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Storm Brewing over Microsoft on the Horizon?
SexyFingers writes "Robert X. Cringely, of I, Cringely discusses one of the last anti-trust lawsuit beleaguering Microsoft. It seems like Microsoft is looking bad on these bouts... words like, lie, dissemble, ignores were applied to Microsoft."
Wouldn't normally evidence that suggests that MS is doing naughty things (manipulation of evidence, etc.) invite a DoJ probe or something to see what exactly they're up to?
Or are actions like that limited to smaller companies that don't have the money to move to make problems "go away"?
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the way this article describes the actions taken by Microsoft in court were true.
If Microsoft really 'plain lied' to the DoJ in the antitrust case, they might be 'really' convicted after all.
sig not found
"words like, lie, dissemble, ignores were applied to Microsoft."
so what?
those words have been applied to any other major corporation in the world.
in fact, those words are almost an synonym for corporate america.
I own a pump action golf ball cannon. I made it myself.
The current version of Open Office is very competitive with MS Office for the vast majority of people. I'm sure there are some specific features used by a small percentage of people who couldn't switch away from MS Office but for what I use Office for I didn't have a problem switching, in fact being able to export documents to PDF from Open Office was a major plus that MS Office can't currently do.
Do Not archive your email, Said Jim Allchen, in the pdf that was mentioned in the email. Heh. Don't be foolish, Don't get us in trouble, must be what they were thinking. Now what amazes me is that if this were say, a kiddy porn ring, or a AlQueda cell, I bet that they could dig out the big guns, like a nice scanning microscope, and sift through the erased 1's and 0's till they made sense of all of it. But no. This is Microsoft, and they just ask. They frikkin' ask nicely, and expect everyone to play by the rules here. Jeez luiz, Microsoft, in an ANTI-""trust"" case. Hmmm. trust. Sounds like expecting to be able to trust a company to do what you are asking is the wrong route in a case about NOT being able to trust...
sig!wind down the juuice, let the tubes roar with the glow of alternative powers, not they that be." me, today...
In theory, being from the kind of technical background that I am, I ought to fawn over every column, but, to be honest, I find his usual statements to be a bit feeble, a gentle puff, with no real gusto. He does pull his punches.
Normally.
However, this one has broken that mould. There were no punches pulled, and he completely nailed his colours to the mast. Good on him.
However, I'd be tempted to say that he's even made himself a target of Microsoft lawyers, as he has made allegations which could be, if false, be taken as libelous (or otherwise defamatory). (Not that I believe they are false.)
Will the posse of lethal attack-lawyers be set on him for it? Or will MS just hope it gets forgotten about as quickly as possible?
FP.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
That *does not* mean MS stuff is grandly spectacular, it just means their competitors are more litigious than they are innovative.
How would you compete against Microsoft?
No, really - how would you compete? Say you DO have something that's more terrifically innovative than anything Microsoft offers. And say you're an American following the American dream of trying to capitalize on a great idea and become rich, while meanwhile Microsoft has near-infinite reserves of cash and manpower and lawyers to throw against you if they see you have something which might be profitable to them.
How do you parlay your great idea into a successful business before Microsoft copies your idea, gives it away free with Windows, and chokes off the cash coming into your company? And you get extra points if you can do this without being "litigious."
Really - tell me - I want to know.
See, here is where you and I will never see eye to eye. It doesn't bug me that MS offers a web browser with their OS. If you are going to try to base a business plan on selling a webbrowser, something that you get for free in the dominant OS, then you'd better friggin make sure people know it's better. Yes, MS has an advantage because they have a popular operating system. So, why doesn't opera make a popular operating system? Why don't they release "Opera Linux" and bundle it there? And if it's so super wicked bad cool, advertise and tell people. I also said I've never seen Opera on a store shelf. How is that Microsoft's fault?
Here's the primary problem. The stuff that is bundled with windows is good enough for most people out of the box. There are superior products out there, but if people are not willing to buy them on the basis of their superiority then Microsoft cannot, and should not be blamed. I bought a mac because I wanted something better. I got it, and I'm happy. I will sing its praises, but if windows is still "good enough" for people, no amount of convincing is going to work. MS is not hurting consumer choice. The consumers have choices, they just choose microsoft because it's what they're accustomed to.
His point was this: Imagine that you are a small business that provides computational physics consulting to big companies. You don't make much money, but you have a big computer center which is most of your capital. Now, imagine that the feds investigate you for some reason (a competitor phones in an anonymous tip that you have warez on your servers or something like that). They bust in and take every computer that you own. In all, they have 50 terabytes of disk space.
Now, the feds don't have time to sort through 50 terabytes of disk space, so they just tinker with it little by little while they delay the court case while they try to build a case. In five years they give up and maybe return your computers.
Of course, you spent $50 million dollars on that computer hardware, and were making only a modest profit on the investment - before it was confiscated. For the next five years you make nothing and go bankrupt since you're still paying the loans on the computers that you can't use. Then, when you get them back they're worthless since they're slow by modern standards and you'll need all new servers to keep up with the competition. However, you can't get a loan for new servers since you defaulted on the loan for the old ones. They go on ebay and you recover a few hundred thousand dollars for your creditors.
Sure, this is a bit of a contrived example, but you can probably use your imagination to come up with similar scenarios. The feds don't care if they don't have enough resources to analyze the evidence - it isn't costing them anything to store it until they get around to it...
The government routinely kills small businesses in the course of investigations by confiscating capital equipment. They'd never do it to Microsoft, however...
And it wasn't just media apps. I could process SETI@HOME unit at twice the speed on the very same PC when using BeOS as when using Windows.
I'm a programmer. Developing software for the BeOS was a delight compared with Windows. It was a truly modern OS. Frankly the only thing better about Windows, was the amount of software already available for it. Just as that is the only advantage Windows has over OS X. There is no way that Windows was a better OS than BeOS. That's simply not the case. If you honestly thing you have enough knowledge of BeOS to disagree with me, make your case. Otherwise just accept that you are misinformed.
Yes, I run iTunes on Windows as well as OS X. It's identical. The only difference is that the Windows version uses more memory. If you have a low memory PC it'll be sluggish. But most people are fine.
I didn't mention Office suites because I didn't disagree with what you said the first time. It's the one area where Microsoft deserved to take a market. However, they did abuse their monopoly once they'd taken the market by changing the file format with every release so that customers had to pay money to upgrade whether they wanted to or not.
Come back when you do understand that cross subsidisation is a problem for monopolies. It's in the Sherman act.