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Microsoft Urged Linux Retaliation
Rossalina W Sanchez writes: "Yahoo is reporting that an internal Microsoft memo from August of 2000 urged employees to 'work underground' to hurt companies, like Intel, who support Linux. When will they learn that these memos always come back to haunt them ..."
why the XBOX2 will have an AMD processor in it.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Joachim Kempin was thinking out loud, so they say, and nothing came of it. The truth is, these kinds of discussions go on all the time in business. Business is all about relationship building and sometimes you use a carrot and sometimes you use a stick to keep partners in line (and a lot of business people have no great skill other than creatively wielding carrot/stick, IMHO).
What gets M$ into trouble is that they have a monopoly and a one-sided advantage because of it, so their "relationship building" always looks like Hitler invading Poland. You can draw out that comparison to it's logical conclusion if you care to.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
the sky is blue
people lie
This is news???? I am sure that the yet-to-be-disclosed memos from Microsoft (or any other company) are just as bad or worse. Better yet, somebody type up a memo, with [insert company name here]'s letterhead on it, making sure that it says a lot of ugly things about the competition, then leak it to the media so it will get distributed as news.Come on people -- this is not news!
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
I'm no conspiracy theorist, but if you think about it logically for Microsoft, it's good anytime one of these memos is put together or "leaked". Microsoft continues to trumpet the so called "threat" of Linux and Apple and thus govt and other interested parties are less likely to scream that Microsoft is dominating the software industry. I believe for the same underlying reason they loaned Apple $200 million when they needed it (it hurts Microsoft in the end to be the only one left standing (govt doens't like this)).
This is why every time I read one of these "leaked" emails I just shrug picturing somebody at Microsoft's HQ smiling that everybody here and on various other sites all go into hoots over "leaked" email.
"I would further try to restrict source code deliveries where possible and be less gracious when interpreting agreements -- again without being obvious about it," Kempin wrote.
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said Kempin's memo was "irrelevant" because the company never acted on his ideas.
Nope, if Microsoft would have acted on those ideas, they would have done something like promise to provide support in Windows for AMD's 64-bit architecture instead of a comparable Intel architecture.
Aren't you glad we have Microsoft Spokesmen to set the record straight?
Let's link to the same story found on Reuters. That's where Yahoo got the story from: The Reuters article
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
it has a shitty gui(most distros)
t artica-stuff you won't get drivers nowadays.
when was the last time you used Linux? Check out KDE 3 or GNOME they are sweeeet!
noone writes software that works for linux
It's not purely about how much, it's also about how good, and most Linux software is (imho) good. Before I'm going to write down a list of people that makes software for Linux, just check out sourceforge, download.com, tucows etc... you'll find a lot.
noone writes software that works for linux
Out of the box they mostly have far more beter support, and for most hardware you can get the drivers, only for those products-nobody-have-ever-heard-of-produced-on-an
And please if you reply, don't write down experiences of distros like RedHat 4.x, use a new one.
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
But I'm sure you'll have no problem producing the licences, won't you, you scrupulous porn master, you.
Personally I think most businesses who paid money for Microsoft or other BSA software companies neglected to account for legal fees, for endless software inventories, for the time to come up with the management plan to ensure that licensing is compliant. Oh and if you have a disgruntled employee, IT DOES NOT MATTER if you are compliant with your licenses or not. The BSA will still get a warrant for your business, will still drag you to court, and will still present you the choice between extortion or risk going to court and losing even more money. You think I'm making this up? This happened to my boss, WHO WAS LEGIT, yet he chose, based on the advice of his lawyers to pay the BSA their extortion money to keep the matter out of court. You want to know what my boss's next move was? Move the entire company to Linux - he won't deal with bastards like that ever again.
Still think those products are reasonable?
Both companies undermine Windows simply by offering a better product.
MS has memos like this because that's what MS Innovation is all about: PHB memos.
Do not touch -Willie
If a company that I champion now ever becomes a monopolist, then I'll be right there in front calling for them to be smacked down as well. For now though, Microsoft is monopolist that needs to be smacked down.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Yes, it is happening! And faster than you think. Okay, I can just give anecdotal evidence but consider this: last year I worked as a Consultant at a major german bank and one of my fellow consultants bought a TiBook. Everybody was impressed. Last christmas I bought myself a iBook (sorry, TiBook is not in my budget and the iBook is sooo cute)
But it doesn't stop here: last month I went back to the bank and behold! One of the IT guys bought himself an iBook too and one of his coworkers was drooling over our iBooks...I'm pretty sure that he'll succomb too.
