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Microsoft Tries To Prevent Further Discovery

Posted by kdawson on from the cying-a-river dept.

An anonymous reader notes the considerable irony in Microsoft asking for relief from further discovery in the Windows Vista Capable debacle. This is the lawsuit that was recently granted class-action status, and Microsoft wants the wheels of justice to stop while it appeals that designation. It's easy to see why Microsoft wants to prevent further digging around in their and their OEMs' email archives, with stories like this one from the NYTimes (registration may be required) revealing Redmond's highly embarrassing internal emails to a mass audience.

3 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Registration-free LINK by __aailob1448 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ack, bugmenot is not working. Here is a link to the article that doesn't require registration.

    http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080309/1194753587951.html?.v=4

  2. Re:What does this mean for me? by belmolis · · Score: 4, Informative

    If your company is publicly held, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 imposes strict requires on document retention, including email. You can't just adopt a policy and stick to it. If your policy is not in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, you will be in big trouble should anyone sue you and ask for email or other documents that should have been retained.

  3. Re:I don't get it by beav007 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't see how being unable to use Aero or Windows Movie Maker can be made subject to a lawsuit.
    The issue is that all the advertising for Vista was built around the "Wow starts now" and the Vista experience, which was Aeroglass. So the customer buys a cheap laptop with Vista pre-loaded and a shiny "Vista Capable" sticker on it. They get it home to find that it runs like a one-legged dog, and is Vista Home Basic, which doesn't have Aeroglass.

    It's deceptive, if not outright false advertising.

    Here's a car analogy for you. Imagine a large car company starts advertising a new model of car. The ads feature a soft-top coupe with aggressive sports styling, leather trim, 19" chrome wheels, big twin turbo v12 engine, 6 speed flappy-paddle gearbox, and is capable of 200mph.

    You walk into the showroom, and the cars look like they do in the ads, or even better, but they are expensive. The salesman says "no worries" - this is the top model. There are much cheaper ones that are almost as good - you still get most of the features of the top model.

    "Great", you say. "I'll take one!"

    The salesman tells you that they are all in shipping crates out the back, so you can't look at it now, but they will deliver it to you.

    The next morning you find a new car in your driveway. It looks like a Hyundai Excel, has a 4 cylinder engine, 14" wheels with plastic hubcaps, cloth trim, and a 4 speed manual gearbox.

    You take it back to complain, but the salesman says "How did I mislead you? It has most of the features of the top model - seats, wheels, a steering wheel, seatbelts, a handbrake, lights, a horn, a gearbox, and it drives on the road. And it's capable of doing 200mph, if you can get it into a cargo plane that moves that fast..."