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New Documents Shed Light on Microsoft's Tactics
Tigen writes "As the NY Times reports, even as MS prepares to face penalties from the European Union, testimony during the second week of trial in the consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota has revealed some embarrassing internal documents from Microsoft which were not disclosed in the 1997 federal antitrust lawsuit. Items include a 1990 letter from Bill Gates to Andy Grove, and Microsoft's illegal tactics against the Go Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup."
I've contended for years that computing in general has been held back by Microsoft, not pushed forward, and this is an example of just how that has been the case.
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... and most of them do.
There are a lot of 'high order' dreams in the computing science. The CS holy grail of pocket, portable computing is only now coming to fruition (thank you Palm), but has been on the cards since at least the 60's as a design reference/specification. Go could've given us this in the late 1980's, early 90's. Microsofts' machinations, however, prevented that from happening.
I understand now, why the Palm founders adopted their 'found and leave' strategy for PalmOS. In the light of Go, Inc's demise it makes sense to light 4 or 5 small fires that the enemy can't put -all- out, rather than making a very large target, like Go and Motorola did
I stopped using Microsoft products in 1998. They'll not get one penny of $ from this consumer, and not one item of code from this programmer. I tell all my Microsoft-using friends to fuck off with their self-made problems, too, and get real operating systems, from real software companies
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
We've found one dead body, the criminal is in jail.
... nah ... its 'not needed'.
... only ... possible in the alternative /. universe ... in my head.
We don't need to find any more. Even if they are out there, somewhere in the ditch, buried
You should be marked "-1 Ignorant Buffoon", but alas thats
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
... after all it's a Markoff article.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
If this is not anti-competitive, then what is?
Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.
Industrial Espionage.
Microsoft violated nondisclosure agreements with Go, and then used that information to build PenWindows, a competitor to Go's PenPoint operating system.
GO has loyalty rights for PenWindows. GO should sue PenWindows licensee's individually. This is what Microsoft is trying to do to Linux users through SCO. GO has more legal grounds to stand on that SCO.
Shortly after the letter was written, Intel reduced its planned investment in Go from $10 million to $2 million
Intel was held to ransom, and they paid it.
The advice read in part that the focus should be shifted from "killing the competitor" to "providing a better solution to the customer's problems."
So they did believe in Killing Competition. A tiger never changes its stripes.
I think some of these allegations could ammount to criminal offences. I do hope Mr. Gates does a time in a cell with No Windows
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Nothing to see here
In the EU they may be forced to exclude Windows Media Player from the operating system in addition to heavy fines. I think they should be worried about both.
No, with more than $50 billion in the bank you shouldn't be to afraid. However you should be afraid if the reason for having this kind of money in the bank, that is, not giving information to your competitors about how servers and the desktops interact and bundling your own products with your operating system in order to force competitors out of the market, is attacked, as it is in the European Case.
Typical slashbot FUD.
Please explain how pocket, portable computing would have been possible even ten years ago. The hardware was the limiting factor. Microsoft had nothing to do with it - the state of the semiconductor industry did. We didn't have CPUs that worked withotu sucking *lots* of juice. NMOS CPUs were very power hungry.
Today we have calculators with 75 MHz processors, powered off AAA batteries. Would that have been possible 10 years ago? perhaps, but the price would have been insane.
Companies are always free to develop their own embedded OS; some do. Back then the hardware wasn't available. So quit the microsoft bashing.
Typical slashdot groupthink
Well, Mr. Obvious, would you be as kind as to point us to some references to these kidnappings?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
I tell all my Microsoft-using friends to fuck off with their self-made problems, too..
Surely there's a way you can express your displeasure with MS products to your friends with a little more tact?
-- jimmycarter
A decision was made, but a lot of people believe that decision was just so much tepid crap. Courts have been overturned in the past; perhaps if enough new evidence comes to light, the case can be reopened.
Yes, it does serve a purpose. It serves to dig up more facts and evidence should someone in the judiciary ever get wise and reevaluate that case.
Even if the trial never reopens, the Court of Public Opinion is always open. The more people learn what kinds of jiggery-pokery Microsoft has been up to, the more likely Microsoft will gets its just desserts sooner or later, and the less likely anyone else will ever pull such stunts again.
Honestly. I'm trying to figure out your attitude. "Microsoft did it, they got away with it, and that's good enough for me!" Are you always this doggedly complacent?
Need something burned down in a big hurry? Then come on down to the Flamebait Market, for all your pyromaniac needs!
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
The case in the EU isn't really about the money.
If the fine were the only issue microsoft would have paid it and said "sorry we wont do it again" before going off and doing it again.
The main issue in the EU case and the reason Microsoft is going to appeal it is control.
Making Microsoft remove media player (and who knows maybe others will happen later).
Making them provide *complete* specs such that other software companies can make totally compatible products.
Those are the real issues. Efforts to control microsofts future not make them pay for wrong-doings in the past.
The best thing that could come out of the EU case is the interoperability thing. Imagine if you could choose your html renderer and it slots itself into place so perfectly that anywher IE was used before your choice of renederer gets used now.
How about an NTFS implementation for Linux with complete read/write compatibility.
How about open office reading/writing all of Office's document formats perfectly.
That is what microsoft is scared of.
Every time Microsoft goes on about piracy hurting them damaging innovation etc they should be reminded of this that they are IP thieves themselves and if SCO can ask for $1million from IBM then what can the former executives of Go sue Microsoft for? All hypothetical of course the documents have yet to prove this is the case.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
"What now? does dragging this stuff up accomplishe anything more? It's just for microsoft bashing."
