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Journalists: Beware! San Jose Mercury technology reporter Dan Gilmore recently discovered he's been assigned a special "owner" at one of Microsoft's public relations firms, Waggener-Edstrom. These spin-masters are attached to troublesome journalists like Gilmore who have the temerity to write uncomplimentary articles about the company or its products. The really irksome reporters, according to documents spirited from the Waggener-Edstrom offices, are also assigned "buddies" at Microsoft itself. John Dodge, the editor of PC Week, has a special buddy at Microsoft, and Mary Jo Foley at Smart Reseller, is the subject of a "Mary Jo six month plan."

HEY, BUDDY: I learned today that I have an owner at Microsoft Corp.'s primary public-relations agency. The Mercury News received a copy of a document created by someone at the Waggener-Edstrom firm, in which various media reports (at least the ones perceived as having anything negative to say) about Microsoft are analyzed, with recommendations on how to deal with the journalist in question. Mary Jo Foley, of the trade journal Smart Reseller, may be intrigued to learn that she's the subject of a ``Mary Jo six month plan.'' The document provides more evidence, if anyone needed it, that Microsoft spares no expense in marketing. Every problem article has an ``owner'' at the PR agency; the owner works with the reporter either to correct errors or put a more positive spin on the situation. Some reporters also have a ``buddy'' at Microsoft; for example, PC Week's John Dodge has an unnamed buddy who is supposed to ``send mail ---- `John, that's random' '' in response to a Dodge column. My own recent piece, in which I described a messy and unsuccessful attempt to install Windows 98, caught Microsoft's attention. My Waggener-Edstrom owner is working with Microsoft ``to send letter inquiring about Dan's problems and emphasizing MS commitment to quality products.'' It appears, however, that I don't have a buddy at Microsoft. I am devastated.

Exactly! Here's another example of how big the burden can be to carry around M$ code:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/tale.shtml

SCO here is the company before they were bought by Caldera, the "current" SCO.

I'm confused. You seem to be agreeing with me.
And your post doesn't contradict the fact that Microsoft pretended to be a technology partner to Stac and pillaged them for IP. A practice which they used many times with other small companies that had new technology ideas.

From here: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/catalog.shtml

Stac
Developer of Stacker file compression software.
After a failed attempt to license Stacker for DOS 6.0, Microsoft developed a similar product which infringed on Stac's patents. Stac was awarded $120 million in damages, which was partially settled with an investment in Stac by Microsoft.

I remember this investment was reported in the press as "buying" stac at the time. However
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
Seems to say they existed for a few more years before the disk compression market was slaughtered by cheap high capacity hard drives.

"MS actually does have patents on some fairly innovative things (example: ClearType) that are pretty clever"

Cleartype aka 'subpixel rendering' borrowed from Apple ..

"Sub-pixel rendering was actually first implemented in 1976 by Steve Wozniak at Apple Computer for the Apple"

Re:MS does have some valuable patents (Score:3, BS)

MSFT's army of lawyers have said no such thing. They've said that in a press release, but as Microsoft Watch said, they have lied about many things in their press releases.[1]

In any case, they are NOT living up to the obligations they gave to the coupon buyers after they told them they would not sue (except, now, if they include GPLv3 code in SLES). Gee, I wonder how Walmart feels after being used by MSFT in the NOVL ploy; did they pay for nothing? Not to mention what happens if someone takes some GPLv2 or later version from SLES into GPLv3 in a derivative distro, and then asks NOVL for the patent covenant from MSFT.

[1] http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/s ay_it_aint_so.html

"Microsoft has a long history of saying stuff (expecting people will believe) that wasn't true then or didn't turn out to be true in the future. I've grabbed some random examples:
Software Assurance: In its May 10, 2001, press release announcing the program, Microsoft claimed: "The improvements to Microsoft's volume licensing offerings are designed to match the current acquisition behavior of the majority of Microsoft's enterprise customers, and should result in a reduction or no change in licensing costs for approximately 80 percent of Microsoft volume licensing customers." In reality, based on research from Gartner and other analyst firms, only a minority of customersthose upgrading every two years or lesswould realize cost savings. The program raised most customers' software acquisition costs, as much as 107 percent, according to Gartner.

