Microsoft Moves To Quash Case, End E-mail Revelations

CWmike writes "Microsoft asked a federal judge yesterday to end the class-action lawsuit that has been the source of a treasure trove of embarrassing insider e-mails covering everything from managers badmouthing Intel to others on who worried how Vista would be compared to Apple's Mac OS X in 2005. In seeking to end the case, Microsoft argues the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista was not the 'real' Vista, or showed that users paid more for PCs prior to the new operating system's launch because of the Vista Capable campaign."

Comments

Re:Don't Let This Die

[Macthorpe]

Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.

I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.

Good Luck MSFT

[mfh]

I worked retail during the period "Vista ready" hit the shelves and only a very small handful of machines meet what our team of salespeople would consider to be truly capable of running vista. The whole thing was a total scam to sell as many computers as possible during the typical iteration lull; when a new product is about to release, nobody typically wants the old one. The seriously funny part of Vista's release is how few people wanted it, but MSFT acted like everyone was going to love it, thus proving how out of touch they are with reality. The new Seinfeld ads prove this to be true. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re:Good Luck MSFT

[Anonymous Coward]

actually.

power corrupts, but powrpoint corrupts absolutly...

Re:Good Luck MSFT

[ion.simon.c]

That depends on your definition of "acceptable". WinXP doesn't *need* 1GB. The email machine in my office at work runs WinXP Pro and has 0.25GB installed. It's slow to boot, and initially slow to load Outlook (2003?) and Firefox 3. However, once they've been loaded once, you're good to go.

I've always hated the practice...

[Dutch Gun]

...of selectively disabling features in a software product and selling a product at a lower price. It's a bit different for things in the real world, where there's a real physical cost involved with adding extra do-dads and features to products. But in software, it's just flipping a few bits to remove features you've already developed. The crazy thing is, it actually costs *more* to do this, as the company now has multiple versions of the product to package, distribute, and support.

I'd much prefer the game industry's model of "premium versions" of a game containing extra bonuses. The core product is the same, but if you want to pay for it, you can get a few extras, maybe a "making of" DVD, or a CD containing the soundtrack, books and figurines, stuff like that.

Re:I've always hated the practice...

[naoursla]

The EU requires Microsoft to release a basic version as part of their antitrust lawsuite. Each feature in the premium versions requires a price attached to it and the premium version has to cost the same as the basic version plus the price of each additional feature. If any discount is given for combining features then it is considered "bundling" and is not allowed.

Re:I've always hated the practice...

[arkhan_jg]

This only applies to the media player, due to the knock-on effect on web-based video and music of having every windows pc guaranteed to have microsoft's codecs. This is the reason for the -N versions on the vista DVD.

There's no reason microsoft couldn't have split vista into two versions; home and business. All the extra 'ultimate' crap, and turning off aero entirely in basic was just segmenting the market to extract as much money as possible.

Re:I've always hated the practice...

[Dutch Gun]

How do you determine what is a bonus feature and what was removed? Just shift names around and stuff and you can have exactly the same thing with the same effect.

There's really no problem with doing this.

I'd differentiate it by asking: Is the core product in the "light" version of the software intentionally crippled? Or, perhaps one could look at it a different way. Is the "standard" product the less expensive or more expensive one (i.e. the one that gets promoted)?

Using my example of the game industry (normal games vs "collector edition" games), you can clearly see that the standard package is the less expensive SKU. However, the game itself in both packages are identical. The "collector edition" boxes contain bonus material that is extraneous to the core product.

In the case of Vista Home, Microsoft decided to strip out features from their "standard" operating system. Why do I consider the Aero glass interface "standard" and not an extra? Microsoft advertised it heavily as a cool, new feature of Vista. And, the fact that its in four of the five versions of Vista would lend credence to this viewpoint.

Naturally, you're correct that it's a matter of perception. But when selling products to consumers, perception matters, right?

Re:I've always hated the practice...

[ConceptJunkie]

I bought a laptop that came bundled with Vista and it crashed on me numerous times before I got fed up with all the Vista crap and "upgraded" to XP (and later upgraded to Ubuntu). Just because it's never crashed on you doesn't make other people liars. I think you need to get a clue.

