Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Sued Over Vista-To-XP Downgrade Fees
Krojack writes with this excerpt from Computerworld:
"Los Angeles resident Emma Alvarado charged Microsoft with multiple violations of Washington state's unfair business practices and consumer protection laws over its policy of barring computer makers from continuing to offer XP on new PCs after Vista's early-2007 launch. Alvarado is seeking compensatory damages and wants the case declared a class-action suit. ... Irked at having to pay a fee for downgrading a new Lenovo notebook to XP, Alvarado said that Microsoft had used its position as the dominant operating system maker to 'require consumers to purchase computers pre-installed with the Vista operating system and to pay additional sums to "downgrade" to the Windows XP operating system.'"
She had paid the "Microsoft tax" already, on the purchase of the PC.
Why should she have to pay another "Tax" to [downgrade to] something that works???
A pox on Microsoft...
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
The suit has been canceled after Emma Alvarado was abducted by a mysterious, well-organized, group of mosquitoes. When asked for a comment on the strange occurrence, Bill Gates is said to have laughed awkwardly while pressing his fingertips together. More on this as it develops.
I often hear people bitching about Microsoft's operating systems and the problems with doing business with Microsoft and its Partners. Why don't people just get a computer with a non-Microsoft operating system. Linux, Apple, Plan 9, BSD; there are plenty to choose from.
There's a big question about whether the courts can punish a manufacturer for what businesses in the retail chain sell.
I'd like to see MS taken down several notches, but unless there's some smoking gun, I would expect it.
Put identity in the browser.
If Microsoft were letting OEMs sell either version of Windows for vaguely similar prices, it'd be okay. The issue is that they're effectively giving away Vista, while charging for XP. Now companies often can give things away as loss leaders, but monopolists are more constrained in whether they can undertake that sort of activity.
This case is somewhat unusual because most of the lawsuits regarding dumping are e.g. giving away IE to kill Netscape, not giving away one of your products to try to kill one of your own other products. But it's possible that Washington state business law (vs. federal anti-trust law) has something that reaches that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Microsoft isn't charging extra. The OEM's are charging extra for Windows XP Downgrade which Microsoft allows users and OEM's to install FOR FREE. OEM's have migrated to Vista and don't want to maintain deployment sets, support documentation and drivers for both operating systems so they're charging this extra XP tariff.
As a small OEM, I give my clients the option to go with either Windows XP or Windows Vista, as we sell relatively similar base models so it's easy for us to maintain concurrent deployment sets for both operating systems. This extra charge isn't Microsoft's fault.
The issue is that in order to buy XP, people were forced to buy Vista as well. That practice is called Tied Selling and it is illegal in many states.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If they'd simply pulled the plug on XP totally, and said, "that's it, we aren't going to sell XP any more, because it's old and we don't want to be lumbered with the after-sales support forever", then that might be a legitimate manufacturer's decision.
But they didn't do that, because they didn't want to lose the netbook market. So they said that netbook manufacturers could continue to buy, install, and sell-on XP, but laptop manufacturers couldn't. When you say to a company, "We have a product, we're selling it to other people, but we refuse to sell it to you to work with your products, because we now want you to buy a different product from us", then that starts to get dodgy.
It's a bit like if a car-seat manufacturer has two ranges of car seats, their older smaller range and their new wider deluxe range. They want manufacturers to build the wider seats into all new luxury cars that can take them, but if they discontinue the older range, they'll lose the section of the market that supplies cars where the newer seats don't physically fit. So they continue to sell both ranges, but tell manufacturers that they are "banned" from selling the older seats fitted to the larger cars, even if those same cars have been sold fitted with those same seats in the past. That level of interference is getting into "illegal restraint of trade" territory.
The question is, how much control should a dominant component manufacturer have over how their products are used? Should they be allowed to micromanage what people do with their products with these sorts of restrictions and conditions? If a product has already been certified for XP, should they be allowed to then tell a manufacturer that they can still buy copies of XP, but they're are no longer allowed to preinstall them on those particular machines because new MS policy is that those particular customers should be buying something else? Even if this upsets both the suppliers and the customers?