One man's flamebait is another man's insightfu.
"Derp de derp."
IF it is true then it just goes once again to show how fucking rotten the legal system is. Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth eh? So will these be grounds for a new case? Wasn't Martha Stewart found guilty of lying to an officer instead of insider dealing? Can they get MS on withholding evidence? Perhaps even going after people who can be jailed? I personally don't believe for a second that this could be accidental (IF of course it is real)
Some posts seem to mention that attempting to create or abuse a monopoly is a felony. Doesn't this mean that MS is a criminal? So how exactly is it still allowed to do business as usual? Companies seem to want all the perks of being treated a real people but none of the bad stuff like oh say being punished for committing crimes.
Oh well at least we can snigger at all the microsoft apologist trying to wriggle out of this one. This must be one of their worst weeks. Embarrising papers, being fined and if you look at groklaw yet more hypocrasy by claiming that the EU has no right to tell it how to behave while MS itself is asking the EU to tell Lindows how to behave.
I almost pity the MS fans. Almost.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Perhaps if companys where less like Microsoft and Enron Etc. and the senior managers actually punished when do act like that then you wouldn't see so many go down in flames.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
How in the HELL was that insightful? We had *PICTURES* of Guantanamo bay detainees, we had released prisoners talking about it, the fucking US government admitted that they were there (perhaps not thousands, but cetrainly hundreds). It is fucking THERE.It's not that people aren't asking for proof ... they've already seen it!
I have (personally) NOT seen proof of Andy Grove keeping IBM employees in a cellar, and I would damn well like some evidence of it if I'm expected to take that seriously.
At times I wonder if people have become so desensitized to people in positions of power lying to them that they no longer care. People have to accept wrong behaviour from politicians, businessmen, the media and everybody else. It does not matter if George Bush lies, or Bill Gates bullies his way through or Wall Street analysts pump up a stock - this type of behaviour does not shock or surprise - it is expected of them.
BTW: Appending "&pagewanted=print" gives an even more readable page.
It should be pointed that the complete disclosure clause under dicussion by the EU Commission is of client-server application formats and APIs. That is, it only applies to stopping Microsoft leveraging control of the desktop into control of the server market. So neither of your examples would actually be covered by this penalty, but some other very useful things (SMB stuff, all the IE-only hacks which bad html authors constantly abuse, asp; this is not an exhaustive list) will be covered.
~cHrisAnd how do you sell your soul to a book? That just has some mightily amusing implications depending on one's literary choices...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"In late 1993, Go was sold to AT&T where it was ultimately merged into the company's portable computer subsidiary. In 1994 the phone company shut down the effort in portable computing. Three months later Microsoft canceled its PenWindows project"
As if this doesn't make it obvious what M$ was doing! They were only in the game to keep somebody else from innovating new technology. As soon as a potential competitor closed down, they stopped attempting to "provide a better solution for the customer." What a bunch of hooey!
DATA comments; PROC SORT DATA = comments BY score; PROC DELETE comments >> 1; RUN; DATA entertainment SET commen
Sigh. The whole point here is that they destroyed innovation by wielding their influence as a major player in the industry to starve potentially competitive emerging technologies of support by threatening companies (like Intel in this case) that were otherwise inclined to support it.
You can't "destroy innovation with subpar crap." You can certainly flood the market with crap, but that has relatively little effect on someone else's ability to create something better. Market dominance can certainly make it more difficult for someone to overtake you, but it's not impossible.
The point many of us make is that Microsoft has, in fact, done relatively little to "advance us." (Exactly what has it done, by the way?) Instead, it has abused its relationships with other companies to obfuscate and intimidate, stifling emerging technologies until they (MSFT) can move into the space. Every time it is successful at this, it gains even more power to throw around the next time.
Take a closer look at Go. They chose to build a new platform in part because they judged that they could create a more effective pen-based experience by starting from scratch around a new design center. Rather than tolerate an emerging new platform, Microsoft intimidated potential partners and, according to the emerging evidence, made and violated agreements with Go to take their ideas for Pen Windows. Now, years later, people will point to pen computing as one of the many things Microsoft supposedly did "to advance us."
Microsoft created nothing here; they just bullied and destroyed.
First, the NYTimes now has a history of embellishing and a keeping lying journalist on the payroll.
For the former accusation, that could be said of any (ANY) media organization. For the latter, to whom are you referring? Surely not Jayson Blair, he left the paper in disgrace long ago.
(a poorly written book at that)
You want to talk poorly written, talk about your own post here. You seem to care about Kevin Mitnick quite a bit, but can't bother to spell his name correctly even once?
WHo's computer crashes a few times a day? I run XP at home very often and it never 'crashes'. I run 2000 at work all day (8 - 10 hrs) and it never 'crashes'...
I think you need to revise your comment, as it is totally bogus.
You want to know what is funny? When I ran Linux, it would 'crash' every now and then...but that was cuz of shitty hardware / drivers...not the OS.
Don't blame MS here, most of the time when a computer hangs up or whatever it is becasue of the hardware or drivers...not the OS (at least now-a-days...this probably doesn't apply to the Win 95 or 98).
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Well I wish Slashdot would append [&partner=] to the links by default.
When YOU abuse their lax partner system, the NYT isn't going to waste their time. When a company, OSDN, or its officers abuse their lax partner system, it is (1) a potential legal liability on the part of OSDN, and (2) going to make NYT change their whole system, probably for the worse.
[
there is nothing wrong with a Monopoly, Only how you wield it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on