Re:I've always hated the practice...

[mgblst]

It is not always the case for hardware. Intel chips would often have part of the hardware disabled, because it is cheaper to make one type of chip than two (the 386sx/dx, 486sx,dx, etc...) Cameras as well, can come with hardware that is not supported by the version of software installed, thus disabling part of it.

Re:I've always hated the practice...

[jo_ham]

This is done with hardware for manufacturing costs and so on, as you state - only one set of tooling needed to make the chips, or the widget or whatever it is your company makes.

Then you can stream it at QA, which I know Intel has done in the past, and put lower quality batches as slower chips, selling them as such. The QA assures that they will work properly at say 1GHz, when it's literally an identical chip to the 1.5GHz in the more expensive box - it just failed QA at that speed.

Not that Intel are innocent of dodgy practices - I'm sure there's some skeletons in that cupboard, it's just a little different to intentionally cripple your software to try and milk the maximum cash out of the public, all the while advertising that the shitty thing they're buying is really the super sexy Aero-enabled, fully-network-working Vista Ultra Ultimate Pro with a free patch of Ballmer's ear hair in each box.

Tales from the Past

[CaptainOfSpray]

I sincerely hope MS get their feet held to the fire over this.

As an ex-IBMer, I have wondered for years why Microsoft is not drowning in antitrust cases (or the modern fashionable class actions). For the 13 years the second A-T case against IBM ran, every employee signed off the Business Conduct Guidelines every year, and knew that a breach of the BCG was cause for instant dismissal.

MS doesn't seem to think unethical behaviour is even noticed.

Re:Tales from the Past

[jacquesm]

Better yet, they've elevated it to an artform. Buying representatives on standards committees, bribing government officials to get rid of FOSS friendly legislation, the list is endless.

When having to choose between monsanto and microsoft as the supreme example of an outright criminal corporation it's a tough choice.

Re:Tales from the Past

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: Microsoft has VERY strict Conduct Guidelines that every employee and manager must comply with. These guidelines do include proper Business Conduct, and cover things such as accepting or handing out bribes (in any form, including "well it was just a nice gesture!" scenarios). They're referred to as "SBC" (Standards of Business Conduct).

These mandatory compliance rules are updated on average twice a year (sometimes more often depending upon what changes), and every employee has to watch a series of videos, take a quiz, and agree to comply with said guidelines else risk immediate termination. Failure to comply with these rules will result in termination and/or legal repercussions, depending upon what the offence was.

These rules have been getting more and more strict as time goes on, probably because of cases like this. Sadly, such guidelines wouldn't be necessary if employees (regardless of their stature/role) acted responsibly and weren't sneaky/shady bastards.

Re:Tales from the Past

[Hanyin]

When having to choose between monsanto and microsoft as the supreme example of an outright criminal corporation it's a tough choice.

I don't know about you but when it comes to corporate monopolies I mind a lot more when it's food having less genetic variety compared to one company's OS being run on every computer; and then there are the dominant terminator seeds that spread to neighboring fields so that regular crops can no longer be grown... at least there's no virus on my Mac that uninstalls OSX and replaces it with Vista.

So I suppose that while *some* of their actions are similar, the bigger criminal is easily Monsanto.

"The big lie" technique

[mattytee]

From TFA:

"The evidence refutes Plaintiffs' claims that Windows Vista Home Basic cannot 'fairly' be called Windows Vista," Microsoft said in the motion for summary judgment.

And yet their own internal communications talk about what a piece of crap it is, and how the "Vista capable" thing will blow up in their face, mislead consumers, etc etc.

Ultimate-ly (smirk smirk), the lawyers are going to be the ones to hash out these definitions, and it'll be a damn shame if "the big lie" technique succeeds, but factually speaking, Microsoft did intentionally mislead consumers.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[Dutch Gun]

Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.

