09.03.07
Posted in Boycott Novell, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Open XML, Patent Covenant, Patents at 11:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
In the midst of all the recent events, we rarely had to chance to pause and reflect. Let’s just reiterate and repeat arguments about how Novell is positioned at this moment in time — a time when crime is used to make proprietary formats ‘standard’ and Mono is put at the center of a Linux desktop, despite known conflicts. The image of Ron Hovsepian is extracted from a video interview that he had with Reuters back in May. He insisted that he had no regrets about the deal, but the interesting thing is that he paused before coming up with that answer.
Novell began its close relationship with Microsoft back in November. Since then, Novell has had to deal with debacles such as Microsoft issuing a statement to say that it would not distribute GPLv3-licensed software. This was the first major incident where we saw Novell betrayed by its new ‘partner’. Saying that Novell has itself entangled would be an understatement. Novell is, at present, not only financially dependent on Microsoft, but it also relies on Microsoft’s mercy, particularly because it takes routes that — whether we care for software patents or not — are bound to lead to customer fear. Novell has embraced OOXML, Mono, and patent deals. It has been so obedient to Microsoft, so it’s not surprising that Microsoft paid Novell over $300 million. To Microsoft, even $3 billion would be worth spending on such a deal. Once again, as we find in the “OOXML fiasco”, money changes everything.
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Posted in Boycott Novell at 10:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“No, no, and no!”
Just hours ago, Andy Updegrove maintained some optimism. It appears as though, while many nations were pressured and lobbies, not so many nations have fallen victims to bullying, bribery, deception, and extortion. Ireland, for example, said “No” (with comments), but it added a little slant to this “No”.
After months of intensive review, analysis and discussion, NSAI has voted Disapproval – with Technical Comments, in respect of the OOXML submission. This effectively is a qualified yes, whereby Ireland has some technical issues with the submission. If the Technical Comments are satisfactorily resolved and incorporated into a new draft, the vote is subsequently amended to Approval.
Korea’s position was rather similar.
Korean government concluded that OOXML is incomplete for ISO standards right now and suggested some of complements for that.
The United Kingdom and France were also not fooled by a proprietary agenda wrapped in an XML gown and backed by big bucks. This is despite the UK’s proven Microsoft solidarity.
It identified a number of technical issues in the document which need to be addressed before the UK can approve ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML as an International Standard.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Interview, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents at 9:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
An interview has just been published where Miguel de Icaza speaks to the local Microsoft press. There are various bits that are worth mentioning, but recently we have been focused on the implications of using Mono. Here is what de Icaza had to say about patents:
Some people say the drawback to Mono is the saber rattling from Microsoft about patent, and that it doesn’t support the latest versions of .NET. What is your relationship like with Microsoft these days?
[de Icaza:] So, I have two positions, and one is speaking as the person managing the Mono team, and then there is another answer speaking as a Novell vice president. So from the position of the open source community — a position not attached to Novell — we as any other software project are aware that software patents are a problem. We don’t like them. We think they’re bad for the industry, but we know that we need to abide by that system. So we have a very strict policy, that we’ll not knowingly introduce patented code into the Mono code base. If somebody raises an issue with us about a patent, or that we’re infringing on their code base, we’ll be more than happy to either do an investigation to see if there’s prior art that will invalidate a patent claim, or basically re-implement the same functionality using a different approach. Or, if worse comes to worse, removing the code from Mono. And I think that’s pretty much the same rule that every open source project has to use.
“Whether Microsoft litigates or not, Mono introduces uncertainty”The patent system is defunct and there is no question about it, but stepping on Microsoft’s toes by mimicking the very same thing which they created is simply tactless. Whether Microsoft litigates or not, Mono introduces uncertainty. It’s easy to see why Microsoft will continue to support de Icaza’s work on Mono. As long as Novell’s desktop is becoming more assimilated to Windows (in terms of the underlying framework), the more solid Microsoft’s vacant claims will seem.
In the fragment above, de Icaza confirms that he has concerns about patents. Rather than dismissing the issue (as many of us do using valid arguments like “prior art”), de Icaza replicates Microsoft’s art. A ‘carbon copy’ imitation of the .NET framework is not even an ‘artistic’ matter with subjective interpretations. The goal and intent is to copy. Why approach these territories in the first place? Languages exist that are vendor-independent.
