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Oracle Says It Investigated Microsoft Allies
Schnedt McWapt writes: "Oracle Says It Investigated Microsoft Allies.
From the article: 'Oracle Corporation acknowledged today that it had hired a prominent Washington detective firm to investigate groups sympathetic to its archrival, the Microsoft Corporation, an effort that yielded documents embarrassing to Microsoft in the midst of its antitrust battle with the government.'"
Myriad adds: "This apparently ties in with an earlier [CNN] report involving IGI and the failed purchase of Association for Competitive Technology office trash -- a group with ties to Microsoft. You can find the article on CNNfn here. I hate to say it, but would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?"
Hiring a company to dig up dirt on a competitor and attempt to smear their reputation publicly is really pathetic. What idiot said "Bill Gates investigates a company before he invests in it?" Where is the comparison. Anyway, this whole Gates vs. Ellison thing is something the press made up to sell papers. I have never heard Gates say the word "Ellison" and I doubt he ever has -- Ellison may be obsessed with Gates, but that sure as hell doesn't make a "rivalry". Anyway, Microsoft has no reputation left after this whole antitrust thing. Do Oracle shareholders really get value for their money by Ellison playing silly political games like this?
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
I don't recall saying anything along the lines of "slimy" in my post.
Are you just automatically assuming that "big business == slimy" or something? In which case, you have no right to refer to a "bunch of wussy crack smokers", since you are being blinded by your own prejudice.
I never said big business is slimy - in fact I never said big bugsiness is anything. It was you who inferred it. Personally, I happen to respect big business for what its done, generally, for my life, even though there are aspects of it that totally suck ass.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Corporate espionage and intelligence gathering has been one of the fastest growing market sectors, along with "head-hunting", for the last decade or so..."
Could you provide a reference for this? I don't disbelieve that corporate espionage takes place, but I have trouble believing that it is "on the rise" in any relative sense.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Oh, yeah, I'd like to see Microsoft try to buy a company like Oracle. That's gonna work.
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He he... I could not tell for sure if you were serious, trolling, or being sarcastic, but I got a good chuckle out of that post.
I could almost visualize somebody pushing his taped-together glasses back up on to the bridge of his nose while browbeating somebody at a party with that argument. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
So what? I'm not denying that I'm a troll. After all, I am the grammar nazi.
Oooh, your tricky signature tricked me into logging out, NOT!. You are really lame.
Keeping
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
If people looked hard enough, they could find something bad that just about anyone has done. Mother Theresa could probably be made out to be lowlife vermin
What, like the evidence that she denied pain medication to the sick and dying because their suffering brought them 'closer to Jesus'? They're waaay ahead of you on that one...
-- Bah weep grah nah weep nini bong
Oracle==Sun==...!=Microsoft
They do not all behave the same. Oracle and Sun have good products. Some people may not like those products but you have a choice if you don't like that product.
If you don't like Oracle then you can always by Sybase. If you don't like Sun, then get another Unix.
You don't see Sun or Oracle falsefing evidence to support their claims. You don't see them attacking their competition with lies, FUD or unfair business practices.
As for Sun being total control freaks, I assume that you are talking about Java, right? They needed to keep a tight control on Java while the trial with MS over lisencing issues played out. The minute that they released it to the ISO is the minute that MS could start to try to "inovate, and extend" Java, mutating it into a piece of junk. Don't be surprised if it gets released to the ISO in the relatively near future.
The only thing I can see that is the same among the companies that you mentioned is that all of the CEO's have an ego problem.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
I've had two speeding tickets in my driving career and, as a 21 year old guy am statistically fairly likely to speed. It'd be a little heavy-handed, but you could justify the pattern of behaviour if the police decided to follow me in unmarked cars to try and get me again.
No, I don't think it would be justified. Past behavior should not be justification to violate someone's right to privacy. IANAL, but I believe it's against the law to have someone followed/watched just because they've committed crimes in the past. You have to have reasonable suspicion they are planning or actively committing a crime (at least if your the police). Individuals or businesses are probably not held to this standard, but at the very least it's amoral business practice.
I also agree with the person who submitted this. If it was Microsoft who was found to be hiring private eyes to dig up dirt on other companies (something that they've probably done themselves), this room would be awash in anti-Microsoft napalm. I'm not trying to defend Microsoft for it's monopolistic practices here. But you have to admit it seems rather shady on Oracle's part, especially considering that some of this information was apparently used against Microsoft during the trial. Can you say, Conflict of Interest?
Here is the catch. Once somebody crosses the ethical boundry from healthy competition to sleazy business (which microsoft did long ago...), then it works like an arms race, in that everybody has to hire a Cloak and Dagger department to stay afloat, because anybody without one gets screwed.
I don't particualarly blame oracle in this situation. If microsoft was playing nice, within the bounds of ethical business practices, and oracle went and hired a detective, then i think that would be excessive/bad business. The trick is that they are in an arms race of sleaze, started by closed standards, and predatory marketing practices, so they did what they had to.
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Play Six Pack Man. I
Yes, we would be angry if Microsoft hired a private detective to dig up dirt on a rival. But that's because Microsoft's rivals are usually a) weaker than MS
Ahem. Are you going to judge the morality of the action based on market capitalization of the company? And it's not like Oracle is a struggling start-up...
and b) doing nothing wrong (other than pissing off MS).
And how would you know that? Or are you assuming that Microsoft has a monopoly on evil deeds, as well?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
There will always be good and bad examples in any group... and good and bad examples for an individual.
Woz is a shining example, though. More beloved by the masses and seemingly less abrasive than the 'other' Steve (Jobs) or BillG.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
From what I understand, that isn't illegal... at least not where they were doing it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Why does Oracle need to resort to such useless pathetic means to tarnish Microsoft when it's simply telling the whole world how sneaky and mischievous they are ?
Oracle, despite having an insane and fist-attracting CEO, have a solid product that's been known worldwide for years as being the top database system hands down. Their reputation is everything, why do they go and mess it up with these spy stories ?
They should quit spending cash on that crap and apply the funds to mental therapy instead.
These big guys should refocus on what made them big : the product, not the paranoia. Stoolies and jealous whiners are ok in grade school, not in multibillion dollar businesses.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Kinda...:)
Is M.T. the best example? perhaps not, but the point is the same no matter which person you want to portray as a "good guy". How about good old G.W., or Tommy Jefferson? JFK, everyone's favorite president...Mr. Rodgers...Bert and Ernie (the first "Puppets of alternative lifestyle").
If we were investigating a company with no history of trouble whatsoever, I'd call the investigation muckraking.
This is still muckracking. If you think that Oracle is doing this out of its abstract sense of justice, think again. Larry Ellison has a personal vendetta against Bill Gates (for a variety of reasons, some of them having to do with being only the second richest man on earth) and that is why he is digging for dirt on Microsoft.
Do you think it's good business tactics to hire a private investigator to check that your competitors file their taxes correctly? Maybe their boss expensed a lunch with his wife? Sic the IRS on him and breath easier...
If you accept that "business is war" than Oracle is doing nothing unusual. But then, again, so does Microsoft.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
As a professional consultant I've worked with very large Fortune 500 corporations
awww man...are we supposed to believe that? the whole As a professional consultant in a Fortune 500 company line is a classic troll come-on.
are you trolling?
On Investigative Group International main page the first sentence ends with ". . . while maintaining the highest ethical standards in the industry." Says a lot about the industry. Even so I agree with robwicks that hiring a PI is more ethical than lobbying lawmakers and aides to pass laws to stiffle competition.
Seriously, if this comes as a suprise to anybody then they obviously don't know much about the business world at all. Corporate espionage ....
and then you adding
It's a totally common practice in big business... I'm surprised that Oracle were so brazen as to admit...
You are all but saying "this is a negative" and you also say "it's business". My point is (or meant to be :) the opposite: it is not a negative, and it is not business, it's human nature.
It is not negative because the only way to catch dishonesty is to investigate it. Oracle investigated it, and found it, and publicized it. I don't see a negative. And not only do businesses do it, but regular people do too. You can object to my use of the term slimy, fine, pick another one, but I think I captured the gist of what you were saying and I still disagree with it.
miket wrote:
"But I personally would want to know if the case brought against Microsoft was done so illegaly. If industry money promoted the trial, that has a large impact on me personally. I just began work in this industry and the future of Microsoft and the industy as a whole will personally affect my life for as long as I get paid to write code."
BINGO.
What Oracle may have done is essentially using a known-corrupt Clinton Administration to destroy Microsoft to protect its own turf. This makes Larry Ellison just as devious as John D. Rockefeller during the height of power of the Standard Oil Trust when the company used all kinds of blatant "dirty tricks" to destroy competitors.
By the way, you might want to know that the private detective agency Oracle hired is IGI, a company hired by the Clintons to dig up dirt on anyone opposing them. Is it possible that despite Ellison's claim he has reservations about the Clintons Mr. Ellison was persuaded in some way by the Clinton cronies and their friends in the Department of Justice to use IGI to dig up dirt on Microsoft?
