).

In the topic of the article... it's damn smart of Apple to keep its OS running on MAC. If they let their OS be run on anything, well I'd get one for my PC today... If they don't, I'll wait until the MAC comes in x86 style and I buy one of those.. and run windows, linux and OSX on the same machine... one way they sell an OS for a few hundred $$ the other way they sell a complete hardware package for a few thousand.

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/Michael Robertson's thoughts on Apple's stance is probably fueled from his own endeavour... which is largely his OS versus the MS OS... this is not the case for Apple... Appple is the MAC versus the PC, Apple and MS already have a relationship (with Office, Virtual PC, etc) and the move to intel-MACs will give MACs an advantage in the PC battle.

Already many Unix and Linux users have switched to Mac... this is going to give those that haven't the opportunity to experience MACs without dropping linux from their machine altogether.

Michael's Minute Archive "Apple's Colossal Disappointment" June 8th, 2005

This is actually old news, as documented in Michael's Minute.

I'm sure Michael is bluffing. He knows that if Apple allowed OS X to run on commodity hardware Linspire's potential market would be marginalized even further... it could be devastating to the Linux desktop push. Why would he want such competition from Apple?

It's rather curious that a week after that, Michael stepped down from CEO of Linspire (check the Michael's Minute entitled "What's Our Purpose in Life") Cause-and-effect? Maybe. Correlation? Definitely.

Michael's not dumb. He feigned disappointment at the Apple on Intel announcement, but my guess is that it was a carefully orchestrated bluff to allow him to distance himself from Linspire in the weeks after.
Any company investing in LOTD with the hopes of profitability had better hope to god that Apple does not allow OS X to run on commodity hardware. It's just common sense.

• http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=65
  
• http://www.mcmillan.cx/~alistair/innovation.html
  
• http://www.taikahn.com/mssucks.html
  
• http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml
  

Ok, we admit it's a lame name, but we think the product is solid. Here's why it's significant:

- It is based on SIP so other SIP hardware and software should interoperate. Check out http://www.siphardware.com/ for some of the hardware devices. I have a Call-in-One so a SIP call rings my home phone. Even a wifi SIP phone should work with Gizmo.

- It navigates firewalls and NATS. Skype has done this well, but SIP clients have generally not. Gizmo Project should penetrate just about any firewall or NAT setup. I used it successfully on Boeing's wifi service on flight to Frankfurt 2 weeks ago bouncing calls off satellites.

- It's Mac/Win today and YES, there will be Linux client shortly. No, really.

- We're committed to an open directory meaning that we will interconnect with everyone. We already connect to many big and small networks. See: http://sipphone.com/numbers/. We do enum lookups. We even support the intriguing DUNDI extension for Astericks. I want VOIP world to be like email where one address is reachable by everyone. I hope VOIP does NOT become like IM where AOL can't talk to MSN who can't talk to Y, etc. If you care to read more about why I think this is important, you can go to: http://michaelrobertson.com/.

- All calls on IP network are free as is voicemail, call recording, conference calling, etc. (try calling 1-222-xxx-xxxx and create an instant conference call with unlimited number of callers.) Only have to pay if touching the PSTN. We do give you 25 cents for free to check out the PSTN quality.

- Be nice because it's just beta software! Thx.

-- MR