I'm usually not one to jump on the Anti-Microsoft hype machine (I don't think Vista is nearly as bad as people say it is - I use Vista 64-bit at work and it's great). But it *does* require a machine with a bit of horsepower to run it well. It's pretty obvious that Microsoft was willing to sacrifice a few customers to stay in good graces with Intel. Are you going to tell me that a consumer who purchased a machine with a "Vista-ready" sticker would seriously have expected or understood that it could only run the most basic version of Vista?

As shallow as it may seem to some, interface is big part of the computing experience. A consumer is going to be reminded of the fact that they have a "sub-standard" version of the OS every time they look at their screen. I know it would bother me, especially if it was sold under false pretenses.

Journalists are so unfair to Microsoft

[David Gerard]

Microsoft today issued a plea through its network of objective opinion-shapers: Don't let the journalists near it.

"We understand that many journalists use Macs," said CNet marketing marketer Don Reisinger. "This means they necessarily suckle at the Satanic rear passage of Steve Jobs. We cannot countenance their bias. Journalists are responsible for all those signs outside computer shops offering to replace Vista with XP. When was the last time you saw the entire technology field stop and wait for an announcement from any other company besides Apple? It's so unfair!"

Smears and slanders also come from obsessive overweight nerdy Mac-using Linux geek troublemakers who run "benchmarks" and "tests." "It's horrifying bias from the 'reality'-based community," said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary Jo Enderle. "We understand that, just because Vista was 40% slower than XP, the nattering nabobs of negativism are already writing that it's 'not enough of an improvement.' It's so unfair!"

"Mactards are like concentration camp guards," said Guardian marketing marketer Jack Schofield, "brutalising 'I'm A PC' users and" [This comment has been removed by a Guardian moderator. Replies may also be deleted.]

"The only reason Vista failed was because Microsoft planned for it to fail," said Reisinger in an earlier ad-banner troll post. "It was a fantastically subtle double-bluff! They did the honorable thing in the face of the vile calumnies spread by Apple. It's so unfair!"

Re:Don't Let This Die

[ceoyoyo]

I'm not sure exactly the same is justified.

One thing Apple has always been very clear about, perhaps even a little too conservative, is the minimum system requirements for their products. Often those requirements are actually above a usable minimum, whereupon they take quite a bit of flack until someone hacks out the hardware check.

Apple actually found itself in very similar circumstances with the release of... can't remember which one. Tiger I think. Anyway, the new Quartz Extreme extensions wouldn't all run on older video cards. So what did they do? They were up front about it, but they also made Quartz degrade gracefully. Actually, the only reliable way we could tell was to drop a widget on Dashboard and see if there were any screen ripples.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[Almahtar]

I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.

This is an absolutely true statement, but it overlooks one thing: the unfair advantage that is monopoly status and industry entrenchment.

I support open source because it's hard to leverage unfairly, but when I have to choose between Microsoft and Apple I choose Apple because they're the underdog.

When Microsoft's market share reaches 50% or less on desktop OSes and browsers, I'll re-evaluate my stance. They have the same business practices as Apple, but they have far more power until the ecosystem evens out, so they are capable of much more abuse.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[Jeremy Erwin]

Since Apple controls its product line, the responsible thing to do would be to make sure that all of their current products supported CoreImage-- essentially, floating point fragment shaders.

I'm not sure if Apple offers a machine that does not. It shouldn't.

The Vista ready program was designed to assure customers that they would be able to buy a computer that Vista would run well on. In the pre-Vista era, Aero was certainly hyped. It's not inconceivable that some poor hapless soles bought new computers in the expectation that they would be able to use Aero, when it came out and were sorely disappointed when they found out that they could not.

Now that Vista has been released, you can demo a prospective purchase in the store, find out that the interface is not as lickable as you were led to expect, and move on. Or you can read reviews, and note the line "Not powerful enough to run Vista". But prior to release, it was all about trust, fine print, and careful research.

Vista = $2100 email machine

[Wingsy]

From ieee.org, and other places: Unfortunately, 158 pages of internal Microsoft emails by employees like Michael Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management, tends to undercut Microsoft's insistence that there was nothing misleading with Vista. Nash wrote that he "personally got burned" by buying a laptop that was labeled as Windows Vista Capable: "I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine." If their advertising can fool a VP then it surely can fool the plaintiffs. I don't think they have a leg to stand on.