In short, this whole bizzare scenario is right out of Ayn Rand's novel ATLAS SHRUGGED.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
If you have a problem with what they did, lobby for a law change.
Coporate stalking, perhaps.
I can't comment with certainty about thier market share, but I'd expect that big business is thier primary consumer, and BB is gonna buy whatever it need to get the job done, MS trash, Oracle, et al.
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
No, their major source of revenue is OEMs, businesses and government agencies buying Microsoft trash. Individual consumers don't ammount to much.
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I'd bet MS did it. Big corporations do that on a regular basis, so what's the big deal *here*? We're all biased against MS (for good reasons, heh), but we should open our eyes to the situation. If Oracle can spy on MS, no doubt they can do it to RH or SuSE... Open Source makes it oh-so-easy...
Now, how would it be considered if RH was spying on Oracle and then release the info to the community? Would it make things any better?
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Come back in 3yrs time after you've done some DBA work and you will cringe with embarassment at that comment.
Come back after you've read my resume and YOU'LL cringe with embarassment at that comment. Of the last 12 years of my life, about 8 have been spent DBA'ing almost full-time.
Do you have ESP?
Who thinks that Sun, Apple, Oracle and the like would not be as aggressive and domineering as Microsoft if they had the chance?
Business is business.
Maybe I had a different history class in school
I am quite sure of that
Muckraking is a good thing as long as it is carried out by legal means
Well, if you define muckraking as brave journalists saving the workers' lives, then sure, it's a good thing. To me, though, muckraking is searching for dirt -- any dirt -- in order to discredit an opponent. Look at any recent big-ticket election campaign and you'll see perfectly good examples of muckraking.
And just in case you are in doubt, no, I don't think it's a good thing.
I think it's reasonable for Oracle to investigate the ties between a group of "industry professionals" that support Microsoft and MS itself.
As I pointed out in some other post, if you believe that "business is war", then it's perfectly OK. However, then I don't see how you can have any objections to Microsoft's business tactics.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Corporations exist to make money and to make sure that they'll continue to do so in the future. That involves finding ways of beating the competition; while I have no problems with this, the methods used show exactly how ethical some companies are.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum
NYT Article
John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, based in Alexandria, Va., said, "It's disappointing but perhaps not unexpected that Microsoft opponents, who are trying to use the American judicial system to run down Microsoft, would stoop to these kind of political tactics against the voices of the free market."
Of course, as a reminder, the National Taxpayers Union is sponsored (apparently in a large part) by Microsoft. "Voices of the Free Market" my a$$!
"The voice of the free market. Brought to you to today by the letters Q, and Z, and Microsoft."
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
TPC-C isn't even respected anymore
A reasonable interpretation of what you're trying to convey could be "TPC-C isn't respected by those of us who dislike the fact that Microsoft has a product that does well in them, therefore it no longer holds merit."
While metrics might be prone to skewing truths, it's far more valid that someone anecdotally telling us that Oracle is "far faster", or anything along those line. I'll trust metrics anyday over zealot rantings.
This is a difficult one to draw analogies on, so sorry if some I've attempted earlier have caused problems...
.NET is in contempt of court...
The issue here is that Microsoft have been identified as having acted illegally, repeatedly. There is clear evidence that they have a corporate culture of simply ignoring anti-trust laws - I mean, it oculd easily be argued that Microsoft
Oracle are saying that, on that basis, they have strong grounds to suspect that there are other skeletons in the closet - in this case, that links with trade groups might be helping them exert unfair influence.
Now, what makes this awkward is that it's Oracle doing the investigating. If it was the relevant authorities, no-one would bat an eyelid. But why should it make a difference? After all, we have private prosecutions and the right to perform citizens arrests over here. As long as Oracle's investigation is itself above-board - in other words, they're not stealing documents, breaking in to computers, violating anti-stalking regulations and the like - then I see no problem. They are pursuing a legitimate line of personal research.
I feel (more) comfortable about Oracle investigating Microsoft than vice-versa simply as Oracle haven't (yet) been found guilty of anti-trust violations. Microsoft have once, nearly were a second time and escaped via a badly-worded consent decree.
Does that make more sense?
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Chuang raises a possible legal issue that may be very relavant to the outcome of the Microsoft case (No, it is not over yet). Frankly, I am very dissapointed to see this comment marked as "flamebait." Just because it shines an unfavorable light upon Oracle does make it a comment that is out of line within this thread.
I am not a lawyer. I am not a Microsoft fan. But I personally would want to know if the case brought against Microsoft was done so illegaly. If industry money promoted the trial, that has a large impact on me personally. I just began work in this industry and the future of Microsoft and the industy as a whole will personally affect my life for as long as I get paid to write code.
I realize that I will probally be moderated down for this, but I like to make a personal request to whoever sensored this comment to remove himself/herself from future moderation. This is a valid comment ans should be shown the same (if not more) respect that you give the "we want to watch Billy burn and the MS campus crumble" comments do.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. --Albert Einstein
And, aside from OSS dogma (there goes my karma), what's so inherently bad about the 'little guys' trying to find out what it is that the market wants and producing it? (around here)It's a given that whoever's in microsoft's position will develop products to maintain their market share and stifle the competition, resulting in technological stagnation. It's the 'little guys', who aren't locked into the old ways of doing things (the curse of backwards compatability) that are free to do what the consumers need (as opposed to what they are told they need).
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Please post a link to these objective benchmarks. I've used SQL Server at Scoot when I was doing some DBA work there and really did not rate it at all highly.
Yes, Oracle do charge a lot of money for their product but, they are the market leader. M$'s pricing strategy is laudable in that they charge the same price for everyone and this price is clearly visible on their Website. I only wish other vendors would follow their example.
Regret for the past is a waste of spirit
Because a lot of us are all hellbent on beating MSFT into the ground and thus will focus in on all the bad points.
Well, I think this about sums up the whole public reaction. And it's only natural, I believe, and certainly apropos considering Microsoft's karma.
Nobody runs around flaming Oracle, implying they make an unstable, sucky product. Why? Because it's been demonstrated, openly, that it's a kick-ass heavy-duty reliable hunk of heavy machinery as can be had. Same think can be said for other prominent IT products/companies.
Why does everybody hate them? Well, that's damn obvious.
-elf
May it be Oracle or Microsoft or Sun or IBM, all of them would do something as unethical as this without a second thought. I believe Larry Ellison is more unethical than the whole lot, and he throws around his weight a lot nowadays. This whole affair is only about to get a whole worse than it is now. Oracle has been in a world of hurt because of Microsoft and products that directly compete with Oracles. Well, you might say that the Microsoft products were no competition at all to Oracles, but Oracles actions speaks for itself (And their ads and their internal memos :)). I am sure this would only knock over a can of worms and I believe if Oracle is capable of this, then theres nothing stopping the 800 pound Gorilla in going after any body out there, and I think they would be justified if they do. As for the Justice Dept, they are on to new mergers like the Sprint & MCI, and the industry leaders would soon realise that they shot themselves in their foot. By then it would be too late and uncle sam would be breathing down all their necks by then.
Rapid Nirvana
Don't be. Europeans don't seem to be embarrassed about their home snob team.
--
I would, of course, encourage the police to keep on the tail of anybody who hangs out on the street dressed like a gangster
Wonderful. But why stop at gangsters (you probably meant gang members, but that's OK)? Police should keep a close watch on people with weird haircuts or unusual tatoos, right? Of course if somebody is wearing a suit, he can never be a criminal -- he is too respectable for that -- but anybody wearing a T-shirt is fair game, I say.
Further, I would discourage them from hassling anybody behaving in a respectable ordinary fashion.
You mean you would just discourage them? I thought that police hassling of ordinary law-abiding citizens was illegal and led to dismissal of cops, lawsuits against police departments and other unpleasnatries.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
No, I'm not saying that and I didn't say that.
If you notice, I specified that I have a history of speeding. Yes, we're talking something pretty small here - though note that four tickets would get me disqualified from driving for a year minimum - but it is a pattern of offence.
I wouldn't by any means justify plain-clothed policemen following random black young men. If, on the other hand, they know who they're following and he has a history of offences which are serious enough for them to actually do anything about them, it becomes different. If (for example) he's committed three armed robberies and they think he's at risk of reoffending then they've got good reason to follow our example individual.
That's the issue here - justification. Sorry if the original example looked like slightly weak justification, but it's my only contact with the police. I stand by my assertion that Oracle are justified here as Microsoft's pattern of behaviour suggests there may well be something to find.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
One of the first things they tell you when you are learning about business ethics is don't do anything that you wouldn't be ashamed to read about in the newspaper the next day.
The business arena is not a private one. People can and do betray each other; secrets leak, enemies sneak.
Naturally, you want to keep your business secrets secret. If you are afraid of how people will act when they find out -- fair enough. But if you are afraid of what people will think of you, well that's a damn good sign you have an ethical problem.
I've been witness to numerous ethical quibbles in business where people come up with complicated rationalizations about why its OK to do something which any sensible person would know is wrong. You know what? I've yet to see a case where in the end it really was worth the energy to (A) justify it to yourself and (B) hide it from other people. And that's assuming you don't care to think of yourself as a decent, reasonable person.
