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Microsoft Expert Witness Stumbles

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everyone-feel-bad-for-stu dept.

parking_god writes "MIT prof Stuart Madnick, testifying on MS's behalf, was caught out twice when a government attorney asked him to name an OS (other than one made by Microsoft) where the browser couldn't be removed. Madnick also faltered on several other questions." Basically he doesn't understand what GNOME and KDE are, and since we're all holier-than-thou know-it-alls around here, we might as well laugh at Microsoft's expense ;)

4 of 915 comments (clear)

  1. Re:IE is just a shell by radja · · Score: 5, Insightful

    THE shell? would that be bash, ksh or tcsh?

    //rdj

    --

    No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
    --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
  2. Madnick is *not* a CS prof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Madnick is a has-been professor in Course 15, the Sloan business school, and he has nothing at all to do with Course 6-3, the computer science department at MIT. He teaches "MIS" style courses to accountants and economists.

    He is most famous for co-authoring the book mostly called "Madnick and Donovan" which was some sort of IBM 360 OS bible back in the way-back days of punch cards.

    BTW, it is might be interesting to note that Richard Schmalensee was the MIT professor who humiliated himself on the stand in the first phase of the trial, and he is also a professor of management in the same school at MIT. It's really not a bad school, they only look bad when they whore themselves for Microsoft money

  3. Re: Business press doesn't see it that way by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful


    > the general business press is taking the line that Microsoft's legal team has everything under control this time and is crushing the States.

    Let's not forget that the business press exists for the sole purpose of keeping stock prices high. It's hard to imagine that they would say anything different no matter what was going on.

    But of course, they have the DoJ's desire to throw the game to give them confidence that they're going to be right this time anyway.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Re:Know-It-Alls by stinky+wizzleteats · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not quite sure how they've been so successful in the server market, though.

    The answer lies in your analysis of their success in the desktop OS segment. Here's how it works:

    • You are a business with 50,000 users. 99% of those users use some flavor of Windows.
    • Microsoft shows up at your door one day, and suggests that you change all your servers to NT. If bribing the CIO into forcing the change down IT's throat doesn't work, and/or this suggestion is resisted...
    • Microsoft threatens to do a license audit of all your PCs. You can either:
      1. Find 50,000 license certificates spread among 15 campuses, 10,000 of which are remote laptop users, and 1,000 of those are overseas, all within the two week preparation period Microsoft gives you before the audit
      2. Swallow the blue pill and become a 100% Microsoft shop.

    Cisco employs similar tactics, but since they don't have the license audit leverage, they engage in character assassination of IT people who resist Cisco implementations. Isn't capitalism fun?