U.S. Antitrust Case: There are just so many examples, but I chose this one from a December 1998 Microsoft press release. Microsoft's lead attorney said in a statement: "The government may think they're winning on soundbites, but they are striking out when it comes to proving their case. The major elements of the government's lawsuit have already been discredited, and not a single Microsoft witness has even testified yet." The government went on to win the case, with the trial judge ordering the breakup of Microsoft as remedy.

Windows Vista: In August 2004, Microsoft "announced it will target broad availability of the Windows client operating system code-named 'Longhorn' in 2006." Here is a link to one of several slide shows kicking around Microsoft's Web site that clearly identifies the Longhorn (aka Vista) release as "Holiday 2006." Strange isn't that Microsoft set a delivery date and missed it. Strange is Microsoft later affirming that launching to businesses on Nov. 30, 2006, meant the company met its 2006 ship commitment.

A dozen examples would be easy, but hopefully three makes the point. Microsoft says lots of things that aren't necessarily true or ever going to be true. But the company behaves like if enough people believe what it says, then it's true enough. Saying doesn't make it so."

[1] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200706302 30615981
        http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/tale.shtml "A Tale of Two Press Releases"

"Good morning, class, and welcome to Microsoft Literature 101. Today, we will be examining a short story from the points of view of both the protagonist and the antagonist, and considering how these two characters in a story react to the same events, and what this may reveal about their personalities.

The protagonist in our narrative is a small software company called SCO, otherwise known as the Santa Cruz Operation. The antagonist is the software giant, Microsoft. First, we should sketch out the storyline."

Funny how you say Cytrix is thriving despite Microsoft's continuous theft (for lack of a better word) of their best ideas. Cytrix isn't still around because Microsoft is honoring anything, they are around because Microsoft knows that as soon as they make Cytrix obsolete they will face some difficult patent infringement and possibly antitrust law suits.

Novell is a good example where a one time partner was nearly bankrupt by Microsoft. MS dropped support for the DEC Alpha after a lot of brotherly hype if I remember correctly. An interesting list can be found here: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/yrcat alog.shtml that details companies that MS has bought or invested in. If you read through it, you will find that many of them no longer exist, their IP has been ditched, and I imagine most of their employees were out on their asses. NOTE: this list only includes those that MS "invested" in or bought outright, which I would call a "partnership".

I don't care what anyone says, partnering with Microsoft should only be taken with a HUGE dose of caution and the second best lawyers (MS has the best) reviewing the contracts. I will not say that all of their "partnerships" have been bad, however the vast majority have. Of course, a number of their partnerships were exactly what the other company wanted... a get rich quick buy out, and since MS loves to toss cash around I know that the number of these is probably skewing the statistics a bit.

Ballmer--never known to mince words--is quick to point out where he sees Linux lacking. "The Linux client hardly runs any applications except a bunch of shareware stuff that's not very good," he said. "There has yet to be any innovation, new features, new capabilities out of the Linux platform."

How many times have you heard the word "innovation" from a microsoftie?
(uncountable)

How much money does it spend on research?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/06/204 2218
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/120606-micro soft-research.html

How many times has it innovated?

http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/microsoft.html
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/opinions/msinnova te.html
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml
http://www.mcmillan.cx/innovation.html

This last dude gave up, Last updated 27 June 1999. Basically, it came down to a list of all accepted innovation nominations compared to two accepted: Microsoft Bob (doubtful but accepted) and the fucking talking paper clip. Which is basically Bob redone as a more annoying Help file.

all I did was a google search for "microsoft innovate" without quotes, and I came up with ZERO microsoft sites, and a whole bunch which put "innovate" into the quotes it deserves.

Worthless software company. The only things they did right are SQL server (derived from Sybase, and even though it was apparently recoded it shares similar syntax), which actually has a decent track record on security issues, and of course Visual Studio (IMO until the .NET crapfest, but even that is well done, just a personal preference, except that they are trying to win against Java using an interpreted framework, but Visual Basic was completely reengineered and basically thrown away?) (but it uses a third party C/C++ library from Dinkumware, don't think they came up with any of that themselves) (oh and they didn't make the compiler either, they made it worse). But without microsoft we wouldn't need either of these. I believe they don't suck because they were made by developers, for developers.