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Posted in Europe, ISO, Microsoft, Open XML at 6:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
A quick update was recently added to indicate that not all is well in Poland. We’ve had nothing but suspicions from the start, but the protests which have just begun confirm this. This is terrible. Microsoft’s actions are now turning citizens against their authorities. By spreading their money and influence in attempts to change the outcome of the vote, trust was lost. This will be remembered as the OOXML “scandal in Poland”, as some people call it already.
Hungary, which is yet another country where irregularities were reported before, is one among several that are now taking action. According to Groklaw, Hungary was influenced and there are letters and notes to prove it. To sum it all up, Pamela says that “If you can’t do the math, I think the bottom line is, it’s looking like Microsoft won’t let the world say no to OOXML. It couldn’t ram it through the usual process, with the folks who understand the tech, even with some very odd technical committee chairperson goings on. This is the standard that couldn’t win on merit, in short.”
The latest from Andy leaves room for optimism. In his most recent update he says, “as I write this, they’re guessing 18 no votes, which would be sufficient to block an outright approval. A spreadsheet I received over the weekend from another group that has been following things closely was forecasting 16 No votes (on receipt also sufficient), and since then, one vote they expected to be a Yes turned to a No, and another to an Abstain.“
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Posted in Antitrust, Bill Gates, Corel, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites at 6:02 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Bill Gates: “With Netscape and Corel working together its nice that we organized ourselves so the group attacking Netscape and the group attacking Corel are under common leadership!”This post is a sequel to a previous and very recent one. It continues the exploration of early days when Novell owned WordPerfect and Microsoft engaged in aggressive (and probably illegal) tactics. The following exhibit brings to light Microsoft’s attack groups [PDF]. It refers to Corel and the roots in Novell.
As the E-mails clearly demonstrate, Robbie Bach is involved here as well and there is a coordinated attack on rivals, as opposed to focus on one’s own products. It’s the pattern that involves outmuscling competitors — something that Cringely spoke about a month ago. Don’t we now see it when Xen gets hijacked, Novell’s Linux plans are subverted and adoption of one unified standard is fought against by Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, who personally pressure some ‘top guns’ in the United States government.
A quick look at the E-mail shows the type of thinking involved (thanks, ‘Doug Mentohl’).
Original Message—-
From: Robert (Robbie) Bach
Sent: Friday, January 17, 1997 8:50 AM
To: Bill Gates
Subject: FW: Netscape: and Corel to Provide Integrated Software
Optimized for Network-Centric Environment
Per our discussion in the hotel room.., this press release actually says they are “jointly developing WordPerfect 8″ and integrating Communicator into that. Combine that with the Corel Java work and I think this does make Netscape a key competitor ….
Robbie
–Original Message—
From: Library News Service
—Original Message—
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Friday, January 17, 1997 12:56 PM
To: Robert (Robbie) Bach
Cc: Richard Fade; Jon E)eVaan; Brad Silverberg
Subject: RE: Netscape: and Corel to Provide Integrated Software
Optimized for Network-Centric Environment
I guess the Groupwise relationship with Novell was structured so that Corel could just ignore it since this attacks that directly. I thought Corel had committed a bunch of royalties for Groupwise and loyalty to Novell. We should have Novell analysts probe this issue.
I do wonder how the pricing between the 2 companies work since they both want to make revenue on these products. We should get Netscape and Corel analysts to probe this issue.
We do need to get our people to evaluate these JAVA products again. I look forward to seeing what the analysis comes up with.
With Netscape and Corel working together its nice that we organized ourselves so the group attacking Netscape and the group attacking Corel are under common leadership! I agree their relationship could get stronger over time with Netscape buying Corel. It would be complex but if they pulled it off it would strengthen them.
–Original Message—-
From: Robert (Robbie) Bach
Sent: Monday, January 20, 1997 4:50 PM
To: Bill Gates
Cc: Richard Fade: Jon DeVaan; Brad Silverberg; Steven Sinofsky; Michael
Hebert; Michael Graft; Brad Chase
Subject: RE: Netscape: and Corel to Provide Integrated Software
Optimized for Network-Centric Environment
You mentioned this in the MYR today…we are following up and calling analysts to get their info on the Netscape/Corel relationship. ..