Now, you can argue that Microsoft has made a pile of money while doing all kinds of unethical things. But it's the same old shit on a huger scale -- they made lots of money but they're pissing away that much more time and money, and it ain't over yet -- it's hardly even begun. I think they'd still have made almost as much money acting in a way that would preserve the respect (if not the admiration) of information technology professionals, and they would be free and clear now to enjoy their monopolies which in all liklihood they'd have won fair and square.
What is stunning, to me, is how unnecessary all of Microsoft's legal and ethical problems are. Competitiveness, even with a modicum of ruthlessness, is a virtue; but Microsoft is like a character in a play who takes what would in moderation be a virtue and turn it into a self destructive obsession. Shame exists, among other reasons, to keep you from doing really stupid things. A person who feels too much shame is to be pitied; a person who feels no shame at all is to be loathed and ultimately will have to be destoyed.
"We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'"
-- MacDuff, MacBeth Act 5, Scene 8
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Gawd... I am hard-pressed to imagine a more tedious argument to witness.
Perhaps a raging debate at a Sci Fi convention over who wrote the best "authorized" Asimov-derived novel.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
MS is the only company using such dirty tricks as defending advertisements "signed by 240 academic figures". This very reminds me former USSR - it's leaders practiced such things as "blame by working masses". Open letter by soviet writers against Solgenitcyn is an example; there are many others. Do you know such a term as "enemy of people" by Stalin? Not of nation or state, but of people, of every last one. MS everytime trys to show everyone hurting MS as hurting the whole industry, damn'em.
I HATE Microsoft for this. I HATE they claim people benefit from them while I'm sure I don't. I HATE them saying for me.
I believe Oracle has reached the top, not through being the best, but through marketing hype.
And I "believe" this is the central phalacy in your argument; it's a belief, not a fact. But, Microsoft's strong-arming, astro-turfing, purjuring, is a known demonstrated fact.
-elf
In the first place we know Microsoft's legendary dirty tricks department is alive and well. In the second, the fact is that Oracle's spy activities found paydirt in three cases, the two mentioned in the trash episodes and the Ralph Reed fiasco.
The fact is that Oracle's activities uncovered Microsoft using front companies to manipulate public opinion to change politically what they could not change in court.
"If the PI firm is breaking the law, then there may be some culpability"
Um, weren't they buying trash?
http://www.talknerdy.org
There was a recent documentary about it over here in the UK and it is scary how common it is.
Working for the (other) man
No, I don't work for a Fortune 500 company, I've worked with some of them. Not recently though, it's more medium-sized companies nowadays, a lot of web-based stuff. Anyway, check my user page - if I was trolling why would I have so many high scored posts?
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Money = Power
Power = Corruption
Money = Corruption
When these Billionaire Boys get too much cash, the only thing they can think to do is make more. MSFT spent their cash trying to take over the world to make more cash. Oracle spent their cash trying to destroy MSFT so they could take over the world to make more cash.
I guess when your mind can't comprehend how much money you have you start to go insane.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
The Oracle knows all ...
You know, after reading the NYT piece, I'm pondering if Microsoft knew that this info had been obtained, and in an effort to hurt Oracle, told their fronts to intentionally dump those laptops, thus making Oracle look no better than themselves.....
this, it seems to me, would be a very MS-like tactic.
I mean they'll use any trick to burden their antitrust case.
Don't say that Larry has done proper things, but I can forgive him...
Bizar technology?
Well, I suppose Oracle is the only one who could have done it - just try storing all the dirt on Microsoft and its allies in an Access database and we'll see how far YOU get!
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
Even Linus Torvalds has said that if Linux had 90% of the market and Torvalds and his friends ran everything, the world would suck.
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Joe Republican acknowledged today that it had hired a prominent Washington detective firm to investigate groups sympathetic to its archrival, Bob Democrat, an effort that yielded documents embarrassing to Microsoft in the midst of his relection campaign.
Sounds just like politics to me - just cut and replace the names!
Discuss trolling and moderation
Oracle only did this to uncover unethical behavior by Microsoft. Microsoft is pissed that other companies are employing the same underhanded tactics. I think it's great!
Keep up the good work, Oracle. The people are behind you.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
The locking model? What about the locking model is troublesome to you? Unfortunately a vague "study the locking model" doesn't cut it as a valid complaint against SQL Server, and your scaling argument has been disproven quite heavily in any case.
See this. It's from Microsoft but facts are facts.
It isn't a trick signature, it is something I use to logout thank you very much.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
If you feel that way, then care to openly why every poll has Al Gore averaging about 10 percentage points down to George W. Bush?
Is it because Americans are tiring of the fact that the Clinton Administration is more than willing to destroy anyone that doesn't toe the Clinton line? Care to wonder why the DoJ has been ominously silent about the Disney-ABC, Viacom-CBS and soon AOL-Time Warner mergers? Mergers that will have much more serious effects than what Microsoft now wields?
You can laugh all you want, but unfortunately for you the majority of Americans aren't buying your views.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Ya gotta love the way these trade groups are crying foul once they've been found out. Take a step back and you'll see that they are crying for stuff they've done themselves in one form or another.
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
It's true that there are good and bad connotations to muckraking. The bad connotation is often called "mudslinging" in the political arena. I'd rather hear too much of the truth about some group or company than hear too little, even if the truth hurts. What I don't want to hear is baseless accusations or outright falsities; but if you can prove your accusations then I think the public has a right to be aware of whatever dirty deeds a company has been up to.
I don't think they're equivalent, because what Oracle did was legal (assuming that the private investigators acted legally, which isn't known to be true yet AFAIK), whereas a judge has determined that some of what Microsoft did was illegal. I condone legal business practices, but not illegal ones.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Yes, Bill Gates did try to please that monster called the Clinton Administration, but I think Ellison and McNealy may have given a LOT more money to the Democratic National Committee to stay in the Clintons' good graces. If that is true then a grand jury investigation may be warranted to look at what kind of relationship Oracle and Sun has with Clinton Administration officials and the Department of Justice. If this means Oracle and Sun are paying what amounts to "protection money" to the DNC they could be in BIG trouble for violating RICO statutes.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I really, REALLY hate my neighbor. He is a bully who is rude to everyone in the community. He never keeps his word, and he will lie, cheat and steal. But we can't have him arrested just for being rude.
But then I discover that he's growing pot in his backyard, and that he has a chem lab in his basement for makeing LSD. Why is it wrong for me to tell the police?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Maybe because the PocketPC can't sync with a mac...
Stop putting words into my mouth! Go back and look for the word Nazi in my original posting - not there, right? Keep the Nazis out of the argument for heaven's sake. If I'd used Dracula as an example would you have gone into a rant about burying people alive? If I'd used Torquemada as an example would you have said I was equating Bill Gates with anti-abortionist commandos? Someone replied to my posting and in my opinion misrepresented me, and I said why. Arguing about Nazis is off-topic. If you want to start arguing about morals and Nazis go find an alt newsgroup but keep out of my thread!
Adam:What kept you?.
Adam:What kept you?
God:Rome wasn't built in a day
If the trash is in my back yard it's private property. If it's next to the street it's legaly public domain.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
from "all is fair in love and war"
to "all is fair in love, war, and bussness"
Companies are always checking out the competition. As long as Oracle is not using government force (say through draconian patent and copyright law) or fraud, I don't really see the problem. If the PI firm is breaking the law, then there may be some culpability, but absent that, hiring a PI to check out how Microsoft is attempting to use government force is not only ethical, they would be fools not to do it. Microsoft was attempting to manipulate the government to further its own ends (be those ends morally right or wrong). It is in its competitors' interests to find out how, and to expose the attempts if that is appropriate.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
I do think some people would react differently if Microsoft was doing the investigating. I think this is the kind of thing we should be concerned about.
All serious (and legitimate) concerns aside, Microsoft provides an excellent boogieman for people to jeer at - while AOL merges with Time Warner, Larry Ellison goes on an ego rampage, and Yahoo snatches up everythng in sight.
The danger of making Microsoft the Prime Evil of computing is then any action against Microsoft can be justified. Of course, then the actions taken against Microsoft may be applied to other companies and individuals, but by then such actions have been legitimated . . .
We should be angry that this kind of things happen.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I think the fact that Oracle snooped on Microsoft's allies using a private detective indicates that we may some very damaging issues that could cause a different outcome to the US v. Microsoft case.
I've always wondered why Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy have close relationships with the Clinton Administration. If there is evidence that "funny money" was passed between Oracle/Sun and the Democratic National Committee in order for the DoJ under Janet Reno and Joel Klein to expedite US v. Microsoft, then Ellison and McNealy could be charged with violating the Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Federal laws. It will also prove that the entire US v. Microsoft case was done on behest of some very rich competitors, not on behest of consumers, which negates the whole point of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Why would you hire an investigator when you have Microsoft Yakuza 2000?
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
To find Microsoft doing bad things, you even don't
need a private eye.
Wait and see, it's gone be very funny.
The show begins.