Dinkumware info, apparently there is a license dispute so that MS can't package the updates in a visual studio service pack, so Dinkumware tells which lines to edit and how:
http://www.dinkumware.com/vc_fixes.html

std::string causes corruption. Sorry we can't fix it, upgrade to .NET or buy a C++ library:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813810
"When you build applications in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 that use the supplied Standard Template Library (STL), memory corruption may occur, or your computer may stop responding. "

Origins of MSC compiler
http://www.nimh.org/microsoft/
"`This is just a historical note about the C compiler microsoft sells. In the late 80's I was developing C programs under DOS using the Lattice C compiler. One day I got a letter from Lattice saying they were out of the C compiler business, I should contact microsoft for support. I found out that microsoft bought the compiler and exclusive rights to sell it from Lattice. "

O man I just pissed myself off again rehashing all that ineptitude.

http://www.vcnet.com/bms/

Check here:

Microsoft Hall of Innovation

and here : The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog which shows from whence 'their' products were derived, bought, etc.

Check here:

Microsoft Hall of Innovation

and here : The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog which shows from whence 'their' products were derived, bought, etc.

http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/3d.html

I haven't read it, but it looks basically the same as the stuff I've read before on how Microsoft crushed OpenGL, even though DirectX was much worse at the time.

Oh pretty please, list some of that elusive MS innovation that you speak of so that we all may bask in it's glory. While you're at it, you could submit it here. http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml

Can Microsoft only have one goal per effort? What have they done to make Direct3D an actual standard? What about all this?

• DOS. Helloooo Q-DOS.
• Windows. Continually evolving ripoff of MacOS and, formerly, OS/2.
• Office. WordStar did Word first, Lotus did Outlook and Excel first, all the rest is fluff and was mostly acquired anyways.
• XBox. Duh.

First time I've heard of that..

Usually it seems that Microsoft buys out a company that is most enticing to it's competitors, then turning that heralded technology into a White Elephant on their own.

If they can't buy it, they re-implement it - badly.

IE, Xbox, J++, .Net, WebTV, C#, Citrix, SoftPC, Hotmail, the list goes on.. It's the Story of Microsoft - all the way back to DOS.

What they can't come up with on their own, they imitate or buy.
more.

Google could do good with Opera. The only reason Microsoft would buy it is to suffocate it in a dark closet.

To add to the MS/SGI conspiracy theory: many people felt that the MS/SGI Fahrenheit 3D library was a deliberate attempt by Microsoft to drain resources from SGI into a fruitless project (Many of the people saying this were working on Fahrenheit and are now colleagues or ex-colleagues of mine). When the project was canned this is exactly what it turned out to be: a fruitless waste of resource. The direct assault on OpenGL by MS is also well documented.

Novell's only hope is Suse. There is no future in Netware, there hasn't been a future for netware for nearly a decade.

For Novell it's either Linux or bust. There is no alternative that they can go after. This is it. It's the end game.

And I damn well hope that they make enough money to be solvent...

open source Mono...
open source Yast...
open source Novell Netmail.. (Hula)

Developers working on X.org. Developers working on Gnome desktop. (they completely turned around Evolution email client to a nice outlook killer). They dumped money into Ximian after buying them out.

They are putting money and/or time into Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, Gnome, MySQL, KDE.

They are responsable for adding the 2nd of two languages (the other being python, novell's language being C#) for rapid application development for Gnome of which Gnome developers actually likes. (would you rather still have everything as C?) Novell related programmers helped start cool projects like Beagle and F-spot.

For craps sake they are even doing free application usability data and studies for Linux application developers. For much of these developers this is the only time that they've ever had access to such data. This is thru betterdesktop.org

Hell now Apache has ASP.NET support for crap's sake! Who the hell would think that we could do Microsoft's web developer's favorite languages in Linux?

Look at all the fancy stuff that modern Gnome desktop is able to offer in things like Ubuntu for instance? Ubuntu does software integration and such, and makes sure it all works together in a nice presentable packages.. but a lot of improvements in Gnome come from Novell/Ximian.

Look at Cairo support and the opengl driven Glitz backend that is going to be used to accerate vector graphics in up and coming gnoem releases! The main developer for Glitz is a Novell employee!

You and everybody else better damn well hope that Novell isn't going to go under. They are pretty much the best thing that has happenned to Linux desktop in a long time.

Now without them Linux still would be progressing. I don't want to belittle anybody that is non-novell. I appreciate their contributions as much and probably more... but I see people bitching about 'novell should open source this', 'novell should open source that', etc etc and I don't think they realy understand anything that Novell has been doing lately.