MikeHeb will forward as soon as we have it. SteveSi is also looking at the latest Corel Java apps they posted.
Thanks
Robbie
From: Steven Sinofsky
Sent: Monday, January 20, 1997 5:24 PM
To: Bill Gates
Subject: FW: Netscape: and Corel to Provide Integrated Software
Optimized for Network-Centric Environment
I sent this to aaron:
it is also http://officeweb/publicl/javaaoffice
This discussion about Java is particularly interesting at these times. Under de Icaza’s technical leadership (among others’), Novell seems to have become a bit of the black sheep to Linux, just like Linspire. Mono is a smoke and mirrors decoy that is intended to give the impression that C# is cross-platform, just like Java. Mono is a weapon against Java, which the text above, as well as many other exhibits show, was one of Microsoft’s greatest fears.
Microsoft’s fear of Corel, Novell and Netscape is explored further in this long correspondence which reveals Microsoft worries [PDF]about Corel entering the Internet video phone business.
The predatory fight over the OEM channel (see this post from a couple of days ago) does not only affect Linux. Corel was affected as well [PDF].
- Original Message -
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Sunday, February 28, 1999 4:56 PM
To: Joachim Kempin
Cc: Bob Muglia (Exchange); Bill Neukom (LCA); Steven Sinofsky; Steve Ballmer
Subject: Gateway
Attorney client privileged
I an reading about the Gateway adoption of the Corel software. I am interested to understand what this means better and how it relates to any contracts we have with them.
- Original Message -
From: Joachim Kempin
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 1999 3:59 PM
To: Richard Fade
Subject: FW: Gateway
could you update us on all the details please.
- Original Message -
From: Richard Fade
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 1999 4:56 11:35 AM
To: Joachim Kempin; Bill Gates; Allen Wilcox (LCA); Steve Ballmer;
Steven Sinofsky; Bob Muglia (Exchange); Robert (Robbie); Bach; Ruthann
Lorentzen
Subject: Gateway
Attorney client privileged
We renegotiated Gateway’s application agreement in November. This included Office 2000 on the G-Pro and high end of the G-Series models. It also included renewing their Work Suite license for those G-Series products not shipped with Office SBE. At the time they were planning a new platform which would allow them to offer configurations > $1,000. Gateway prices are for full systems including a monitor. At the time they were unsure of their costs and held back committing to Works Suite on this low end product line.
So these low end systems are not covered by our existing contract. They have now divided G – Series into “Performance” and “Essential” lines, the Corel bundle is on the Essential line. They did this deal with Corel and informed us after the fact.
Gateway represented that their low end buyers ere indifferent about the WP / tools they provided. Price was their decision criteria – we have not been complacent. We believe the Corel offer for WP Suite is $2 – #$3. We had a similar situation in the past 60 days at Dell, where we were able to retain all of our current business.
We are working on recovering this business, I met with Peter Ashkin (now Gateway Sr. VP for Products) last Friday on this and other issues. We have a shot at regaining for this summer.
Prebundling and marketing to OEMs (not customers) has always been a strength. How about concentrating on good products however?
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Posted in America, Australia, Formats, Google, Office Suites, Open XML, Standard at 7:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Latest news and opinions
There is a group of encouraging articles arriving at the moment. Some of them contain interesting details which we can add to our mental notes that can also be characterised as a ‘fraud watch’.
Australia Reports
As you may already know or recall, Australia did not vote on the issue of OOXML uninterrupted. Some irregular activities were reported at various stages. Some of these activities we kept record of in this site as well (good decision in retrospect). After Australia expressed its intent to vote “Yes” on OOXML (initially reported by Groklaw, if not the mainstream press), Australia seems to have changed its mind. Whether this decision was driven by Sweden-like motivations or not (public outcry), it might be hard to tell. The good news, however, is that Australia will not support OOXML. It will abstain from voting.
The standards body, which represents Australia at the International Standards Organisation (ISO), said the decision was due to a clear lack of consensus and commitment throughout the development process.
New Zealand Calls
In Australia’s little neighbour, New Zealand, the promise was kept. A “No” (with comments) remained the response to OOXML. The article about this decision is accompanies by this little nugget of information which is not news, but it nonetheless helps validate our ambitious claims.
