03.30.09
Microsoft Pays Professor to Write a Paper Against IBM’s GNU/Linux-Powered Mainframes
Summary: Microsoft’s probable lawsuit by proxy against IBM revisited; Is Apple too a victim?
MICROSOFT’S “academic kickbacks” are no news to us. Microsoft pays hundreds of dollars to professors who secretly promote its products (and bullies those who don't). Microsoft was doing almost exactly the same thing to throw fire at the GNU GPL version 3. The company from Redmond routinely pays academia to promote its agenda and here is the very latest example which comes from the New York Times.
In a paper commissioned by Microsoft examining the alternative mainframe technologies, Walter F. Tichy, a professor of computer science at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, concluded that, as a result of I.B.M.’s actions, “customers have been denied the benefits of technological innovation and must instead pay above-market prices for I.B.M. mainframe solutions and premium wages for a dwindling mainframe workforce.”
There is some more information in the writer’s blog.
Microsoft’s name popped up on a few occasions in my article published Monday about I.B.M.’s moves over the last couple of years to keep tight control over the mainframe computer market. As it turns out, Microsoft paid for a study about servers that can emulate mainframes, financed two mainframe emulation companies suing I.B.M on antitrust grounds and sponsored a trade group critical of I.B.M.’s decision to buy its most significant competitor in the mainframe market.
In the past, Microsoft has also enjoyed a cozy relationship with the SCO Group, which has sued I.B.M.
The legal action from T3 seemed like it had been initiated by Microsoft, too. Several publications, including the Financial Times, subscribed to this analysis as a reasonable possibility.
Vis-à-vis lawsuits by proxy, Apple has come under a barrage of lawsuits recently. Regarding this article from Ars Technica, said Pamela Jones from Groklaw: “Is there anybody out there who might want Apple’s bottom line negatively affected?” She is of course insinuating that these attacks on Apple’s successful products seem to suggest that Microsoft might be pulling strings and this would be far from the first time. █
“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”
–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO
Eric Blair said,
March 30, 2009 at 9:52 am
“in a paper commissioned by Microsoft examining the alternative mainframe technologies”
And in related news in a paper commissioned by the Michelin Guide, professor Hannibal Lecter bemoans the lack of innovation in the cuisine sector caused by the prohibition on eating people.
Seriously though, how many time have Microsoft done this exact thing, buy up rival technology and then bury it. Citrix anyone ?
‘Waters notes Microsoft in early November invested an undisclosed sum in T3 Technologies that could be the financial fuel for its latest legal salvo’
“Like T3, Microsoft believes there needs to be greater openness and choice for customers in the mainframe market. Customers want greater interoperability between the mainframe and other platforms, including systems that run Windows Server,”
http://www.crn.com/software/212901760
I thing I see what this is really about, MS wants IBM to start paying it an interoperability patent royalty, like the Novell one ..
And the dispute was over PSI using z/OS on non IBM hardware. z/OS being a proprietary IBM operating system, not about ‘interoperability.’
NotZed said,
March 31, 2009 at 4:23 am
Pamela Jones from Groklaw: “Is there anybody out there who might want Apple’s bottom line negatively affected?”
Well me for one!