As for GroupWare and crap like that. I doubt that Novell could open source it, even if they wanted to!

When closed source developers develop, they still share code as much as open source developers do. However instead of worrying about compatable licenses and crap like that they enter into expensive and restrictive licensing agreements to get the what they need to get the work done. That sort of shit locks down Novell into what they can and cannot do with their own software as much as anybody that buy's their closed source stuff.

See this as just a example:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/tale.shtml

Does that even make any fucking sense? But that is the sort of crap that happens.

If closed source stuff didn't screw developers over as much as it does customers then there wouldn't be the push for open source development that there is now.

The reason that analysts are right (I figure) because out of all the business dealings that Novell does, they can't afford to fuck up their Linux prospects. It's the only possible future they have left. Everything else leads to a dead end.

They will just be another company, like SCO, supporting the last remnents of a once-popular operating system as they slowly get ground into dust by progress in the next 3-7 years.

No new money coming in. No new products going out. No new products going out, no future.

Here's a list of their rejected submissions:

Auto/hiding task bar [rejected] CD-ROM Autorun [rejected] ClearType [rejected] Excel/Multiplan [rejected] Hypertext Help [rejected] Pivot Table [rejected] VFAT Filing System [rejected] Word for DOS [rejected]

Besides I thought I did address your original question. I gave you a rational reason for MS to hold off on Software Patent pressure.

Maybe you play chess? Understand this, You need to move the peices a bit before claiming Check Mate. Or are you so enamored by Bill Gates or disillusioned by RMS that you believe that since MS hasn't declared "check" that they are not playing the game to win?

Or maybe you so savy that you know something we don't? That MS has only has the warmest and most loving feelings towards open source? Are you an Economist? Visionary? Soothsayer? When MS pays attention to you, you either get absorbed or destroyed. Maybe you can show us otherwise? But what you call FUD, I call History.

You say talk about things they actually do? How about crushing the competition by any means necessary. I'd believe even the most devout MS fanboy would have to admit to the predatory nature of Microsoft, or maybe you would just prefer to hold your hands to your ears and yell "Na Na Na!" until finally through the miracle of denial, the sheep can truley sleep peacefully with the lions.

I hate to break it to you, but that myopic view of nirvana doesn't mesh with reality.

Let me teach you how the world works, It's really quite simple. The world is driven by Greed with a capital "G". IBM doesn't love OpenSource, but they encourage it whole heartedly because they make money from it. As long as thats true we have nothing to fear from them or their patent portfolio because IBM loves money.

MS also loves money, but unfortunately MS only loses money from OpenSource. Make no mistake, we are their only true competitor left standing. Their shody products look bad in comparison and can't compete in price for the few products that actually shine. Because of that, and to protect their precious monopoly, MS will do anything it can to control or extinguish OpenSource. This is not being Evil, it is simply a business strategy.

Software Patents, DMCA, TCPA, Palladium.. These are only chess peices being positioned for battle. It's not hard to see the goal. Opensource is a rogue element, a wild cannon. It needs to be controlled so that the IT field can be pinned down and milked for the maximum profit. How far do you think Microsoft will go to get more control so that they can make more profit?

Wake up and smell the Money.

M$ waits till people forget where the bit of tech they're copying originated.

Optical mouse? M$ in 2xxx? No Xerox 1983.
MSWord?
Excell?
Check out this Boycott M$ page for more.

• 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
  

Right, two decades of Excel, and I still can't get a decent preview of a spreadsheet. Some innovation.

It isn't that taking other people's ideas and improving on them is a bad thing. It's the complete lack of candor and appreciation of the real author's work by not citing your source that is bad form. Then, claiming that you "innovated" the idea, is just pure theft of credit due to the real innovator and a lie. Pointing out what you consider lack of innovation from others is then pure hypocrisy.

The crazy thing is, they just keep doing it, and the news media doesn't call them on it.

= 9J =

Right, two decades of Excel, and I still can't get a decent preview of a spreadsheet. Some innovation.

It isn't that taking other people's ideas and improving on them is a bad thing. It's the complete lack of candor and appreciation of the real author's work by not citing your source that is bad form. Then, claiming that you "innovated" the idea, is just pure theft of credit due to the real innovator and a lie. Pointing out what you consider lack of innovation from others is then pure hypocrisy.

The crazy thing is, they just keep doing it, and the news media doesn't call them on it.

