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For Microsoft, Market Dominance Isn't Enough
chemstar writes "Last summer Orlando Ayala, then the top sales executive at Microsoft Corp., sent an e-mail titled 'Microsoft Confidential' to senior managers laying out a strategy to dissuade governments across the globe from choosing cheaper alternatives to the ubiquitous Windows operating system. Ayala's e-mail told executives that if a deal involving governments or large institutions looked doomed, they were authorized to draw from a special internal fund to offer software at a steep discount, or free, if necessary. Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, was sent a copy of the e-mail.
The memo, which focused on system software for desktop computers, specifically targeted Linux, a still small but emerging competitor. "Under NO circumstances lose against Linux," Ayala said." Perhaps that's because, as roomisigloomis writes, "Seems that MS' licensing practices are working against the company," pointing out this article which "suggests that open source, Linux and other software is actively being sought."
Product activation isn't present in the corporate editions of microsoft software.
There is a huge difference between driving down prices (legal) and giving away your product for free (illegal). This legal rule captures the more general principal that price discrimination (charging different prices according to the purchasers ability or desire to pay) is highly economically inefficient and should be avoided.
Looks like Microsoft has lost all fear of the anti-trust implications of their actions.
I have to blame our dear president. I don't think he'd allow the Microsoft anti-trust case to go forward no matter how damning the evidence.
I like some of Bush's decisions, but he really sold out when he told DOJ's trust-busters to dismiss the Microsoft case. It was such a strong case too...
Bush has lost my 2004 vote over this alone.
Actually you don't need an EA (Enterprise Agreement) to get products without product activation. Open Business media does not require product activation, and can be acquired with a purchase of as few as 5 licenses. You still have to have a license key for Open Business, but you never transmit any hardware information to Microsoft.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
> It seemed that they would do anything not to lose to Linux
They're crapola software engineers, but they do understand the concept of a landslide. If cutting over to Linux ever becomes the 'in' thing to do - for whatever reason, good or bad - then Microsoft stock will share a spot in the bathroom beside SCO's. Unlike IBM, Microsoft can't adopt free software and live off hardware sales and technical services.
This is raw survival for Microsoft. If it were almost anyone else I'd feel sorry for them.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Da Blog
Hey, most of the pics at that site are mine. I went to LinuxWorld 2000 in NYC, and while my friend was playing Quake 3 all day, I was busy snapping choice shots of Ceren's (her name) hot bod! No fair!
s.j.
http://studiousjew.blogspot.com
Ceren was 17 1/2 at the time those pics were shot (by me), and that was February 2000. So she's 20 now. Quite legal.
s.j.
http://studiousjew.blogspot.com
So we started a policy that banned XP for "security reasons" and made a sweet deal with Red Hat. Unless you had a valid reason to use an XP product, you used Win2K or Linux. Linux meant that we could use older machines on our server farms and pay virtually nothing because, funny enough, Red Hat gave us a site license for support. Not that we use it (or need to) very much.
Suddenly, Microsoft "produced" a disk with Product activation disabled (sort of, it's kind of complicated), but claimed all kinds of voodoo like it had a copy protection so complex, we couldn't burn a new one from the master... even sector-by-sector copying. Bollocks. You could use any XP disk, just as long as you followed the directions MS gave us for the "master CD." Now we have a lot of the CDs all over the place, with a site key (and no, I won't give it to you, use Linux and be free) and the "process" to make it work legally by our contract. It took them two years to backpedal that far.
It's weird, because for so long, Windows was essentially "free" (although, not legally) because until WinXP, more than half the people I knew had "borrowed" an OS CD from "somewhere." Microsoft knew that (I mean, come on), and like a drug pusher, made sure the buyer was hooked before they started charging (my proof is how they made MSIE a dominant browser over Netscape). But it's not that easy anymore. Linux desktops are getting better and better, and while Windows is easier to use for the most part, it's lack of flexibility, anti-customer anticompetitive stance, and their brazen arrogance in the field is really dulling their blade.
But in this case, I can't fault them for trying to give away freebies, I mean, trade shows do that all the time. But what we should really be wary of is when they get politics involved, and claim stuff like DeCSS is proof that Linux should be banned in the US or something equally as stupid to us techies, but is all greek to your average politician who could be $wayed by $ome other thing$...
