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Microsoft Deploys Linux, Open Software in Test Lab
securitas writes "Microsoft has deployed Linux and other open-source software in test labs used by business customers to experiment with Microsoft's products. The products include Linux, Apache, MySQL and Open LDAP directory-access software on Intel-based computers, according to Martin Taylor, who is in charge of Microsoft's Linux competitive strategy. He said the goal was to learn 'what can you do and how can you do it' using open-source software in a competitive analysis. This step comes after Microsoft's recent admission that Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat after economic conditions. Mirrors at CMPnetAsia and InternetWeek." It'd be cool to see some patches come from Redmond, but that's probably wishful thinking.
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[img]http://www.danasoft.com/sig/Digerati.jpg[/im
When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.
This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.
But if not Bin Laden, then who?
It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .
VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.
"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.
But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.
The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.
The Plan
It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/
thought it felt a bit nippy outside...
Bullshit.
/lovethebiashere
How the heck does your troll get marked insightful, but my truthful comment never get modded?
Microsoft favored thick clients purely because they had shitty servers, and so that was the solution that favored them the most. And *NO*, thick clients do not lead to more end-user choice. What bullshit. Thick clients mean the users have no choice but to use the same system their co-workers are using, from the high level apps all the way down to the OS itself. Thin clients mean they ONLY have to use the same software for that one task that is shared over the network. For everything else they use what they feel like. Thin clients means I can use Linux while my coworkers use Macs and Windows, because the client doesn't dictate what we have to have on our desks.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.