= 9J =

Hey, it's Microsoft innovation at its finest! ;-)

since when has microsoft innovated, ever ? Bob? Clippy? It is not that Microsoft never comes up with any new ideas... it is just that every successful idea they have ever had has originated outside of Microsoft. See the Microsoft Hall of Innovation

Here's a place you might like:

Microsoft Hall of Innovation

And here's a catalog of what they've bought, influenced, cannibalized and what products they later became. The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog. So much of what they sell was done by others and engulfed. Freedom to innovate, my ass -- it's obscene when they say the word.

Here's a place you might like:

Microsoft Hall of Innovation

And here's a catalog of what they've bought, influenced, cannibalized and what products they later became. The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog. So much of what they sell was done by others and engulfed. Freedom to innovate, my ass -- it's obscene when they say the word.

Thank you for making the Stupid Comment of the Day (TM).

I assume that the real software engineers, like the ones at Microsoft, really thought out the entire future when they introuced us to such beaties as ActiveX or the well designed IE. Let's not forget about the Win32 API and the most flexible Microsoft BOB! Let's not forget about other great innovations brought to us by the forward looking engineers at Microsoft http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml

I don't know what people like Linus were thinking when hacking their hobby OS. By your statements, it cannot ever surpass the stability of the well-designed Windows XP. Now, what happened to my well engineered Windows 2.0.. Hmmm...

....rant terminated... [beep]

Other innovations of MS

Hey, Microsoft does innovate.... they innovate crap!
Where'd you think the talking paperclip comes from?
Too bad it's more annoying and offensive than any other piece of software in existance, but it's still innovation.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml#talking

Microsoft invented something, didn't they?

Has Microsoft really contributed ANY innovation to the computer industry? There's nothing really innovative about aqcuiring another company and assimilating their product into your product line.

Anyone know of an updated site like this? Microsoft Hall of Innovation

Microsoft "innovated" so many of the features of Word from WordPerfect it is not even funny.
Microsoft have hardly innovated anything at all unless you count Microsoft Bob and Clippy.
You really should check out the Microsoft Hall of Innovation

Exactly like what is done to RIAA, MPAA and Microsoft, just boycott them and don't use their products. That's the worst punishment for them. Don't fall in love with a game like that.

1. Justice Department blocks M$'s acquisition of Intuit Quicken in 1994, fearing it would raise software prices and diminish innovation
   
2. embracing Sun's Java into their own Windows-specific API which resulted in a lawsuit that ended in Sun's favor
   
3. the infamous Halloween memos that outlined M$ strategy to blocking Linux from the market
4. The web browser war against Netscape now Mozilla
5. M$ was found to be bankrolling the SCO/IBM/Linux debacle against the open source movement
   
6. neutralizing w3c compliance by distributing Windows-eccentric webpage API libraries that lock Internet webpages into IE
7. ITEF rejecting M$ patent pending proprietary Sender-ID as too restrictive and puts too much control into M$'s hands
8. A list of M$ innovations^W plagliarisms
   

The Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) ... wrote letters to Reynolds and other legislators stating that the bill would create a climate favoring open-source software and "harm Oklahoma's public administration, its IT industry and workers" by eliminating competition.

My head is still spinning. This seems to mean that Microsoft (ISC's backer) is stating they cannot compete with OSS without laws creating barriers to adoption. I read the rest of the article looking for clearification, but just saw more examples of Microsoft pumping large sums of money into politics to make sure they don't have to compete. Microsoft has a history of purchasing competitors and there aren't too many companies they can point at next time they get hauled off to court for in a monopoly suit. Those they can point at are either open source (OO.org, Linux, apache, mysql, Mozilla) or have been working to build a relationship with the OSS community (IBM, Sun).

Is this lobbying effort going to build the winning anti-trust case against them?

Are you telling me that Microsoft, the worlds largest, most well known, and richest computer software company would blatently steal from someone for their own profit?

The Microsoft Hall of Innovation

Because face it ... ... They're EVIIIIIIL!

"I would like to see a site completely dedicated to mapping out the timeline and the "features" that make up their software in an effort to demonstrate where their "innovations" actually come from (other innovative people), the answer is simple, they are masters at swallowing up innovation by others and integrating it into their flagship packages."