Wait this is not all... The iBook is my personal machine and I take it to work...You can't imagine how many IT-coworkers drool over it. Better yet, I had some management types informing themselves: they thought it wasn't compatible with anything. Showed them what it could do (including Samba, now that freaked them out...), told them about Office (Microsoft, okay), that Lotus Notes will be released for OS X, and I was able to kill some myths ("You can't do video editing on a Mac...", I nearly fell over when this guy told me this....)
Besides, my Mac has often saved our day, because it is the only Unix machine on our network (besides an old RS/6000 running AIX). There are so many things that Windows doesn't let me do...
They won't, because memos don't always get out. You only hear about the ones that do.
The really incriminating stuff never gets typed up in the first place. Verbal only. (The CIA manual on assassination offers similar advice. Never put anything seriously incriminating in writing. Verbal only.)
Even if something seriously incriminating did make it to writing, it might never see the light of day. (Ask Reagan's archivists.) And if it did see the light of day, it might not be admissable in court. And even if it is admissable, it might be countered with any of 20 tactics, (like a loud "so what").
=brian
If this memo, and the behaviour that it endorses, worries you, let me pile it on: neither of the two proposed remedies is likely to correct this kind of corporate culture at Microsoft, at least in the near term.
This is because, no matter how heinous their actions, Intel will never complain to the States or the DoJ about Microsoft. Intel needs Microsoft too much to risk it.
Once upon a time the OEMs feared Intel, because processor supplies were short and Intel was the monopoly. The crossover begain happening in the mid-90s, beginning with Windows95, as Microsoft consolidated their control over the market with well-known highly-restrictive licensing terms.
This is when Microsoft first got a taste for directly threatening Intel, and by manipulating Intel by threatening OEMs. Nothing has changed since then, except that Intel has lost even more market share to AMD, and Microsoft has become more powerful.
Intel continues to hedge its bets (on the server only!) by supporting Linux, but everything desktop-related at Intel is 100% pro-Microsoft, and most of the execs there don't see a problem with that, and wouldn't complain about retaliation even if they did.
Now, don't get me wrong, the States' proposal is much better, in that (theoretically) it would allow an anonymous or confidential complaint to the Special Master, but in practice it's hard to imagine Intel using even that venue.
Bottom line: Linux developers and supporters -- don't look to the anti-trust settlement to stop the dirty tricks. Learn to live with them. Learn to love them. Learn jujitsu.
gn
Two groups:
Slashdot posters.
Linux kernel developers.
The overlap between these two sets: none.
deus does not exist but if he does
That is about the time Intel switched from Russel Calander Manager (on VAX) to Outlook. It is largely looked upon by employees as a downgrade. Outlook regularly looses apointments for me. I work nights. It calls today yesterday in the wee hours of the morning. I frequently find I missed a meeting. (For those working nights, Outlook has a bad habit of not showing the current day by default in the wee hours of the morning.) The best time to schedule a meeting to be missed is about 2 AM. If you open outlook at about 1 am to check for a meeting, you will still be looking at the prior day's calander. Opening outlook at 4 AM will let you know you missed the overdue meeting. Russel Calander Manager could be set up with confrence rooms as users. You could make appointments with them and others to schedule the room on a first come basis. If you were second, the room would decline the meeting letting you know right away it wasn't avaliable. Outlook can not do that as it requires a person (on dayshift) to confirm or decline the meeting. This is the fault of a mail based community calander. An online calander works much better. This frequently causes double booking of a confrence room as several groups become scheduled do not get confirmatin of use of a room until after the meeting. Don't even get me started on the virus distribution system and the number of mail outages since the migration. We traded functionality, usability, and reliability for a pretty interface.
OK off the rant and back to the subject. Why did we downgrade and not back out when it failed to perform? Why was Netscape dropped and even disabled at the same time? Probably the same reason Microsoft gives as a claim the threat was a mute point as they didn't have to act on it. Intel caved and went MS for browser, calander/mail, factory automation. I forgot to mention factory automation was based on Java on Netscape. That all changed at about the same time with it's share of hiccups. No reason was given for the decision even though I asked for one. Many people asked when we will migrate back to RCM for scheduling confrence rooms.
Posting anonymously to protect my job!