Microsoft has admitted encouraging partners to join the national bodies deciding whether to recommend OOXML for fast-track ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification.
Brazil Explains
Brazil’s story is similar to New Zealand’s. Its explanation for the decision is worth quoting.
Among the issues cited are lack of compatibility with the Gregorian calendar, lack of support for languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and security issues including the possibility of password breaches and vulnerability to viruses.
Another Look at the Issue at Hand
Don Parris, whose writings are usually gentle yet filled with impact, has more to say on the issue.
I want to start off by reminding everyone that Microsoft was invited from the very beginning to participate in developing the OpenDocument Format. Microsoft, claimed that it’s competitors were ganging up on it, apparently forgetting that its competitors also compete against each other. In the long road leading up to this point, Microsoft wound up deciding to promote the idea that two or more competing standards is the best way to serve the world. But they miss the goal set forth by the OpenDocument technical committee – a single standard that anyone could implement would mean everyone can share documents with far improved reliability than trying to convert between document formats.
Another new writeup, “Goodbye, cruel Word”, explains why Microsoft Word is becoming obsolete anyway. File format (or what Microsoft wishes to call a “standard”) is among the main reasons for departure from Word.
So that’s how it is now. I write within the pure, glowing universes of Scrivener and WriteRoom. I send articles to the Guardian as plain-text rather than .doc. I am confident that I will be able to open those articles and the chapters of my book again, if I want to, in 30 years’ time. And now a 1000-word review weighs 4K instead of 30K. I weep at all the innocent electrons I wastefully killed over the years, sending those massive, lumbering Word documents through the internet. I apologise for my particle profligacy. I have learned my lesson. Goodbye, cruel Word.
It is worth adding that most people, who are not professional writers, get everything they need from simple office suites such as Google Apps. About a week ago, the Burton Group released some classic Google Apps FUD. We covered this here. Disinformation is apparently being used as a weapon against disruptive trends such as Free software, open formats/standards, and Web-based software. It’s a case of “coming to grips” (adopting/embracing) versus “fighting”. Guess which side Microsoft has chosen?
Now, in 2007, the concept of software as a commodity is rapidly wearing off again. Today, it’s all about the service and maintenance – something that Microsoft isn’t prepared to deal with.
MarketWatch published an article that made some similar observations. This article covered the incident where Microsoft sent its hired lobbyists (the infamous “Men in Black”, i.e. bullies) to a diplomat’s house.
Characteristically, as lawmakers like Homan have learned, Microsoft’s hardly taking a passive position.
[...]
‘Microsoft sees what’s coming. Things like Word and Excel sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.’
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Posted in Antitrust, Corel, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML, Windows at 2:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Look at history, know your fierce rival
Remember what Microsoft did to Corel? Novell is repeating the same old mistakes by chewing that same old bait again. Accidentally enough, Novell is also leading itself into a journey of deliberate incompatibilities, technical sabotage, and other dirty tactics. Remember that Corel bought WordPerfect from Novell and years after its deal with Microsoft Corel even gave the nod to OOXML. This endorsement proved handy to Microsoft’s argument, where the Grand Cause is lock-in and monoculture. Corel lives on, however, and it even claims that Microsoft’s pattern of copying rival products is flattery to WordPerfect, whose features were copied once again.
As many as 8 of the top 10 benefits of Microsoft Office 2007 provide capabilities that have already been addressed by Corel WordPerfect Office X3. Some “new” features of Microsoft Office 2007 have even been part of Corel WordPerfect Office for close to a decade!
It is interesting to find that even today’s reporters have memory of what Microsoft did to Novell back in WordPerfect days. From last week’s news:
Even though Thompson was a veteran of the tech world, he thought he could beat the odds. In fact, just a cursory look at the history of tech deals shows that transformative acquisitions can be disastrous. For example, there was Novell’s acquisition of WordPerfect in the early 1990s. Within 18 months, Novell lost about $1.2 billion on the transaction because of the onslaught of Microsoft.
But what exactly happened there? Let’s find out what Microsoft did to WordPerfect, shall we? Here are the “switcher tactics” exhibits [PDF] (thanks to ‘Doug Mentohl’ for the text).