OverLord
I have nothing un-rant-like to say about this, and I'm sure it is being said by others...but this type of behavior is wrong in my book. I would look at it the same in either case.
If people looked hard enough, they could find something bad that just about anyone has done. Mother Theresa could probably be made out to be lowlife vermin, albeit not as easily as good ol' Mr. Gates. Not to compare the works of a Saint-to-be with a vaunted perpetrator of corporate tyranny, but my point is that dirt exists, and so do shovels.
Whether or not it's good or evil to go snooping through someone else's trash, I for one am much happier that it's come to light that these pro-M$ groups were financed by M$. Would that information have come out in a timely fashion otherwise? And it definitely has a bearing on the future of M$. As they obviously realize, the unwary masses are their major support right now.
By all means prosecute Oracle later on if they indeed broke the law - but hey the information is already out there. Hiring a private dick is not in the same class as hijacking an entire industry. IMHO.
Okay, we're not talking about corporate espionage here, or even extortion, or "market research". We're talking about a victim of a crime, not satisfied that the Government can fully "do the job" of ensuring justice without a little LAWFUL help.
A PI would be the appropriate measure, and I'm sure many private citizens would have done the same exact thing in the same circumstances scaled back to a personal level. This is the whole reason PI's exist in the first place. To supplement the meager, lowest-common-denominator, government-provided justice. If government justice were adequate, the 1995 DOJ case against MS would have gone this far, and we'd have a split up Microsoft by now already, instead of waiting 5+ years, allowing them to delay, delay, appeal, etc. while they fuck up the industry even worse (ie. the Bungie acquisition).
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yeah, this is exactly why MS partnered with Sybase instead of Oracle, so they could steal their technology, and fuck them in the ass with MS SQL.
But that's beside the point. Oracle may not be technically better than Sybase, or even it's bastard child MS SQL. But Oracle has a right to exist, a right to compete, and attempt to survive and win in the marketplace, and Microsoft could very easily bundle MS SQL with NT and Oracle would be a faint memory before Judge Jackson could blink. In that respect, Oracle also has a lawful right to hire a PI to find evidence of unlawful behavior on Microsoft's part in order to bolster the government's case in it's attempt to restrain the evil beast.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Keep in mind why Oracle wanted Microsoft investigated.
On the surface (only Oracle and the PIs know what goes on behind the scenes and press releases), it appears the firm was hired not to try and steal info on MS technology, but find evidence that certain industry groups are, in fact, Microsoft astroturf. If the roles were reversed, Microsoft would have every right to find out who's funding their enemy's supporters. As long as no information on MS technology was handed to Oracle, they're in the clear; MS is the bad guy here for trying to fake industry and public support, and they got caught.
It would be a little easier to like Microsoft if they didn't constantly pull bully tactics and blatant attempts to pull the wool over people's eyes with things like ACT.
Because a lot of us are all hellbent on beating MSFT into the ground and thus will focus in on all the bad points.
Well, they haven't exactly been the greatest of corporate citizens, and I don't think anyone can blame their trial blunders on anyone but MS itself - I mean, faking video testimony; that would fry your credibility in any court case, civil or criminal.
I was an MS user and fan for a good five years, before I learned there were alternatives, got sick of the crashes and impenetrability, and found out about MS' actions to kill competition in the desktop PC market (and more recently, their less-successful attempts to squash competition elsewhere). I know there are good points to Microsoft (making the desktop PC more accessible to the user, "standardization" and note the quotes), but by now the bad points have heavily outweighed the good ones in my mind, and Microsoft is to blame for that. They have no one but their higher-ups and decision-makers to blame for the state they're in right now.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Front organisations? What are they? SMERSH?~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As my MCSE friend says: "I'd rather no
. . . in fact, MS wouldn't even have to bundle MS SQL with NT. All they have to do is subsidize MS SQL with profits from their OS Monopoly, combined with the technical benefits of undocumented OS API, and combined with MS's famous FUD campaigns, and sell MS SQL for ridiculously low prices (which IMHO, and many others', they do), and Oracle sales and marketshare will be significantly harmed (which they have).
I even think that Oracle probably has a good case for a civil lawsuit after the DOJ gets through with MS.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
the only one looking foolish is you, falling for such an obivous troll. Grammar-nazi is playing the role of, well, a grammar nazi -- he's got to correct people. Personally, I get a kick out of his posts. (And based on the number of grammatical errors found here on /., this is not such a bad thing) Why don't you lighten up a little...
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Only partially true. I agree that there would be a lot more angry people on these boards if it was Microsoft that did the investigating, which is odd because Oracle is also a monopolistic behemoth.
The other factor is that Oracle found things. Public reaction to this sort of thing is rarely based on a strict ethical standard. If Oracle had hired IGI and found a couple of small and inconsequential things, then people found out about it, they'd be critical of Oracle and their industrial espionage tactics. However, since Oracle uncovered a lot of dirty laundry, it's a lot easier for people to say, "go Oracle! Those dirty MS scum were trying to get away with that, but you caught 'em".
Why is everybody calling this "business" as if it's some kind of slimy dealing? If reporters go digging to find the truth behind a facade, is that slimy? When the FBI does it? You guys a bunch of wussy crack smokers.
It is slimy to dig for dirt on someone if you do it gratuitously, trying to create news, or to generate ad homenim attacks. It's sort of an innocent till proven guilty thing, basic fairness where people (and companies?) should be entitled to some degree of privacy.
But if you are making public statements that are harmful to your adversary, and your adversary figures out that you were not being completely honest: screw you. It is not illegal to buy and read trash. It's that simple.
Microsoft's testimony has been shown repeatedly to be riddled with lies, and now their PR campaign too. That's the story here. The only scandal is the degree to which the press has lain down on this one. Can anyone think of a single shred of information that the press has uncovered in the entire Microsoft anti-trust action?
This is so wrong. See below, after commentary
-commentary-
Wow, I've seen troll posts, but I've never seen a troll story submission before....
Geez, I wonder if there is a possibility of a more trollish interpretation of the story. It's a typical bash-/. idea: "You're all a bunch of MS hating hypocrites" it seems to say.
-end commentary-
Well, if you used your head, you'd realize that there is nothing illegal in hiring private investigators. People do it all the time. Businesses do it all the time. Credit checks are a kind of investigation. When venture capitalists invest, they investigate deeply. When companies invest in alliances, they investigate deeply. There is nothing wrong or illegal about that.
The difference between Oracle doing it and M$ doing it is that M$ doing it might constitute an unfair trade practice, depending on how they used the knowledge. Oracle, however, is not a monopoly, and it's invetigation could not be used as an unfair trade practice.
And M$ has done investigations before. You think it hasn't? Of course it has, and there's nothing wrong with most of it (I'm sure there were some heavy-handed tactics at some point.) You think Bill Gates doesn't investigate every little biotech or computer firm he invests in?
First, Gore is *not* Clinton. .)
Second, Clinton may indeed be the most nefariously evil president in the history of the US - with George Herbert Walker Bush running a VERY close second, but GW Bush the younger - will make Clinton look like an angel. Trust me. The man is quoted as stating: "there ought to be limits on freedom." Where Gore is accused of saying he invented the internet, it was an unintended slip, combined with misquoting - the man is not THAT stupid. I'll even defend Qualye's "potatoe" gaff on similar grounds. (Qualye has plenty of other scary statements).
While I don't think Gore is squeaky clean either, he's a saint compared to George W Bush.
'yall SHOULD have voted for McCain. Or even Orin Hatch (but then watch Novell quickly become the government IT standard - for servers AND clients. hey, it's got a GUI now. .
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That's the issue here - justification
Well, that's a wee bit more complicated than you make it out to be.
There are two ways for you to argue your point.
The first is to say that police are justified in using preventive measures (like going through trash or following people around) if they have a reasonable belief that the person or the company is likely to commit a crime. Basically, if the police have a reason to belive you are more likely than average to commit a crime, they are justified in committing additional resources to check on you. This is a utilitiarian viewpoint and under it following black men around is perfectly OK.
The second argument would be to say that people who have shown a pattern of offences lose some of their rights. For example, if I was caught shoplifting, police would be justified in following me into the stores -- not because they think I'll shoplift again (that's the first argument) but because they can: I lost some rights by shoplifting and the police now can follow me around because of that. There are people who feel comfortable in this framework (convicted criminals are not really humans, just do something so that I never see them again) and people who aren't.
So, again, why is it OK for Oracle to spy on Microsoft but it is not OK for Microsoft to spy on Oracle?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
SQL Server 7, and the upcoming 2000, are extremely good products, and have been applauded as such over and over again. You sound like Ellison and his ridiculous "Uh, SQL Server is a non-factor" : Does anyone believe this? No one in the real database world does, that's for sure.
SQL Server 7 continues to make serious inroads into the small to mid-sized database, and SQL Server 2000 is going to make the move up to the large database market complete. SQL Server dominates just about every $/performance and even gross performance benchmark.
Hate Microsoft all you want, but when you spout bullshit, deny reality rhetoric in a public forum expect someone to expose you for the idiot that you are.