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www. - where else can you get blogged to death?
Disclaimer: I'm an IT consultant for a small business using Access as its only DB.
I've currently got a project that is easily 2 months overdue because of stupid bugs in Access. The worst is this one: if one of the databases becomes corrupted, all of the databases which synchronize with that DB will become corrupted as well. I've actually witnessed databases losing records during a synchronize because some stupid jerk of a programmer at MS thought that the good thing to do would be to delete records to make the tables match. So instead of the good copy filling in missing records in the bad copy, just the opposite happens - good records get deleted from the good copy, and now both copies are bad.
At this point, it simply doesn't matter if Microsoft gives its software away - consultants like myself are going to charge you so much for working with their bit-trash that you won't be reaping any savings. Honestly, there's a reason why I charge more for MS support, and it's not because I'm greedy, but rather, because I recognize the headaches that it presents to the average developer.
Quite frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of explaining to my customers that the reason why they're losing thousands of dollars a day in downtime and lost data is precisely because they chose to use Microsoft software. Get clue! - Microsoft does not care what happens to your data; they've already got your money, stupid! .
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
At first glance, this looks like an egregious violation of most anti-trust laws. But digging a little deeper, one must consider that 'Linux', although a competitor of sorts', is not monetarily infringed by Microsoft's actions. 'Linux' doesn't lose revenue by Microsoft taking 'Linux' marketshare. IANAL, but I think anti-trust infringement requires either competitors or customers harmed, generally monetarily for an valid infraction to noted.
Now if RedHat, a competitor who could be monetarily harmed, were to complain, Microsoft could be held in violation of anti-trust laws
Windows NT is fading away. Win2003 is a good piece of work from what I've seen/heard - I wouldn't be so fast to declare Linux superior, not any more. If you think Microsoft are just going to sit still while Linux motors on, think again. They move fast too.
This memo demonstrates an important shift in their strategy: they are now in a position where they are competing against Linux on thedesktop, having lost many key battles on the server side.
I'm pretty sure Windows has a higher market share in the server side of things (still). Sure, Linux is growing quickly, and it's hurting Windows, but it's easy to forget amidst all the hype that Linux is still the little guy, even after all these years.
The last bit of the rant I can't agree with either. Desktop Linux is not "ready", where by ready I mean I would be happy giving it to most reasonably intelligent computer users. We're not there yet, the software generally needs more spit and polish, and we need to get software installation really nailed. Too much stuff is just currently plain old broken (menus anybody?)
What's old is new again!
Charging for individual services is somethings that IBM has done in the Mainframe camp for years. DEC also did it with VAX/VMS and VAX Unix. To effectively do this, you need a (near) monopoly so no one has anywhere else to turn for less onerous alternatives. It's very hard to pull that kind of nickle-and-dime-them-to-death crap-ola in the open source world.
More recently, most of the commercially-available Unices (AIX, SCO, among others) were also sold piecemeal by services and per-user licenses.
You had to purchase an N-User license to run N-1 serial (or virtual, later) terminals on a given system.
Oh, you want TCP/IP networking? That'll cost you. X-Windows? That piece (Open Desktop) used to cost more than the base Unix (Open Server) package it ran under (Kinda like Windoze on DOS).
Print Services? Costs extra. PC Interoperability (PC-NFS File Services)? Ka-Ching.
This is the big reason I have been able to convince most of my consulting clients to switch away from SCO x86 Unix (once the IBCS2 emulation got all the bugs out) and run *free* Linux instead, which has all the bells and whistles the others charge an arm and a leg for *for free*, and would run their custom SCO binaries compatibly.
Fortunately, in recent days, because of the fierce market competition Linux has provided, most of the commercial Unix vendors have "gotten real" in their pricing structure - most now offer the base package for free or low (media) cost, but still charge big $$ for "optional" packages such as network, X-Windows, or multi-users.
if Microsoft doesn't learn from history - it'll be their fault if that policy causes big end-user backlash.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
No. Any photograph becomes the intellecual property of the photographer (not the subject or model) the moment it is taken. Depending on circumstances, there may be restrictions or limitations on using photographs of someone for commercial purposes (especially in advertising) without permission, and that's why "model release forms" exist, but a photographer still has complete copyright on all photographs he takes.