From: Robbie Bach
To: Hank Vigil; Jeff Raikes; Pete Higgins
Co: Mark Nickerson; Michael Herert
Subject: RE: Word market share
Date: Thursday, June 09, 1994 6:40 PM
PeteH and HankV are out. Here’s a summary of our plans to make Word win and an overview of the Office plans – pardon the format but i tried to cut this down to the main points. MikeHeb: feel free to add to the Word stuff where I missed some things – you might forward some of the docs on TimeSavings as well.
1) We are pursuing a strategy to keep WordPerfect on the defensive. In effect, this means acting like we are still the “trailer” and explicitly calling them out with aggressive switcher tactics. The $99 upgrade promo effort is the first wave of this with the second wave this summer and fall focusing on the “TimeSavings” research we have done. This is quantitative research showing that Word makes you more productive, helps you complete your work faster than WP, is preferred by WP users, etc. It includes:
* National ads (WSJ, USAToday and PC press ads pushing TimeSavings and our switcher message
* $99 upgrade promo thru August with endcaps, local ads, etc. in June and July.
* Distribution of Time Savers “proof kit” with video that shows the research and how people saved time.
* Major focus at the upcoming set of tradeshows including signage, literature, etc,
* Press release on the research and follow up press work to drive the points home.
2) As we have discussed in the past, we will push hard in Smorgs to try and capture WP DOS users and new computer users. The general Smorg efforts for the Office apps (including DwayneW’s work) includes things like raising awareness thru our Biz press advertising, targeted user stories in Smorg pubs, generating trial thru relationships with Smorg/Trade associations and Smorg service companies (like kinko’s), and Smorg tradeshow/seminar work (often done by the field). In addition, Word will focus on the legal market with ads, pr, OEM “legal PC” bundles, legal tradeshows, etc.
3) In many ways, the best way to get Word over 60% is to win with Office. If you look at the budget, we are actually forecasting Word standalone share to drop 1%. We will get the 4% point increase in Word total share (up from 51% to 55%) from the continued success of Office and the shift in the market toward office suites. Even if we only get the 78% share number for Office, this helps Word relative to WP and hits them where they are at their biggest disadvantage. If we do better than 78%, we can close the gap on 60%. Our plans for Office are summarized below.
4) In the second half of the year Word 95 (or whatever we call it) starts to become a factor. We will have PR and “advanced leak” work for this product which should ultimately help us win relative to WP. Note that they have lots of work to do to get WP and their office suite ready for Chicago and we hope to beat them to the punch. We don’t have the specifics of this worked out but “levereging the Chicago launch” is clearly part of the strategy to beat WP.
5) Steve has made the point recently that one factor in getting over 60% is to knock one of the competitors out of the category…which means Ami Pro. I actually think this is a false aspiration. I don’t believe that AmiPro is really a factor in the standalone business and for all intents and purposes is not a player there. But we will not get them out of the category because they generate sales thru SmartSuite. This means we need to continue winning with Office (#3 above) end fight for share from WP (#1,2 above).
My final point on this is one that you, PeteH, and HankV know only too welll. There are not alot of silver bullets lying around in terms of taking share from WP. We are going to win this war with some creative ideas (like TimeSavings!, some trench fighting (like the block and tackle Smorg stuff), great products, and with Office. Its frustrating to me that this doesn’t sound more “revolutionary” (something we will keep trying to achieve) but to some degree its the nature of our mission.
In terms of keeping Office above 80%, the real issue is that Lotus is making an explicit effort to move 123 buyers all the way up to SmartSuite – much more so than in the past. Since many of these users are effectively “captive Lotus” accounts, they can drive up their run rate of SmertSuite even if the user is only =nterested in 123. In addition, they will have a new version which will be a much more competitive (but still trailing) product. Here are some things we can do to prevent this from happening:
1) Win with XL: The best way to keep their SmartSuite share down is to beat 123. Our activites on this area will mirror those for Word. We will start an XL $99 promo similar to the Word one as of July 1. We will also conduct TimeSavings research to see if we can achieve the same results as Word. Excel will push the accounting vertical market in the same way that Word will push legal. Excel 95 will obviously be key going forward.