As others have pointed out, Microsoft certainly does not own Apple. I'd like to add that Microsoft's investment was in non-voting shares, and Microsoft also paid Apple an undisclosed sum rumored to be between $200-$800 million in cash, made a public statement supporting Apple, signed an agreement to continue supporting Office and Internet Explorer, signed a cross-patent licensing agreement, and all of this was to keep Apple from suing them for stealing again.
Also, nobody from Microsoft is on Apple's board of directors, while Larry Ellison from Oracle is.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Lots of folks here are making deals with the devil to bring Microsoft down. It's amazing because the government and Microsoft's competitors are doing some really rotten things that, in the bigger picture, are truly evil.
And what is it that makes Oracle "good" while "Microsoft" is bad?
My comment was poorly phrased.. I should have said microsoft products are bad and oracle products are good. I meant it as a subjective statement but, I see it came off as an objective one... sorry.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
BTW: Oracle, despite claiming that SQL Server isn't a viable threat (despite bitch slapping Oracle's db pretty badly), seems to be strangely fearful of Microsoft and is doing insidious things like what we are seeing now. Looks like a company that's scared to me, and they should be because I hope MS slaps those losers back to the ghetto.
omygod, if Oracle wins, MySQL might be gone forever! They must be stopped!
Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)
Its just that they probably have better lawyers writing the contracts with the PI's to ensure that Microsofts privacy in the matter is sealed shut, tighter than Mr. Gates asshole at a Linux convention.
Its a totally common practice in big business. I have a friend who has been employed as an investigator for years, and some of the things he's told me about what he's been asked to find out about company presidents are astounding.
So this should come as no surprise. Well, a little surprise - I'm surprised that Oracle were so brazen as to admit it, anyway. They've got balls, that's for sure.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
hearing that they plan to make their software purposely incompatible with the Palm Pilot.
Funnily enough, and unless I'm mistaken, the other week /. linked to an article about Microsoft developing the next version of Office for the Mac OS to specifically include support for the Palm Pilot ahead of it's own Pocket PC.
So you can now feel slightly less outraged, eh?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
To say, "...slashdot is usa only..." implies that you are a troll, somehow inane. It is awkward, so don't do it.
If you want to be US centric please make your own US centric website and stop using Slashdot
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One problem with this would be that Microsoft could then be perceived to have a kind of monopoly.
Under the circustances, I'd support Oracle here.
If we were investigating a company with no history of trouble whatsoever, I'd call the investigation muckraking. But Microsoft are not - they've shown that they will repeatedly break the law and use unfair influence to compete in a way others couldn't. They're not just an agressive competitor, they're the bully who beats the smaller kids up. There are laws against that sort of thing for a reason - partly that it's not fair but partly that it doesn't help the economy as a whole.
There's a good chance that Oracle will discover that Microsoft have done something underhand without people finding out. Microsoft's history suggests there's a good chance of dirty laundry. Hence, they're justified in doing this.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
MySQL goes GPL. Full article is here.
;)
Really cool news...but offtopic..
Oh please, that's the smarmiest piece of moral equivalence I've heard in a long time. Not only does this invoke Godwin's law, but it should open people's eyes here:
People like Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy who CONTINUALLY try to take the moral high-ground from Microsoft have just been shown (well, one of them has) to be no better. Let's make this clear: were the tables turned, Ellison would do EXACTLY what Gates has done.
The interesting thing is that this came out AFTER the court ruling against Microsoft. Imagine what would have happened if this had come out, say, half way through the trial? Wasn't Oracle a witness against Microsoft? Where's their credibility now?
I would say yeah it could be used in court because it's trash and if I remember correctly once it hits the curb it's public domain. That is why you see so many people going through celbs. trash.
What I find suprising is they paid people to approach janators for the trash. Why didn't they just wait till it hit the dumpster and go diving?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Oracle makes a good database product and that is where it should end.
Right. Resistance is futile, right? If Microsoft wants to crush you they will, so why even try to defend yourself?
On the other hand, maybe Microsoft is a direct competitor to Oracle that has an Operating System monopoly to leverage against Oracle. Considering how many companies lost their shirts to this leverage - the entire C++ compiler industry (borland), the web browser industry (netscape), the email industry (remember eudora?) - I consider this less than due dilligence on their part. If I were Oracle I'd be busy planting moles in redmond and lobbying for stronger anti-trust regulation.
but that's just me.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
No, it's not.
The argument is about reasonable suspicion. Microsoft's pattern of behaviour leads us to suspect that there is a good chance they've done more which hasn't been uncovered. Hence an investigation is justified and, if Oracle feel they could profit from their finding this out and either persuading the DoJ to prosecute or sueing themselves, then this is legitimate.
Let's look at this another way. I've had two speeding tickets in my driving career and, as a 21 year old guy am statistically fairly likely to speed. It'd be a little heavy-handed, but you could justify the pattern of behaviour if the police decided to follow me in unmarked cars to try and get me again.
A similar investigation on whether I'd defrauded a bank out of a large amount of money (for example) wouldn't be too clever, though, unless they had information pointing to me anyway. There's no pattern of behaviour to suggest that I might have done it, so the investigation wouldn't be worthwhile.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
This box will be back once mu.current.nu is back to normal.
Sheesh, guess there is something wrong with slashdot at the moment?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
...that MS doesn't use this as an example of fierce competition. ;) "Look, our rivals are alive and well. They're even actively spying on us!"
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
but I've never seen a troll story submission before....
/. appear to be trolls. It can't be helped, it shows the editorial bent of the site creators. Most of us don't care, since we share much the same bent as cmdrtaco and hemos.
So you must be new to slashdot. Welcome.
Many stories on
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Microsoft's part ownership of Apple isn't even large enough to put anyone on the Board of Directors.
--
its just that some of the finer trolls i've witnessed on /. have started out with the same 'fortune 500' line, and then degenerated into pure, unadulterated 110% pure trolling. but it was not to be in this case...
The point is moot, the bar has been lowered so far on M$ ethics that this would not even be newsworthy had they done it. Nor would I be surprised if M$ own spooks were the ones to uncover Oracle's investigation. Which, as I said, is fair enough.
Once one company starts "investigating" another, the line between espionage and "uncovering the truth" is microscopic at best.
I'm sure my comment confused you, and I'm sorry for you.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I don't see anything wrong with it. This is standard practice for large corporations. It is called "competitive intelligence" and involves collecting and analyzing information on competing companies. It is perfectly legal, as long as you don't break the law when collecting the information. Most of the information can be collected from public sources, you just need an analyst to turn the scraps of information into a useful description of the competitor's costs, plans, strengths and weaknesses.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
We don't need corporate vigilantism. It is NOT Oracle's "duty" to investigate Microsoft, as you say. You make it sound like Oracle has a moral responsibility to check out Microsoft's affairs. If it was MS doing the "investigating," you'd be screaming your head off about how Microsoft has no respect for the free market and how they're grossly invading privacy. Oracle's actions cannot be justified. They announced that they were checking out Microsoft because they don't want to be in trouble later - if they kept it quiet for a while longer, there'd be a much bigger fuss. They know they weren't supposed to be doing this, and they're trying to fess up now to avoid embarassment in the public later.
And just why do you suppose that one-third of black men aged 18-29 are awating trial, in jail, or on parole? Could it have something to do with a culture of violence that most black people live in?
Yes, I know this is a politically unpopular idea. That's why we have the first amendment.
Any charges of "racism" will be met with the expectation that the person making the charge is capable of defining the term.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Out of the eight replies I got to this I decided out some masochistic urge I don't want to admit to answer to this one.
Resistance is NOT futile. However, you do not beat the big monopoly by taking it on directly. Microsoft learned this lesson early on with IBM. Sun and Oracle need to make better products and hype them up with marketing hard if they want to bear Micro$oft.
Linux in an interesting contrast is using the same tactic Microsoft did in the day. Microsoft got into other markets (software) that IBM (hardware) was not into. They slowly began to dominate everywhere the monopoly was not. They surrounded the bear as Paul Allen put it they rode the bear to survive the monopoly days of IBM.
Linux has made its way into the mail server and web server markets that Microsoft by its high liscensing fees have abandoned. We are slowly surrounded the Microsoft bear and eventually could dominate the server rooms in a way that will make Mickeysoft's Neanderthal Technology a thing of the past. However, I hope that the effort is not hampered by the insistence that Linux become an end-user product. I think it is nice that Linux has become so easy for the geekish population to use.
However, I don't want my brother or god forbid my mother calling me asking questions about how to install Debian on some silly Compaq Presario.
I know that is elitist but I can't help it. I don't want some watered down dummy-proofed operating system. If it was hard to install it means that you had to have half a clue about computers to get it running. I like that.
ACK
(sigh)
Microsoft spent $150 million on Apple shares.
Just a few months before that, Apple purchaced next for $400 million, and found the money by cleaning out their sofa cushion.
Do the math, and you will see that Microsoft is one of the smallest corporate investors in Apple. IIRC, even Disney's stake is bigger.
