Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Critic Received $9.75m After Settlement
An anonymous reader writes "Just this month, Microsoft paid almost $20 million to the Computer and Communications Industry Association to make an anti-trust lawsuit go away.
FT.com has just revealed that *half* of that payment was pocketed by Ed Black, the president of CCIA and one of MS's fiercest opponents over antitrust issues. His payment was approved by the CCIA board, which includes Sun Microsystems, Yahoo and Oracle. And here's a quote from this article at Groklaw: Could this be why Nokia quit the CCIA right after the settlement was announced, saying matters were not handled "in the proper way"?"
Or is anyone else coming to the conclusion that any organisation named *IA or *AA is, in fact, corrupt and evil?
I'm shocked, shocked!, to discover that an out-of-court settlements that consists of paying off your antagonists. Next you'll be telling me that Michael Jackson's settlements were somehow related to the $20 million that he forked out, rather than plaintiffs reaching mutual understanding.
Next week Slashdot will discuss : "The Pope : could he be a Catholic?"
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'll like to file an Anti-Trust case based on the large numbers of Anti-Trust cases =) I mean, there must be a lot more that we don't know about=)
Saw this in the FT this morning. Had a sweepstake on how long it would be before it appeared on
I pocketed what I'll just describe as a 'large one-digit sum'.
Heh heh heh... now to spend my wealth while industry as a whole suffers...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Since when is silencing one person's allegations worth 9 million dollars? Couldn't they just have arranged an "accident" for him?
stuff |
... and you gotta admit that he got a fairly good price!
i wonder if he's getting it in cash or a couple of SQL Server licences...
Your comment reminds me of a joke. A man walks up to a beautiful young woman and says, "will you sleep with me for a million dollars."
She says, "sure."
Next, he says, "will you sleep with me for a dollar?"
She slaps him in the face and says, "what kind of woman do you think I am?"
He replies, "We have already established that, we are just dickering over price!"
I liked this link from the "Related Links" section of the article:
Best deals: The Courts
Whoa.
The more I see of capitalism, the more I'm glad that I'm content to work from home earning "enough to get by".
... *sigh* ;-)
Indeed, I envy Ed Black for this excellent deal as well
Where can I go and get a degree in being a corporate board member or a CEO?
They seem to be low skill, high pay jobs. And if you get fired, you get a firing bonus in the millions.
Interestingly, Nokia is a Scandinavian country
That's a common misconception. Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland! Gee, stupid Americans.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Because you are honest? Oooops... Sorry I mistook you for someone else.
Free Firefox news reader.
We can predict that something is evil if it's an american or an industrial association.
*mock surprise*
You're concerns are certainly justified. Solid gold pillows and matresses stuffed with 100 dollar bills can be pretty uncomfortable, and trophy wives tend to have cold feet.
You know, this might be the way to go for them. I certainly would stop complaining about Microsoft if they gave me $9.75M. Hell, I'd quit bitching for just $2M! Instead of spending so much money on advertising, they should just give it directly to people who hate them.
I completely agree. I came over here from the UK and boy was I surprised when I found out that I could pull a lever and get water out! The best thing - you can get it hot or cold!!! Just wait until mother and father hears about this when I send my next letter back home. They'll be so pleased I'm not wallowing around in the mud looking for bugs like my brothers and sisters.
I don't blame him. Fuck, if I got offered $9.75m to stop bitching about Microsoft, I'd take Gates' arm off at the elbow!
D.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
And the woman in question was Lady Astor.
They had two other famous exchanges (and strangely always seemed to find themselves next to each other at dinner):
Winston Churchill: Madam, you are ugly.
Lady Astor: And you, Winston, are drunk.
Winston Churchill: Ah yes, but in the morning I shall be sober.
&
Lady Astor: If you were my husband Winston, I should poison your soup.
Winston Churchill: And if you were my wife, I'd drink it.
--- My dad's political betting
What keeps someone from just forming a new association and repeating the process?
Hey, i patent that!
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Oh, so you're from Glasgow?
Flash is the Herpes of the Internet.
your.opinion >
And here's another:
A boy comes home from school, and tells his dad: "Today we learned the
difference between 'theoretically' and 'practically', but I'm not sure
I got it. Could you explain it to me?" The father thinks for a
minute and then replies "Son, your mom is in the other room, go and
ask her if she would be willing to have sex with a stranger for a
million dollars." The boy returns after a short minute and says: "She
said she would." "OK," says the father, "now go upstairs and ask your
older sister the same question." Again the boy returns after a short
while, and again he says "She said she would." "So, you see son," the
father says, "theoretically we have two million dollars in our house,
but practically we have two whores."
I've been a vocal critic of Microsoft for a lot longer than this guy! Where's my payoff!?!!?!
-- Gargonia
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
Ballmer wanted to get all lawsuits out of the way. The best way to do that was pay off everyone. Ballmer laid out his top 10 plans in order of importance.
1. Pay off all litigants.
2. Buy a new shirt, all the my others have pit stains.
3. Investigate what antiperspirant is
4. Attend next class of the Howard Dean speech school
5. Hostile take-over of The Hair Club for men for their technology.
6. Steal Apples ideas, rebrand as Microsofts.
7. Portray everyone who uses a non-microsoft MP3 player as thieves. Portray Windows users as honest folk...ignore questions about product activation that contacts our servers.
8. Buy another shirt, this one is pit stained already.
9. Say I saw linux developers dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.
10. Fix security in Windows, if we can.
You make Americans' grasp of history and geography look good.
...is AIDS activitst and animal rights activist. Ladies and Gentlemen, the subject is "AIDS drug testing". Discuss.
I find the debate that ensues made all the more hilarious as the two groups generally agree on about 99% of issues.