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Buy PC Without an OS... Get a Visit From MSFT?
sebFlyte writes "'Don't sell PCs without operating systems or we'll send the boys round.' That seems to be the general message coming out of microsoft's antipiracy unit, according to ZDNet. While MS seems to accept that people might want to get hold of PCs without Windows so they can put Linux on them, they don't think that's a good enough excuse. "We want to urge all system builders -- indeed, all Partners -- not to supply naked PCs. It is a risk to your customers and a risk to your business," says Microsoft. The FSF has given this policy short shrift, saying: "It looks like a private sniffing service which is supposed to spy on these who do not want to pay the Microsoft tax anymore. It is an incredible piece of impudence.""
Does a move like this do anything to effect all the current antitrust cases?
TFA:
This sounds a lot like a veiled threat to me.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
Or get a non-partner reseller to build one for you. Cut the partners out of the loop. MS control is through the partners, if they fear MS will cut off their air supply, they will comply. Instead, hurt them by boycotting their products.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Nice computer you got there....it'd be a shame if something....'appened to it..
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
If they are only targetting PC makers that have agreed to only sell PCs with their OS on them, then they have a legal, though morally questionable, right to do this. However, it seems they are targetting all PC makers.
Right now, this is basically just marketing, but if they actually take action against computer makers who sell "naked" PCs, such as refusing to license the Windows OS to them because of it, they run the risk of once again being brought up on charges of monpolistic practices.
To say that a PC sold without an OS will undoubtedly be used to pirate Windows is an absurd stance, and so forcing PC makers to sell PCs with Windows pre-installed in order to avoid such piracy is not valid. If Microsoft presses the issue too hard, they're going to end up making their lawyers very happy once again.
The headline talks about buying, yet TFA is about selling. Way to go...
It is a monopoly. Nobody ever implied it wasn't. Monolopolies are not illegal. Abuse of a monopoly is illegal.
I can't imagine a larger brag that microsoft is a monopoly. It really is straight from the horses mouth with implicit proof of monopoly abuse.
"We want to urge all system builders -- indeed, all Partners -- not to supply naked PCs. It is a risk to your customers and a risk to your business -- with specifically 5 percent fewer opportunities to market software and services," wrote Alexander.
So, since they don't want "naked PCs"...they want you to install a "clothed-source OS" ?
hahahahah
T.Dzubin (submitting as Anon 'cause I've forgotten my login password)
MS will be able to track purchases, and if it looks like you're building your own systems, they come to mess you up. Afterall, pirates are just like terrorists, except for the eyepatch, the big hat, and the dead parot.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Now for some serious FUD debunking:
This quote seems popular: "We want to urge all system builders -- indeed, all Partners -- not to supply naked PCs. It is a risk to your customers and a risk to your business"
Now here's the rest of it: "with specifically 5 percent fewer opportunities to market software and services,"
As for the idea that MS might pay you a visit for not buying Windows...it's pure speculation and is not indicated by MS at all.
This describes the situation best:
Microsoft is trying to convince OEMs to sell more of their product? Those fiends!
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
But a legal definition is not the the same as a dictionary definition. From a legal standpoint they ARE a monopoly.
is a risk to your customers and a risk to your business," says Microsoft.
Well as soon as you install Windows, there is a risk of being attacked and infected. So the risk is about the same.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Microsoft's request isn't all that difficult to follow; just put FreeDOS on every machine. Everybody wins!
If you were in Mainland Europe, the "agreements" your customers had signed would not be worth the paper they were printed upon: anti-competitive practices are well and truly illegal, and damn right too.
How is it anti-competitive if I offer the customer a savings on a product that they want? I don't ask others not to compete with me, I just worked out a long term agreement with someone to get the product they want at a price they want.
If an employee works for me, I also make them sign a non-compete in exchange for a much higher income. If they don't want to sign with me, they can go make 50% of the money with some company that doesn't care.
Anti-competition comes only out of licensing by the state and excessive regulations causing high-barriers to entry. Anti-competition does not come from companies forcing themselves into the consumers' homes. Microsoft has definitely taken advantage of government regulations (copyrights, patents, DCMA etc) so they're not clean in my mind, but I see nothing anti-competitive about getting people to agree to certain terms so you can plan your budget and growth.
Is signing a cell phone contract for 2 years to get a free phone anti-competitive? Is signing a satellite TV contract for 2 years to get $1500 in free hardware anti-competitive? You made the decision.
God knows I hate Microsoft more than most people...but this might be a teensy bit of an overreaction.
a n.jpg says that the top four reasons people buy bare PC's is:
The actual source of this information says that:
1) This is a UK-only thing.
2) There are only TWO new MS employees doing this.
3) They discuss this during routine customer meetings.
4) There is no hint of coersion implied here.
So what this actually means is that there are a couple of extra marketeers out there trying to pursuade stores not to sell bare PC's.
Furthermore, the MS article http://www.zdnet.co.uk/i/z/nw/sp/storygraphics/sc
* To install their own software.
* To transfer software from an old machine.
* To install Linux
* To take advantage of volume licensing.
The didn't mention "To use a pirated version of windows".
What they ARE saying is that selling a bare system is a missed opportunity for the store. They suggest that if you sell someone a bare machine, you're missing a chance to sell them additional software such as photo processing, music players, etc.
