04.08.08
OOXML Aftermath: Microsoft Rewrites History in the Press
Whatever happened to “never again” and “lest we forget”?
Once an offender, always an offender. The worst one can do is pardon the first time only to see the same crimes repeated. Herein, we shall deal first with Intel and then with Microsoft.
Intel Against AMD, Against OLPC
“Intel is being investigated in several different continents for a very good reason, but whatever the outcome, that won’t save AMD (not heavy fines anyway).”The big headlines yesterday included the massive layoffs at AMD, which had suffered from Intel’s well-documented kickbacks around the whole world. Intel is being investigated in several different continents for a very good reason, but whatever the outcome, that won’t save AMD (not heavy fines anyway).
Another very ugly recent sight was Intel’s damage control in the face of allegations against its sabotage of OLPC, a charitable organisation whose hardware incorporates AMD chipsets. Recent updates on this you will find included in [1, 2] and just before Microsoft hijacks and exploits the project to its own benefit (some time in April) you might wish to view this item from the new BBC interview with Intel’s CEO. It says:
Intel’s Classmate has won contracts in Nigeria, where the OLPC XO computer has struggled to make progress after initial hopes.
What the article does not bother to tell you is the fact that Intel dumped hardware (as in sold at a loss) to crush a non-profit, with which it had signed a convenient (self-serving) non-disparagement agreement. Also from an older article from the BBC you’ll find damning proof of this:
The renovation has been paid for by the government and Intel, with the chip firm covering the majority of the costs of the [Classmate] technology.
Intel might call this “charity”, but it’s nothing but a move that suffocates a real charity, which in turns enables Intel to elevate its prices (the cost of having no competition, a monopoly). If you carefully look at the first article again you’ll find that Intel’s CEO expects to collect considerable revenues from these poor countries — revenues large enough to make up for the US recession. That’s the spirit, isn’t it? At least for the shareholder, who could not care less about children in poor nations of the world.
Intel, just like Microsoft, has tremendous impact on the mainstream press, which it can get to tell its own version of the story to an oblivious readership that takes reports for granted, unchallenged. Essentially, they define truth, turning spin and subjectiveness into the illusion of objectivity. OLPC never got its voice heard properly; instead, it was portrayed as a whiner, despite the heaps of evidence to back the contrary.
Microsoft Against ODF, Against World Wide Web
This brings us to Microsoft again, for it is similar to Intel in many ways, not just immensely close to it. Just consider the following recent quote when reading the above bits about Intel’s dumping techniques.
“They [Microsoft] have the deepest of pockets, unlimited ambition, and they are willing to lose money for years and years just to make sure that you don’t make any money, either.”
In many press outlets Microsoft is already denying all guilt of OOXML misconduct. This includes even a pro-Free software Web site called Tectonic. Elsewhere on the Web, Microsoft is trying to rewrite history, as though nothing at all was amiss and all complaints are just whining.
They have got some nerve on them. Their hundreds of known irregularities and even corruptions are well documented and are here to stay and rebut denials, such as the recent one from Microsoft’s Tom Robertson. They think that time and disinformation can heal the wounds and make a misconduct forgotten. It’s truly disgraceful and appalling. Backed by various types of boosters in forums, there is rarely an opportunity to make the truth heard without being personally attacked.
The Sydney Morning Herald at least made a mention of the aspect most media bothers not to report on.
The move comes amid recriminations and cries of foul play. The ISOs objectivity has been questioned amid allegations of vote-rigging, bullying and downright cheating. There is no doubt there have been some irregularities, and on the evidence it is hard to deny that at least some votes have been compromised
The Financial Times was among those that mentioned this crucial part of the story as well. It was only yesterday.
With regard to future action and the need to repair ISO (or dump ECMA for good), see this new comment which is bound to the storming analysis that we highlighted this morning.
Note that Microsoft has already been pulling this one regarding ECMAscript 4, aka JavaScript 2. Everyone else wants JS2 standardised, but Microsoft want to keep it primitive to avoid competition with Silverlight.
We wrote about ECMAJavascript before. Microsoft has plans. Nothing has changed and unless people stand up and demand change, the abuse will continue. █
Victor Soliz said,
April 8, 2008 at 5:59 pm
This is where Novell comes.
If anyone didn’t have issues with Novell pushing OOXML, should probably begin to:
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7561
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7562
So, I guess the next twist is for MS lobbyists say that there are multiple OOXML implementations in different platforms (thanks Novell) So, we might dump the world into OOXML . Let’s all care about platforms, and forget about the MS-tax requirement…