Microsoft is no gentleman. It is easy to show this, so below we include items from the news along with some links to previous developments that we would rather reference than repeat. These hopefully render an entire picture and shed light on ways in which Microsoft chooses to 'compete'.

In reality, harming one's competition using various means has proven to be a productive (yet subversive) tactic that demoralised and sank Microsoft's rivals over the years. It's a case of putting barriers and stifiling progress of a rival rather than making one's own progress for the betterment of one's own products. We shall start with Google.

Microsoft Versus Google

Last week we summarised how Microsoft had obstructed the Yahoo/Google deal. A week before that we showed how Microsoft had been harassing Google litigiously, by encouraging companies to sue Google.

A long time ago, on various occasions, we also showed how Microsoft and Viacom gave Google a hard time [1, 2, 3, 4]. It's a systematic behaviour. At the end of last week, Pamela Jones found this video, summarising it as "Viacom's Dauman explains the Google lawsuit & creeps me out." She explained why:

Viacom's CEO Philippe Dauman, at last year's O'Reilly Web 2.0 summit (video), explains the litigation Viacom brought against Google over YouTube and the principles he says Google will someday have to agree to, "voluntarily or involuntarily," to protect copyright -- the Viacom-spearheaded (with Microsoft on board, I notice) "copyright rules of the road". It's a bone-chilling performance, to me, because he clearly has no idea how the internet is supposed to work or the damage these old guys are planning to do to it if they can. And I say that as a person that believes in copyright protection. Not to be missed at the end is where a member of the audience asks him how he feels about Creative Commons. He seems not to know what it is, but he pretends to. He loves all creative people, he says.

On top of all this, Glyn Moody alerted that Professor Larry Lessig, the man behind Creative Commons, is now being attacked. AAP is libeling Lessig in order to keep him out of positions of influence. Although this refers mostly to copyrights and free culture, Free software lessons can be taken from it. Microsoft befriends the very same forces that battle against peer distribution of free (as in freedom) art, poetry, music, and film. We provided evidence of this in the past.

Microsoft Versus Yahoo

In more recent weeks (or months), Microsoft has played political games against Yahoo, whose lifeline was, in part, Google [1, 2, 3]. Those vicious attacks on Yahoo have actually gone on for a lot longer than this [1, 2] and they are very costly.

The press seems to be pressuring Yahoo! to surrender to Microsoft. Yes, it's happening again and it's coming from the Microsoft-friendly "Fortune Magazine" (they are the ones who initially announced Linux FUD extraordinaire back in May 2007). It is 'Slogging' Yahoo under a deceiving headline. Daniel Lyons is doing exactly the same thing in NewsWeek and Wires sees trouble ahead. This journalist-imposed pressure is actually mounting as a result of that, with a summary here.

There are good reasons to suspect that Microsoft could be responsible for some of this pressure, which comes mostly from shareholders and the press. Microsoft spoke to some of them before. Carl Icahn, joined by some of his accomplices, are still sitting inside Yahoo (the board of directors) and it's widely known that Icahn speaks to Microsoft. Some former Softies have just landed in Yahoo as well.

Microsoft Versus VMware

Microsoft's Slog against VMware was documented in the past [1, 2, 3, 4]. Microsoft has, without a doubt, crossed the lines of ethics.

At the moment, using the IDC 'puppet' [1, 2] (as usual), Microsoft is spreading misinformation. They are rightly being slammed for it, again.

VMware Inc. officials have objected to an assertion by IDC that VMware has lost some of its industry-leading market share to Microsoft Corp., claiming instead that Microsoft's new Hyper-V product has barely made a dent in sales in the short time it's been available.

[....]

DiPetrillo accused IDC of basing the 23% figure on OEMs' unit shipments, but this does not appear to be true. The IDC survey did examine OEM vendors, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., that offer servers that have already been virtualized. But that was a separate comparison, and there's no indication in IDC's report that the VMware/Microsoft market share comparison was limited to OEM sales. IDC analyst Brett Waldman explained IDC's methodology in a phone interview Wednesday, saying the analyst firm determined market share by surveying more than 2,500 virtualization users from 35 countries, examining public filings and having conversations with vendors. IDC's user survey looked at all new server virtualization licenses, regardless of whether they were sold through

Ironically enough, this article comes from IDG, which is owned by IDC. It's therefore being gentle (will a journalist criticise its sole paymaster?). This article also reached the NYT, which is known to be Microsoft-influenced.

Nonetheless, the story above is a classic example of using bogus methods to make up some bogus 'conclusions', then deceive the public and the press, making it widely believed that Microsoft is victorious and that customers see value in their products. C/f the following document about "The Slog".

it wasn't long ago that Microsoft used its other favourite 'analysts' to slam VMware. They were later forced to retract, but it was too late. The Yankee Group and the Burton Group come to mind here.

Another related example is Gartner Group [1, 2, 3], which has both Microsoft and Bill Gates as investors and customers. Here is an interview from just 2 weeks ago. Watch how Microsoft's CEO flirts with Gartner. Listen to what he says. ⬆

Direct link

“Analysts sell out - that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]