Re:Vista = $2100 email machine

[jawtheshark]

Well, he could run Linux on it and it wouldn't be an email machine ;-)

Re:Don't Let This Die

[spazdor]

Is Microsoft going to defend itself by insinuating that little old ladies should have informed themselves by reading reviews of beta software, rather than by reading the label and believing what the clueless Best Buy drone told her?

I hope so. That is a court case I would watch.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[jawtheshark]

Are you going to tell me that a consumer who purchased a machine with a "Vista-ready" sticker would seriously have expected or understood that it could only run the most basic version of Vista?

In January 2007, I bought such a "Vista Capable" computer and I'm usually not the one to defend Microsoft. However, on the box of the machine there was a sticker saying "Vista Capable", but the text next to it clearly identified the fact that it wouldn't run Aero and that it will be Vista Home Basic at best. [Relevant Journal Entry]. It was very clear to me: I can read....

That said, that machine was never meant to run a Microsoft product. The preloaded version of Windows XP MCE (the journal entry says Windows XP Home, but I was wrong), lived on it for a few months and then made place to Ubuntu.

Yes, indeed, just going by the sticker was quite misleading.... Actually reading the fine print was not. But then, I am a computer Geek and did understand what the fine print said.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[ceoyoyo]

When Apple released Quartz Extreme they did not sell a machine that didn't support it. But they had sold machines in the past that didn't, and knew such machines were in use.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[Dan541]

Vista is a vast improvement over XP.

Just about all the problems with it are from people using inferior hardware. You can't run XP on a commodore64 either.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[lysergic.acid]

anyone who's been reading Slashdot since "Longhorn" started development would know that Microsoft had always intended for Vista to have different levels of UI capabilities depending on the hardware it is running on. that's not news to anyone here, and even without the fine print most Slashdotters wouldn't equate the "Vista Capable/Ready" sticker with "Aero Capable."

however, and this is a pretty big however, we're not the average consumer. unless you're a tech geek, you're not going to know these details about Vista, or know what Aero even is. just like unless you're a car-buff you're probably not going to know what kind of engine your new car has other than that it's a V4/V6/V8. should a car-buyer know the internal workings of the vehicle they are looking to purchase? i think that's debatable. but in this case it's completely besides the point.

consumers were clearly misled in this case with a combination of deceptive actions on the part of Microsoft:

• first off, the Vista advertising campaign focused entirely on the "Vista Premium" setup, which is why people don't think they're getting the "full Vista experience" with their non-Premium setups.
• secondly, the Vista advertising campaign never even mentions "Premium" or "Vista Premium" but simply presents the product shown as "Windows Vista."
• Microsoft reinforced this notion further by deliberately used a single-tier "Vista Capable" program, which used a single sticker on every Vista machine without distinguishing which ones fully-supported the heavily advertised "Vista Premium" experience.

you can't have it both ways. you either advertise your product as clearly having multiple tiers, or you deliver the full "premium" experience which includes all of the features advertised.

and, IANAL, but i don't think fine print by itself is sufficient defense against false advertisement charges. i highly doubt that there's anyone out there who's never missed a line of fine print, either in a contract they're signing, a TV commercial they watched, a magazine ad they glanced over, or (in this case "fast talking") a radio commercial. the very nature of fine print/fast talking makes it impossible, or at least impractical, for an ordinary human-being (as opposed to the radioactively-enhanced type) to catch all of the information businesses try to slip past consumers. just like it's impractical for a consumer to become an expert on every product they're looking to purchase.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[David Gerard]

"Turing-equivalent to a Vista Ready machine!"

Re:Microsoft's segmentation strategy misses.

[VGPowerlord]

The Home/Pro versions of XP have a historical reasoning, though.

XP Home replaced Windows 98/ME.
XP Professional replaced Windows NT4 Workstation/Windows 2000 Professional.

Now, you could argue that XP should have combined these into one. I agree. However, I wouldn't have though too much of it if they were kept separate versions going into Vista.