You would be more accurate if you said Oracle owns Apple, because Larry is on the board of directors, while all the M$ stock is non-voting shares.
Nice try, astroturf boy.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
To a point, sure. It's legal and the information they found should probably be in the open anyway. However, I don't think ethically Oracle needs to be playing detective just to help the DOJ drive home their point. I'm sure if I had a couple million to spend I could get Sherlock Holmes' great grandson to dig up all sorts of trash on oracle, does that mean I should?
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Precisely. I couldn't have put it better myself. A dominant database doesn't have as much ability to strangle competition as a dominant OS. Business practices which would not harm the database market could certainly allow one company to exercise market power in the OS market.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I'm complaining. Oracle sucks. Sybase is far better technically than Oracle IMHO. Its also a lot simpler to maintain, has a smaller footprint memory and disk wise and you don't have to mortgage your house to buy the damn thing.
I believe Oracle has reached the top, not through being the best, but through marketing hype. Does this sound like another company we know?
Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.
Why not just Ask Jeeves and be done with it?
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I suppose my basic criterion would be that any evidence uncovered would be admissable in court.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I hate to say it, but would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?
Of course reactions would be different, because Microsoft are hated and quite rightly so. They deserve different treatment. Did anyone object to spying against Hitler? Did anyone object to Hitler sending out spies?
Adam:What kept you?.
Adam:What kept you?
God:Rome wasn't built in a day
This is standard practice in the private investigation industry. You want some dirt on something, you go through their trash, get the records which can't be used in court, but can get the wheels rolling. I know Microsoft is probably going through the trash of their competitors as we speak, as any good large corporation should
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I'm sure that the OS, running my applications, was found in Microsoft's office trash! ...it must be... I'm positive!...
Bizar technology?
Thinking about this for a bit...
Is Oracle using this information to crush competitors and improve its market position? They're basically paying for their own investigative reporting. The information is being presented to everybody, and just happens to put Microsoft in a very bad light with respect to their anti-trust trial. In a way they are, but it's not very direct. Microsoft is basically hanging itself.
Are they doing anything illegal? Well, the Oracle PR person claims they gave specific instructions to the company they hired that they not do anything illegal. While a PR person is about as trustworthy as the weather in the midwest, this statement is fairly plausible, and Oracle's immediate admission also tends to make me believe they aren't prevaricating.
What would happen if Microsoft did this? Well, they'd turn up Oracle's links to IGI (the investigating firm) I'm sure. It doesn't sound though like Oracle is trying too hard to hide them. They might turn up other interesting things about Oracle's business practices, but I highly doubt that they'd turn up anything nearly as embarassing as Microsoft's hiring of 'independent' advocacy groups.
Would I care if Microsoft did this? No, not really. It would mostly generate a big shrug, and a 'business as usual for Microsoft' attitude from me. It wouldn't generate the same sense of outrage as learning about Microsoft's OEM contracts, or hearing that they plan to make their software purposely incompatible with the Palm Pilot. It's notable mostly because Oracle isn't known for business practices that are in the least shady or underhanded.
So, nope, I don't care. In fact, I largely find Oracle's actions to be highly amusing. 'The truth shall set you free.' *chuckle* It's also highly characteristic of what I know of Larry Ellison. And their immediate admission without really trying to patch it over with PR scores big points with me.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I must have missed the press release that said Informix was bought out by Oracle... or the one that said MS-SQL is being scrapped because Oracle has unfairly pushed them out of business.
Oracle is big because every 20-something with a dot-com and a fist full of VC money is running his business on Oracle. You can't swing a dead cat in a Starbucks without hitting a geek who thinks Oracle databases are the best available. They have mindshare, marketshare, and lots & lots of money.
Was this mostly because of marketing? Of course it is.
Is that the same as "crushing and swallowing" the competition "by any means neccesary"? Certainly not.
Microsoft has not cornered the market on shady business practice, but they did establish the standards for it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Yes, that would be AOL Time Warner.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This kind of corporate behavior may be typical but it is not right. Using private eyes to spy on the competition is a bad thing anyway you look at it.
To quote skinny puppy, who probably sampled it from somewhere else... It's a dog eat dog world, and from where I stand, there's just not enough damn dogs. When you're talking big business, it's no longer about making money, it's full-on corporate warfare. Any leg up on the competition is a good thing.
Oracle does make a good database product, correct. Sun makes a great operating system and boxes to run it on. They both do amazing jobs at marketing their products. But that doesn't matter when Microsoft launches their FUD campaigns and other tactics against each of them (breaking licensing agreements, et al)...
Microsoft plays dirty. Their competitors play dirty. Not saying one's right and the others wrong. I'm just saying that it's how they play...
This kind of corporate behavior may be typical but it is not right. Using private eyes to spy on the competition is a bad thing anyway you look at it.
Oracle makes a good database product and that is where it should end. Like Sun, the paranoia over Microsoft is amazing. The companies have to start spending more time making better products that are marketed well and stop looking to find some sort of dirt on Redmond. This is silly to say the least.
ACK
...and found that there were none.
Multiplayer Strategy
When dealing with a company that has the amount of money, power, and influence that Microsoft has - this type of action is the only way to even try and fingure out what's really going on.
Put yourself in Bill Gates shoes. You have the most money in the world, and you would like it to stay that way. How do you do it...
You pay people, that's how. You pay companies to help you sway public opinion. You pay people to keep quiet. You pay people to take care of business.
The only way to ever break that chain is to find out things the hard way. Investigate, root through documents, make friends, and watch people.
Just like Wu-tang says - "Cash rules everything around me." If you don't believe me, take a trip to New York city...
- Rake
Care to wonder why the DoJ has been ominously silent about the Disney-ABC, Viacom-CBS and soon AOL-Time Warner mergers? Mergers that will have much more serious effects than what Microsoft now wields?
Because they aren't monopolies yet, and haven't done anything to illegally obtain/preserve one?
Jay (=
Lets gather up some funds and have slashdot hire a detective to dig up a little more on microsoft (couldn't hurt). Or we could use the funds to hire a hit man and get bill out of our hair foreever...
I wonder if Oracle used RDBMS to orchestrate their snoops! Can you imagine a beowolf cluster of snoops?! ;)
----
"Of course reactions would be different, because Microsoft are hated and quite rightly so. They deserve different treatment."
Ummm, seems that your bias is showing. Figures.
"Did anyone object to spying against Hitler? Did anyone object to Hitler sending out spies?"
Oh great, someone else is trying to compare Microsoft to Hitler. Jesus fucking Christ, can't morons like you say anything about Microsoft that doesn't invoke Godwin's Law? Yes, I'm flaming you, and rightly so. Microsoft's hat may be as black as night to you, and I'm sure many have been pissed off by Blue Screens of Death, but last I checked, Bill Gates wasn't responsible for the deaths of six million people. And when he is, we'll talk.
Moron.
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Excuse me, but I thought that people buying Microsoft trash was their major source of revenue...
I think it's high time to rid the world of the evil that is Oracle. Now that we have successfully split Microsoft in two halves it is time to target the next big software giant. Larry Ellison is bearded and can easily be likened to Lucifer. He also is a famous debaucherer and commits adultery wherever he goes. Oh well, at least he owns a private helicopter, or so I've heard. Anyways, this evidence clearly points out that he is Satan trying to find a fertile womb to plant his demonic sperm in, harvesting an Unholy Spawn of Satan that will lead his Armies of Oracle Business Partners (anyone read through the Business Partner Agreement? Notice the bit about providing able bodied men for the spreading of evil?) in Armageddon.
Since Larry Ellison is also a white male american, we can target him (and subsequently Oracle) for racial hatred (I mean, how many Oracle chair members are black? Asian? Hispanic? Female?)
He also might be a redneck. I mean, does he own a gun? If he does, he's a right wing nazi pig, if he doesn't, he's a bloody treehugger extremist. Be creative.
I suggest, for consistency reasons, that we continue using bad guys from Star Trek, and use the Dominion as a base for Oracle.
It may, at first, seem difficult to split a software company that really markets only one product, but when you look at Oracle you really see the one true way to split it:
Ora and Cle.
> what the hell was the purpose of that post other than plastering your name in my face?
/.'s moderators for dropping that to Score: 1.
I put enough time into serious posts to deserve a bit of slack when I find something like "Samurai In a Leisure Suite" Larry funny.
Overall though, I actually credit
Anyway.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
..has an overwhelming hatred of MS, combined with some, um, quirks of character, hardly comes as a surprise to most people.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
M$ emloyee and corporate contributions flow into both party's coffers, with the Republicans hevily favored. it's all local news here in Seattle
God is love
Love is blind
Ray Charles is blind
Therefore Ray Charles is God. QED.
:)
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Is it really any worse than using lawyers?
VENI! VIDI! VICI!
Ahh, but personal secrets have the most leverage! Its one thing to get the poop on say MS labor problems, products, shady deals, etc. But think of the leverage that you get when you find out and can prove that...*
...Melinda G. gets regularly sodomized by strange black men.
...Steve B. is addicted to speedballs.
...Larry E. has an affinity for little boys/girls.