2) Disrupt the SmartSuite launch: This is a fairly tactical effort to maintain our own momentum thru their launch. This includes heavy PR messaging during the summer with several press tours, weekly editor buddy calls, press releases on Office and XL momentum, switcher message at tradeshows, etc. We’ll also push Access in this messaging pretty heavily since lots of the new stuff in SmarSuite is in Approach.
3) Increase awareness: both Office and SmartSuite have very low top of mind awareness. They will spend heavily to increase this and have already closed the gap — we are at 8% with Fringe IEUs, they are at 6%. We will focus our business press ads almost exclusively on Office (a few promotion based ads for Word/XL) to continue building our own awareness.
4) Win in the Channel: Today, Lotus probably does a better job in the channel getting merchandising space, keeping awareness high, etc. We are making progress here and want to keep that up. This inclucles increasing distribution for the Office upgrade SKUs (especially OfficePro), running a major value-add fall promotion (buy Office get other bits free), improving our POP materials and frequency of usage, etc.
5) Sell Office as s solutions platform: This is arguably the area where we have under-achieved so far. We have a clear product advantage with VBA (they will not have OLE 2 or LotusScript until 1995) and customers love the Office solutions platform message when they hear it. We have not done a good job yet of synching up our message with DDT and NT/NTAS/SQL/EMSIetc. and are working with RichT/CameronM/JohnNi’s group on that right now. Target is to have a unified message and approach to this to roll-out at the NSM/ESM. This will also help us fight Notes — where Lotus really does a good job selling the solution even if the tools, implementation, etc. are not greet.
I know I’ve left lots of Office tactics out of this summary, but this will give you a good sense for where we are focusing. I’ve attached the Desktop apps marketing plan overview (easiest to print this in PPT outline view) and some timelines which take a crack at this from a different angle. Note that we are working on cletailed drill down plans in all areas and should have that finished in the next two weeks.
File Attachment: FY95SUMM.PPT File Attachment: TIMELIN.XLS
Thanks
Robbie
From: Jeff Raikes
TO: Hank Vigil; Pate Higgins
Cc: Mark Nickerson; Robbie Bach
Subject: Word market share
Date: Thursday, June O9, 1994 9:59AM
I believe SteveB will make a big deal about us not being at > 60% market share in Word processing. I am not arguing the numbers in the forecast. But I must have a good story about what we think we can do to get above 80%. Can you help? I haven’t seen anything but analysis on standalone share; ie. no real plans tO do something about the problem, do you think that is the key to greater than 60% share? or do you
have a different strategy?
Help please. Dry run on presentation is tomorrow afternoon.
Separate question:
What do we do to keep Office above 80% share? Your numbers show it dropping to 78%, and Lotus gaining to 21%.
Thx.
The ‘smoking gun’ is here [PDF], among other places.
I have decided that we should not publish these extensions .. We can’t compete with Lotus and Wordperfect/Novell without this ..
There are various other exhibits which teach us what really happened there. To use the words of Doug, who has read many of these exhibits patiently (not exact quote), “as a unique insight into the corporate mind at Redmond, these emails are priceless. Assuming they are a statistical sample, then they spend about 1% of the time in writing code, 30% in finding bugs in other people’s code (and not telling them) and the rest in sabotaging their competitors/partners business. What’s the Smorg stuff referring to? Why did WP have lots of work to get ready for Chicago?”
The original post was sent by Robbie Bach, who has recently made some headline due to alleged fraud. Robbie Bach engaged in insider trading and he essentially stole $6 million right out of shareholders’ pockets. He was never punished. Here are some articles about this:
To quote a report on the first article that broke this news:
MarketWatch.com reports that Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, sold $6.2 million of Microsoft stock just prior to announcing that Microsoft was going to have to extend XBox 360 warranties to three years because of extensive failures. The filings note that this was not part of any scheduled diversification or selling program; this was a conscious, unscheduled sale by the guy in charge of releasing news that could affect the value of Microsoft stock.
[...]
Insider trading is a very serious violation of the law; just ask Martha Stewart, who served five months in prison for avoiding losses of $43,000 through trades that just had suspicious timing (no insider trading was actually proven). This is $6.3 million that went straight into Robbie Bach’s pocket.
Consider this proof that a certain company is virtually above the law.
The next post on this topic will explore further the relationship between Microsoft, Corel, and Novell. There is a lot to be learned from history and these court exhibits were not available for public viewing, until recently.
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