Instead, Vista subdivided each of these markets in half:
XP Home to Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium
XP Professional to Vista Business and Vista Enterprise; although Enterprise didn't come until later and is the only version not to be on the same install media as the others.

Then there's Vista Ultimate for people who are naive enough to pay more to have the features of Vista Home Premium and Vista Business plus a few (IMO) useless extras.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[bhiestand]

I'm curious about this fine print myself. I purchased a Dell Inspiron E1505 with a "Vista Capable" sticker on it. It has no such fine print and I know for a fact that it wasn't on the website when I ordered it.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[node 3]

It's even simpler than that. Just consider the fact that MS lowered their standards for "Vista Capable" at the request of Intel. This is strong evidence that there was once a choice made as to what would be a reasonable level of capability to be called "Vista Capable", and it was lowered below that level. This whole case is that "Vista Capable" is below a reasonable level. It damn near proves itself. The only real counter-argument would be if the original standard was set too high, which given how poorly Vista runs on low-end "Vista Capable" systems, that's a pretty difficult position to defend.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[fredcai]

Sure, they don't force you to buy music from iTunes, sure, but they do control the way the user generally uses it. iPods appeal the most to the non-technical crowd, who probably don't know, for example, that the Amazon mp3 store exists. iTunes is much more a store than a music player. I'm not saying its unfair, but its not like its the most open system either. It's like MS doesn't force you to use WMP or IE, its just what's most likely going to happen for the average user.

Also, if Apple REALLY wanted a DRM free store, then it would be. Amazon REALLY wanted it, and they have it, and Apple has far more pull in the digital music front than Amazon does.

By the way, neither mp3 or aac formats are open. Both require a patent license for manufacturers and developers. ogg is open, and Apple does not support it at all as far as I know (it was definitely incompatible with iTunes in the recent past).

Finally, Apple's philosophy is to make money. That is the be all and end all for companies. NEVER romanticize this. I will give Apple that they have a great skill at image control, but they are just as ruthless as Microsoft when it comes to making money, MS just got the upper hand first so Apple can play the less evil underdog.

My bias: I use Linux (usually Ubuntu) for leisure/small tasks, XP and Vista 64bit for gaming/study/real work, and OSX at my part time job as a creative person, and honestly, I like OSX the least by far. I also disapprove of the abuse of the word irony.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[jawtheshark]

It was on the cardboard box (which also had a "Vista Capable sticker"), not on the machine itself. Just for clarification. I also live in the EU, which is perhaps why they covered their asses.

Re:Don't Let This Die

[jawtheshark]

True, but if the fine print said "$XYZ won't work", the customer should be able to comprehend that when he'll put Vista on that machine, he won't get the full experience.... even if he doesn't know what $XYZ means.

I was not clear enough: the Vista Capable sticker, including the fine print was on the exterior of the cardboard box containing the computer which I could inspect as long as I wanted since I bought it in a shopping mall. What I call fine print as also quite large, like 10pt Arial or so, but on a cardboard box that looks small.

I still regret to this day that I didn't copy the fine print and/or photographed it in order to see what it was like. For me it was hilarious because to me it said "crap machine (for Vista), don't buy it".

Re:Don't Let This Die

[Toll_Free]

Nothing truer ever said.

OS Bashing is lamesauce. All operating systems have their place.

I use Vista Ultimate X64 and Vista Premium on another laptop. Both my laptops are decent machines, a gig of ram minimum, dual core processors, etc.

But, Vista works well, just as well as Ubuntu on my "public" machine, even moreso, since I don't have all the wireless issues, etc. that I do on Ubuntu (yeah, it's normal to have to find a driver, then find a hacked version of the cards firmware, or have to run FWCutter to pull ROM off my wireless card. No, really, it's totally normal....).

If your machine won't run a current OS, it's time to upgrade.... IF YOU NEED A CURRENT OS. Otherwise, for most people, XP was, and still is, just fine.

I didn't upgrade per se, I ended up purchasing two laptops within the last year for different reasons.

--Toll_Free