All these powerful people have weird personal quirks that they don't want let out, and some get really bad habits. J. Edgar Hoover was the master of this kind "leverage" -- an author was going to print a nasty book about him in the '50s until Hoover sent the guy a photo of his wife blowing their negro (this was the 50s now) chauffer in the back seat of the car. Book didn't get published. You can only use this info sparingly if at all, but used properly it is absolutely devastating.
* Names and descriptions are purely fictional.
Link to NY Times no registration version
regarding your user page with high-scored posts, i have four words for you. signal 11, troll extraordinaire. High scores have little to no correlation to the likelihood that you're trolling. Though I actually don't think you're trolling.
----------------------------
No, no, the correct way to split Oracle is right down the middle: one company will insert data and another company will query it back out...
-mm
The information discovered and released, that the "independent advocacy groups" were not actually independent, was relevant to the debate and the discovery and release was good and useful. On the other hand, had the investigation turned up irrelevant, personally embarrasing info on the head of one of the groups, and had that been released, then the investigation would have been despicable.
I've never seen anybody become emotionally attatched to a database platform the way one would a great car or a computer.
Warning: Offtopic.
Oracle people are as rabid as they come. If you put a Microsoft SQL Server guy in a room with an Oracle dude and a SyBase person for the purposes of discussing the relative merits of one database over the other, none would come out alive.
Databases are often as personal as programming languages. People get attached.
InitZero
Microsoft == Oracle == Sun == Apple ==...... etc etc etc.
They all behave exactly the same. Only the scale and public karma is different.
And before anybody starts crying that this isn't the case, lest us forget about Apple when they stood on the throats of their clone makers, and Sun - total control freaks, etc etc etc.
Pick your poison.
I think Oracle never intended to do anything other than leak stories to the press weekly and mount a bad PR campaign against MS. The one is just as bad as the other...Larry Ellison is even more fanatical than Bill Gates if you ask me...just look at that whole war with the local townsfolk over his private jet. We're talking two of a kind...birds of a feather...Hitler and Stalin. Let 'em shoot each other at high noon and we'll all be better off. :-)
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Who cares if Oracle investigated Microsoft? Anyone could hire IGI and have them investigate *anyone else*. As long as they don't break the law, there's nothing wrong here.
The important part, IMO, is what Microsoft had to hide. I was always suspicious about that "Freedom to Innovate" campaign, and it's nice to see some more skeletons being turned up...
Bottom line: if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Investigate me all you want.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Oracle is a great company and microsoft is a horrible one...
And what is it that makes Oracle "good" while "Microsoft" is bad? Both sell proprietary software, both use embrace & extend tactics to tighten their grip (yet Oracle has yet to fully embrace the latest SQL standard; last I looked they were behind MS Access in terms of compliance), the biggest difference is that Oracle's software is far more expensive than that from Microsoft.
You have to wonder why Larry Ellison is so freakishly obsessed with Microsoft, anyway. Microsoft does make a rdbms that competes with Oracle on one platform, and is far cheaper yet considered less powerful. A broken up Microsoft will probably be more willing to port that server to Unix platforms and really compete with Oracle.
I really can't figure out what Ellison/Oracle is trying to accomplish here aside from making Microsoft look bad. (this coming from a person who has been widely accused of doing the same thing :) Microsoft is doing a fine job of that without anybody's help, though.
Larry, if you read this, drop me an email. I'm really curious, and I promise confidentiality. (hey, it's worth a shot)
-MCDo you have ESP?
But only if the company had reason to be investigated and if MS' hired investigators acted legally.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
There has been several reports on the financial news channels in the last few weeks about how IGI has also worked for M$.
/. has decided to highlight it because the fight against M$'s criminal actions is making headlines right now, but that doesn't make this a unique situation.
The claims are that M$ has also used IGI for dirty work to dig up information on people involved in lawsuits with M$. Its what IGI does best, there is no reason why Oracle couldn't use them as well. They are mercenaries, they'll dig up dirt for any price, and they have no loyalties to anyone except the highest bidder.
And I don't see this as a newsworthy story. This type of action goes on all the time in the corporate world.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
It breaks down for 1999 as:
Hyperion : 28%
Oracle : 11.4 %
Cognos : 11.1 %
Microsoft : 7.9
Applix : 3.1
IBM : 3.0
Informix : 0.9
Here is my SQL-Base Market Share source.
Breakdown for WinNT:
Sybase : 39%
Cenutura : 10%
Oracle : 9%
Microsoft : 8%
Others : 19%
(err, i know NT isn't a big or only platform, but there are charts for others)
Another story shows different NT marketshare:
Oracle: 41%
Microsoft: 38.8%
And another freaking story says Oracle is at 53%.
Well, I guess as the saying goes, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".
However, each site I perused said that Microsoft is carving away at Oracles' shares, and will continue to do so. And also entered the market with a much higher market share than predicted. And even more important, that most of its sales are cheaper solutions and costing traditional, higher prices solutions a lot of money.
Rader
Uh, the only reason he has more money (right now) is because Gates just gave away a bunch of billions.
Oracle's actions here = uncovering the connection between Microsoft and phony "independent" lobbying groups.
If our news media hadn't become as complacent as they are, they would have done this research themselves. Since most news sources now think of reporting as the act of publishing press releases, you need to go out and find the truth for yourself. I see nothing wrong with what Oracle did, and your attempt to confuse the issue helps no one.
But the main reason would have to be the smell. I can't imagine MS dumpsters smelling better than anyone elses...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Just to get some boilerplate out of the way:
That out of the way, lots of people are saying fair play to Oracle because they were shafting MS. Others have said that the practice is so common in business as to be unremarkable, even laudable in the present business environment.
It appears that there is nothing illegal in what has been done: well, OK so far. IANAUSQL, so my opinion on the subject in this case is more or less worthless.
What I don't buy is that this sort of thing is ethical or laudable. We're talking about competing not by trying to provide a better service at a lower price, but by stitching up the competition.
It might be lawful and commonplace and it might be done for a laudable aim, but frankly, those are not reasons to approve. To hold otherwise is to say that the end justifies the means, which simply Will Not Do, My Dears.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
You point is a valid point I admit it but it comes down to what I have experienced with that product. It's stops productivity of other users on the system. You may have had troubles with other pieces of software and then termed it as rubbish, just because it didn't do specifically what you wanted (please don't mention open source projects as being able to modify it to your own needs, as far I am aware Oracle is pretty much closed source, please correct me if I am wrong). From what I have experienced of oracle is slow unreliable resource hogging applications that have left me with a bitter taste. If it is the admins fault for the unreliable system, then surely oracle should be offering them support or default configs that work efficiently. Thank you for your patience Paul Kinlan
-
As cunning as a fox, which has just been appointed professor of cunning at Oxford University. http://www.kinlan.co
The BBC is also running an article on this, here
But they're very close to the line. Remember, Disney, Viacom/CBS and soon AOL Time Warner not only has the major means of content creation, but also major control of content distribution, too.
I mean, look at AOL Time Warner. The majority of their divisions are THE dominant player in their respective fields (they are perhaps THE most influential company in the cable/satellite TV market when you combine CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn, CNN/SI, CNN International, TBS Superstation, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, HBO, HBO Multichannel, HBO Family, HBO en Espanol, Cinemax, Cinemax Multichannel, and TVKO PPV). AOL Time Warner is essentially the fictional Elliot Carver's multimedia empire from the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES becoming reality. AOL Time Warner's conglomeration of media power has literally no precedent in the history of the entertainment and newsgathering companies.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I don't think it's to cool that Oracle is going around investigating the competition.. where is the line between what they did and industrial espionage(sp?)? Oracle is a great company and microsoft is a horrible one but, I dont think that gives oracle the right to dig up dirt, after all, supposedly thats what this anti-trust stuff is supposed to do.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Wired online write a few interesting articles about this recently here and here. They seemed to be suggesting that the government was doing the investigating, oops! It's ok Wired, you can go back to talking about push technology and robot dogs now, the offline press have scooped you again :)
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
There's a difference between succeeding on hype and marketing (these are legal) and using your monopoly power to shut down competitors and make new monopolies in other markest (those are illegal). Just being hyped doesn't prevent a competitor from eating your lunch; threatening OEMs so that they don't ship your competitor's product is an effective (again illegal) way to protect your company from any competition and any incentive to improve your product.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
"'The Road Ahead' failed to mention the Internet even once. Microsoft is five years late, and you can't be five years late in my industry."
Ellison
What many fail to realize that we have a capitalism/oligarchy there is only one winner the rest are loses and chances you are one of them ... over the last year I have grown tired to good vs evil ... Gates/Ellison they are all greedy and nasty people (yeah nasty ... how can someone have billions and people are still striving)
The philosopies of the big guns
microsoft - take money from all
oracle - take money from the really rich and let the cost trickle down
sun/apple - a stupidity tax everyone for using your stuff
snip ... apple's inclusion is a bit obvious ... but sun's inclusion is a bit subtule (they are good) cause take for example java; the key is code mobility which means that companies don't have to open source the bulk of their products ... because if you did the rest of the task of mobility would be code verification which is not difficult (there are a few acadmic projects with various implementations of code verification) and byte code is nothing new.
yeah stupidity tax
Oracle has a damn fine reputation as being the best (or among the best) provider of business solutions (read: big ass data mulinexing) because they make damn fine software. Thier marketshare is based predominantly on merit, and not some massive marketing campaign. In fact, the first time I've recall ever seeing oracle ads on TV was around a year ago.