So - yeah Microsoft are most definitely *evil* - but this isn't anything to panic about.
I doubt this will change the minds of many sellers - two guys in one country appealing to store owners who probably made a careful decision to let their customers avoid the MS tax.
You DON'T need to keep re-buying windows over and over again. You DON'T need to buy a copy of Windows only to have it be overwritten with a site-licensed version at work. You DON'T need to buy a copy only to scribble all over it with Linux. You SHOULD be able to save $50 off the cost of your PC if you are in one of those catagories.
www.sjbaker.org
Abuse of a monopoly is illegal.
What's the point of getting a monopoly if you don't abuse it? The shareholders would sue you if you didn't even try to abuse it.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Before anyone tries to complain about the findings of fact, remember that the appeals court never disagreed with the facts Judge Jackson found, only the remedies he demanded. So that the original practice was an abuse of monopoly power still stands. As would the present case of strong-arming people into always including Windows.
"My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
As an annual subscriber to a Universal MSDN package I don't think I should have to pay for it twice. That is called racketeering - a federal offense.
Okay... And trying to force the bundling of your software isn't abusing an abuse?
Oh, it is, but they were convicted in a US court, which doesn't have jurisdiction in the UK (much to the consternation of the RIAA and MPAA). Even then, they got off lightly enough that they don't seem to be terribly concerned with risking a repeat.
Check it out. . .
I know the guy who posted this Slashdot comment on how prominent Forbes writer, Daniel Lyons, a suspected SCO puppet, was asking leading questions of Balmer at Microsoft's request in a recent interview slamming Linux.
Through fluke, my friend managed to get first post. He was also posting with some respectable Slashdot Karma. What happened next was fascinating. . .
His post became the focus of a moderation tug-o-war. No big deal. Happens all the time on Slashdot. --I've posted hundreds of items which piss people off, and I've watched my posts fly up and down on the venerable, "Troll" to "Insightful" Slashdot scale. Except, I cannot ever claim to have invoked more than, at most, say 8 or 9 mod points from the Slashdot moderators.
carsonc's post however. . . Wow.
We were chatting a few days later and he described the scenario to me. It seems that, lickety-split, after his post had gone up, a group of somebodies had gone into his posting history and spent a lot of mod points hammering several of his recent posts from 2's down into -1's. They spent, we estimate, at least 25 mod points worth of specific attention on him. Despite the fact that regular Slashdot moderators eventually won the tug-o-war, leaving his comment in the rarefied air of +5, his Karma had nonetheless dropped so quickly from history moderation, that he was left prevented from posting more than two comments per day, (effectively stopping him from engaging in open forum debate on the very topic he'd launched), and assigning an automatic -1 to everything he might say thereafter.
Yeah, yeah. Big deal. Slashdot Karma wars do exist on the level of schoolyard nonsense, but in this case. . .
A group of somebodies with 25 mod points to blow on a moment's notice? Well that raises interesting questions! Judging by the otherwise bland nature of carsonc's post, which I can't think could possibly have inspired anybody to have such intense emotional reaction and thus mod negatively, --unless they were directly affected by his comments, I can only surmise that it was either. . ,
A) Unwholesome Slashdot editors. --Which, considering Slashdot's fairly clean history of moral conduct over the years, I think is unlikely in the extreme.
or. . .
B) A band of Microsoft employees who had been directed to acquire mod points on Slashdot to be used at the whim of Microsoft's PR department precisely when negative views circulating around delicate points in the news might harm them. And as mod points are not given every day, how many users exactly, does it take to have 25 mod points available at a moment's notice? Enough to require some paid coordiation, I'd say.
Some might cry, "Conspiracy!" and wag their heads like dolts. But with several 1000 employees plugged into the Microsoft cube. . .
Anybody who has seen the film, "The Corporation" knows that such a scenario is not just possible, but -extremely- likely.
In other words. . . Fuck Microsoft. Switch to Linux. Tell everybody to do so now. Ubuntu will mail you 5 disks for free, and they'll support them, for free, for 3 years.
-FL
"The FSF Europe is alarmed by the prospect that customers who request a base systems would risk a visit from Microsoft's investigators." I am still waiting on the day that I can buy a computer, and instead of them saying "They support Microsoft Windows only" for their computer customers, they instead ask me "What Operating system would you like on your new computer? I don't think they can come knocking on a regular consumers front door demanding to see their new computer just because they got the computer without a Operating System. If they can do this... Regardless of my choosing of Opeating System I plan to tell them to get a warrant. I advise businesses to do the same. I believe its time also for Vendors to drop the "Microsoft only" policy too. This is still forcing users to use Microsoft. Microsoft knows it too. Too bad the Courts don't see it for what it is.
PC resellers could just offer to bundle with Linux or *BSD -- which would make Microsoft's argument completely untenable.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
And he makes some pretty inane or even stupid posts. I think the attention he got probably didn't do him any good.
As to MS employees being a reason he was boned, I have to say that's not too far-fetched to me. But really, I'd have more sympathy if slashdot weren't so consistently off the handle in relation to MS. I mean, it's pretty easy to get a smack even for reasonable opinions about MS and SCO. And his slight wingnuttiness doesn't help much.
It's still seems unfair. Maybe meta-moderating can fix this eventually?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You think that's bad try to buy a Mac without an OS on it!