Now to me, it sounds like MS are probably legally in the wrong here (as they have been so many times before when it comes to OEM contracts). And they probably know that they're in the wrong, but figure that the stakes here are so high that they'd rather break the law and worry about the consequences later ... after all, none of their suppliers are going to want to sue them for fear of unofficial retaliation.
So this customer has decided, look, this is complete s**t - I should be able to buy the current software that I want on the machine that I want, without my supplier saying that they aren't allowed to do that because of some arbitrary rule imposed illegally on them by MS. So she figures, (a) it's unlawful and unfair, (b) someone should do something about it, (c) the laptop manufacturers won't, (d) she has the receipts that prove that this illegal behaviour by MS has cost her money, and (e) if it's illegal, and she's provably been damaged by it, then she's in a position to take a stand and sue, and maybe have the court ruling force MS to stop breaking the law (as she sees it).
Eric Baird
You guys are all smoking crack with these bad car analogies.
It's like Ford is Baby Jesus, Chrysler is 3 rabbis, and AMC is a scorpion.
So baby Jesus is born. The 3 rabbis are standing around, praising the event. This scorpion comes walking up...but the first rabbi throws his shoe at it. The scorpion takes off. About an hour later, the scorpion comes back. The scorpion almost makes it to baby Jesus, but the second rabbi throws a shoe at it. The scorption takes off. About an hour later, the scorpion comes back again! This time, the 3rd rabbi walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender says, "that's cool, where'd you get that?" The parrot flies out of the freezer and replies, "may i ask what the turkey did?"
That's how I read it anyway.
THL phish sticks
It IS your right to choose. And when Lenovo tells you that they're selling a machine with Vista on it, and you choose to buy it, you're making your decision. I know it may sound crazy, but if you don't want a PC with Vista, you shouldn't buy a PC with Vista.
I'd be a bit more sympathetic if they didn't tell her it came with Vista, but that doesn't seem very likely. All of the machines on lenovo.com make it very clear which operating system they have installed. And when you buy a machine in a store, there's almost always a sticker on the box listing the OS, amount of memory, hard drive storage, etc.. She knew what they were selling, and she chose to buy it.
Maybe not
You should frequent people outside of IT a bit more...
I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that it would cost Dell more to offer a "blank hard drive" option, since with that option Dell would actually have to spend less time on those machines (not having to install an OEM copy of Windows).
Not hard-pressed at all. Without an operating system, they can't install all of the crapware. And if they can't install the crapware, they don't get kick-backs from the crapware companies for putting the advertising on all the computers they sell.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
ROFLMAO.
Mac Pro: comes standard with 2 x 1GB sticks of memory - 800MHz, DDR2, ECC. Let's try 2 extra 1GB sticks of memory. Apple price? $500. NewEgg price for 2 x 1GB sticks of Kingston 800MHz DDR ECC memory? $67. So only 650% markup there, after all, Apple's gotta make money somehow, right? What with them being competitive on hardware pricing and all, like you say. 16GB, 4x4 GB. Apple price? $4,300! Sorry, I'm still crying with laughter at your claim about comparable pricing. NewEgg? $604. Still, it's better, only 610% markup. Let's not even look at the 32GB option, Apple only wants the price of a new car for that...
Oh, but "everyone" knows, you don't buy memory from Apple, right? How about hard drives?
1TB SATA 7200rpm hard drive. The Apple price? A steal, at only $450. Aww crap, there I was thinking I could get one from NewEgg for under $100! Oh, wait, $99 IS under $100! Score!
Let's try a video card. ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. Wow, Apple's almost competitive there, $130, versus $55. First we've seen with under 200% markup!
Maybe I'm not being fair, the Mac Pro is a "workstation" class machine, after all. Let's try the MBP.
Let's jump from 4GB to 8GB. Tossing aside 2 2GB modules for 2 4's. Apple: $1,200. Confusing, as they're only $360, even without the subsidized cost from the 2 x 2 you were going to get anyway. Let's be charitable, and call it $250.
Hard drives, 256GB solid state drive, same story, $750, though same drive at NewEgg is $540, and you're not subsidizing with a 320GB drive already, which realistic vendors only want $70 for.
So to cut a long story short, tell me again how Apple isn't overpriced.