So given that the company overall has a good attitude and produces great products, then yeah... I'm fully prepared to cut them some slack in the corporate shenangians area. I think doing a dirt dig is a scummy move, but in a way it seems almost poetic justice that they're doing em on the lackeys of Bill, the grand poobah of scummy moves.
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Seriously, if this comes as a suprise to anybody then they obviously don't know much about the business world at all. Corporate espionage and intelligence gathering has been one of the fastest growing market sectors, along with "head-hunting", for the last decade or so, and the trend looks set to continue.
Any corporation that wants to get ahead of its rivals in of course extremely interested in what is going on with their rivals. And there are plenty of agencies which specialise in finding out facts that aren't published in the annual company review.
As a professional consultant I've worked with very large Fortune 500 corporations, and after working on introducing an ERP solution for one of them, I was approached thorugh my agency by a "client". At lunch I was asked several innocent sounding questions about the company who I'd just been working with, and the client was never heard from again.
But, if it helps ensure more vigorous competition in the business world then I don't see how anyone can really argue that this is a bad thing - after all it's not like they're after personal secrets is it? Most corporations have too much to hide anyway.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
> why is there anything "illegal" about a private citizen, or a service agency hired by one of the victims, doing the trash picking?
The victim hired the service agency for the express purpose of cleaning, and he should be able to expect that the agency should stick to that task while on the victim's premises. To take a computer analogy, it's akin to a program that describes itself as a disk defragmenter, but that in reality also mails the contents of your Trash folder to Oracle. That's usually called a trojan horse.
Say no to software patents.
This is insane. People don't want to believe that a Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison regime would be as bad as the Microsoft status quo... It's quite obvious the only TRUE open atmosphere will be platforms and languages totally developed without profit for gain... Oracle pushes Java because it will help get rid of the SQL Server / COM+ majority. Sun pushes Java so hard to get people then hooked into Solaris (happened at my company). No better than BillG.
At least, according to forbes richest people list. (Which came out 2 weeks ago) ... Bill is @ $60 b, Larry is at $42 b.
-Stu
I chose to become an Oracle, rather than any other DBMS, DBA due to having experience of it at university. It's smart to promote your products at an educational institution.
Sybase is far better technically than Oracle IMHO.
Heard of SQL Server? Spew. Sybase sold it to M$.
[Sybase] has a smaller footprint memory and disk wise
What's wrong with Oracle's physical and logical disk configuration? The optimal solution is 22*2 dedicated drives -> parallel read write, speedy SELECTs, good locking architecture etc...
The word according to Mr. Greenspun:
Here are the factors that I think are important in choosing an RDBMS to sit behind a Web site:
1. cost/complexity to administer
2. lock management system
3. full-text indexing option
4. maximum length of VARCHAR data type
5. support
What's the price per processor for a Sybase DBMS per year? What's the cost of a junior (12 to 18 months experience) Sybase DBA? Oracle8i is around $125,000 per processor. ~96% of the e-50 use Oracle according to their adverts. Thus, Oracle is the market leader and can name their price. Starting Oracle DBAs can earn between $60,000 to $80,000. Unfortunately the salary is much lower in good old blighty.
AFAIK, Sybase is not a player when it comes to point 3. Oracle falls down at point 4. What's the max VARCHAR on Sybase? Do me out of this job by using the relatively cheap ($2000 for 25 users), minimal administration DBMS Solid.
Regret for the past is a waste of spirit
Please tell me that no one on Slashdot actually thinks that an Oracle run world would be better than a Microsoft world. I mean come on, Larry is a bigger king of vaporware than Bill is. Ask yourselves, where is the Database computer??? This just proves one thing, Larry is scared of Bill. If Oracle had the chance they would be worse than microsoft. Larry has done his level headed best to be just as predatory as the Microsofties, from buying business to making outrageous claims about Oracle running all of the top Fortune 100. You see, if this doesn't piss you off, then you must be either stupid or an Oracle bigot, in which case your opinion doesn't matter.
Confusion to the Masses
ditto
Larry Ellison is an unfrozen caveman http://bbspot.com/News/2000/6/caveman.html
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
Just because the news media has never reported that Micro$oft has done this, do you think this means that they in fact have not? I don't. Not for a second. M$ will do anything to take advantage of a situation. The fact that it has not been reported shows either:
1) They are good at hiding it, or
2) They're paying off the news media to not report it
Oracle getting caught doing this does not bother me in the least.
Believe in things of which no person has ever learned
Well, the illegal part was the fraud perperated when someone tried to bribe the janitors for the trash to sift through.
The courts have promulgated a rule about trash, fo the purposes of criminal investigations. The rule seems appropriate in this situation as well:
- If you discrad something, it's fair game for searches. (A "reasonable and prudent person" would have no "expectation" that the information on it would be safe from hostile viewers.)
- If you shred it first, it's not. (I.e. the cops don't get to sort the strips, stick them back together, and use them as evidence.)
If the courts recognize that you can expect the information on documents thrown into the trash, without shredding, to come back to haunt you in criminal cases, why is there anything "illegal" about a private citizen, or a service agency hired by one of the victims, doing the trash picking?
It's only a problem if they hire the janitors to give them trash they were supposed to shread.
As for fraud, WHAT fraud? Who was defrauded? Who defrauded whom? Again, the only way a fraud would be perpetrated is if the janitor handed over trash that he was hired to shread, or if he diverted it from a recycling operation he was specifically directed to use.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
CmdrTaco
This is the funniest piece of Republican conspiracy bullshit that I've heard in a long time.
I'm surprised that he didn't manage to get the Communist and anti-christian conspiracies in there as well!
The communist, gay, anti-christian, anti-gun, anti-beef, anti-lumbermen, anti-microsoft lobby, headed by Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison!
What a moron.
I've used Oracle 7, MS SQL Server 7 and Sybase Adaptive Server 11.somthing
Sybase can't do left outer joins and then filter the results with a "where" clause. That is stupid.
There's some stupid limitation about how you can't pass blobs as parameters to stored procedures (Can't remember the details, though).
I'd choose MS SQL Server 7 over Sybase anyday (even though NT bogs down pretty quick). ANSI 92 SQL is wonderful to work with, and the client side tools are great (compare MS Query analyzer with having to look at Sybase or Oracle query plans by hand).
Oracle is great, too, of course, although I did find a bug once. In v7.2 you can't use nested result sets in queries in stored procedures. It was fixed in 7.4, though.
Oh woe is me ... you spotted who I was despite my elaborate attempt to pretend I was someone else. God, you're a fucking genius.
Adam:What kept you?.
Adam:What kept you?
God:Rome wasn't built in a day
This is nothing new , if it hadn't of been for G.M. doing the same thing to Ralph Nader and getting caught, No one would remember Nader at all and the Corvair would still be manufactured.
I liked the movie
for the clueles "insider"
--
You know, of all the guys in the world to be involved with searching through Microsoft's trash, I just can't imagine anyone more appropriate than Larry Ellison.
:-)
;-)
Gates may have had more money, but that's the past. Ellison is now the richest man in the world, and I can't imagine those documents didn't help. Larry's more than colorful enough to order such stunts; making Bill squirm nervously over the past year would be quite in character
"Samurai in a Leisure Suit" Larry Ellison, covertly monitoring his prey. True or not, it's a hell of an image
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Yes, because it would be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company.
"I hate to say it, but would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?"
The implied question here is a false analogy. Yes, we would be angry if Microsoft hired a private detective to dig up dirt on a rival. But that's because Microsoft's rivals are usually a) weaker than MS and b) doing nothing wrong (other than pissing off MS).
But let's imagine that MS dug up some dirt on, say, RJR Nabisco. I don't think we'd have a problem with that.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?
-If it was Microsoft who did the hiring we'd all be crying bloody murder.
-If Microsoft had nothing to do with it it woudn't show up on slashdot. Can you picture the headline: Nortel hires IGI against Acatel? Neither could I, mostly because we wouldn't care. Why? Because a lot of us are all hellbent on beating MSFT into the ground and thus will focus in on all the bad points.
Seeing as how I'm not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), I'm curious as to how information that Oracle (Microsoft's competition) offers will be treated in court.
"...Left undisclosed, these Microsoft front groups could have influenced the outcome of one of the most important antitrust cases in U.S. history."
I assume therefore that this information was or will be used in court. Shouldn't the DOJ be the ones searching through Microsoft's garbage? Is it really the competition's place to be investigating Microsoft?
I don't know anything about law or corporate politics, but I wouldn't be very happy if Microsoft started investigating Redhat or something hoping to turn up some dirt. This should be the responsibility of the government in my humble opinion. =)