It's not completely dedicated to the topic, but here's a good start at that :

Microsoft Hall of Innovation>

Here's a good start on a compendium of what they've innovated through buyouts and buyins :

The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog

"I would like to see a site completely dedicated to mapping out the timeline and the "features" that make up their software in an effort to demonstrate where their "innovations" actually come from (other innovative people), the answer is simple, they are masters at swallowing up innovation by others and integrating it into their flagship packages."

It's not completely dedicated to the topic, but here's a good start at that :

Microsoft Hall of Innovation>

Here's a good start on a compendium of what they've innovated through buyouts and buyins :

The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog

If the spammers are linking text like " " or "." to hide their activities, google will easily be able to identify those and block those sites but then spammers will start linking words.

How about we relink any spam we find from http://www.spamsite.com/ To: http://www.searchenginespammers.net/bb-spammer.cgi /http://wwww.spamsite.com/ After linking, 1) click the link (or better have a program visit it with the correct referrrer string or report the link via a web form on the cgi) and 2) move the link to your search engine accessible spam page. Actually, reporting via a web form is better than clicking the link if you are doing it manually because you don't increment the sites hit counters and you don't expose your computer to malware.

Of course, someone would need to register searchenginespammers.net and install a cgi there that would basically display a page describing the criminal practice of bulletin board/wiki spamming, and then lists all the referrer strings that have brought it to this particular page.

This will help search engines like google identify the wiki spammers and purge their sites from their search results. In the short term, searches for the keywords they tried to drive to their site would now take them to searchenginespammers.net and once the folks at google take action they can use it to activiate a filter mechanism. Other sites besides google can use the information. Someone could start a PICS or DNS based blacklist based on listings at searchenginespammers.net that people could use to prevent patronizing such sites. Email filters could use the list to help identify spam.

Like any site that lists spam URLs, there is the possibility that people will spam other peoples URLs to discredit them, so that needs to be taken into account.

Also, this thread is a reminder that when mentioning a company we dislike ( SCO, MPAA, RIAA , Macrovision , Microsoft, George W Bush, etc. should either not link their name or link their name to a site that describes their misconduct; we don't want to help them get better search engine rankings.

Bah, give up trolling - you're crap at it. For those that don't know look here

I do.

Everyone agrees that squashing another company (cutting off Netscape's air supply, pissing on Sun's Java, tells Citrix that ICA might not work in the future, etc.) through underhanded tactics is a Bad Thing. Check.

And, everyone agrees that a large company that coerces a smaller one to sell under duress is a Bad Thing.

So where's the harm if Microsoft buys out the small company at a mutually agreeable price?

The marketplace can potentially be hurt when a monopoly assumes control of any additional part of the marketplace.

In fact, what makes sense for the monopoly is to leverage every asset, including the new company, in any way possible, to maximize revenue. They have that obligation to their shareholders and that's fine. What's not fine is that they have the means, monopoly control, to do things that are not fine.

That may mean "bundling" a promising new bought-out technology with some old technology or with some unrelated new technology that needs a push. It may mean putting a wet blanket over the new technology because it could cause significant loss of lucrative revenue from an existing product. It may mean many different things, but it generally means that the new technology is going to enter the marketplace in a different way.

Capitalism works best when there is genuine competition in an informed marketplace. Letting a monopoly buy out a promising young company with a good technology and excellent potential for growth is suboptimal, just as depressing as watching a beautiful young 18 year old girl marry a rich old 75 year old man.

I've seen this before. Many of the "new features" that people liked so much about XP had been in Linux already for _years_. Some basic UI features that I depend on every day (like virtual desktops) are _still_ not in Windows (or OS X), or are so buried that I would never find them unless I worked for Microsoft -- probably not even then.

And yet, many people look at Linux and seem to think that we copied everything. This is true of some things, of course (think OpenOffice), but it makes me wonder -- how long until people start thinking that Knoppix is a ripoff of this Windows livecd?

And don't think this hasn't happened before. Remember the Microsoft Hall of Innovation...

Umm, and I think my mutt has provided that kind of interface since I first used it. But that's not news. We all know that Microsoft didn't ever invent anything worth mentioning.

http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.ht ml

Rich.

Microsoft, innovate?

Blogs are every bit as valid a Microsoft Innovation as all of Microsoft's other Innovations.

Acutally this may be something unprecedented: Some new "innovation" from Microsoft that they actually developped rather than bought or stole?

Add this one to the Microsoft Hall of Innovations.