08.23.09

Vista 7 Just as Bad as Vista, But Microsoft Removes Choice

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 9:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: More doubts about Vista 7, which lacks new features; consumer choice is further removed

THE previous post contended that Microsoft was renaming Vista in order to dodge its poor reputation. Here is a confirmatory item found today in Google News:

Windows 7 will be released soon, and although there is actually lots of positive buzz about their latest product (in comparison to a lot of negative buzz about Vista), there simply aren’t that many new features in 7. I maintain the suspicion that the whole Windows Mojave experiment was just a ploy by Microsoft to see if they could get away with repackaging and renaming Vista with only a few minor improvements. No more improvement than I would expect with each subsequent release of Ubuntu. The difference is that Ubuntu takes six months to put out a new release, and Microsoft takes at least two years.

We took a lot at news headlines from Google News, spanning a period of one week (16/08/09-22/08/09 inclusive). With duplicates removed we have roughly 400 headlines left. The number of headlines matching “Vista” in the past week: 0. Compare that with 13 for “Windows 7″. Nothing but ‘fluff’ there by the way. None of those articles about “Windows 7″ actually presents anything new, so it’s all about buzz and PR. As for “Vista”, it’s history; never mind the fact that only Vista is available as the version of Windows today, whereas “Windows 7″ is something marketers talk about.

“None of those articles about “Windows 7″ actually presents anything new, so it’s all about buzz and PR.”Based on our experience viewing articles, many journalists who write about “Windows 7″ never even tried it; they rely on word of mouth and coverage that Microsoft bribed for. A lot of other coverage comes from MSDN subscribers and other Windows enthusiasts whose PCs are very modern (and probably came with Vista preinstalled, which makes them compatible with Vista 7).

Based on experiences of our readers, Vista 7 suffers from hardware incompatibilities, just like its predecessor. As this new cartoon reminds us, serious Windows bugs simply refuse to die. As long as Microsoft gets to saddle each PC with Vista 7 (possible violation of the law), why even bother improving the product?

Added at the bottom are a bunch of links which show how Microsoft blocked competition on sub-notebooks. Terry Porter from Australia writes today:

I checked the shelves in the local superstore the other day, and it’s now all Microsoft Windows, no more choice, no more Netbooks with Linux.

The cheapest is now at least $100 more [note: this is Australian dollars] than the Linux units that once adorned their shelves.

Once a hive of buyer interest (when low cost Linux units were available) the area is now a buyer dead zone.

Yes, the Linux units sold just fine, the under $500 price tag did the trick.

My partner uses her unit (bought there) daily, to keep in touch with me while she is traveling. Her Acer Aspire One A110 (Linux) is unmodified except for enabling ‘advanced mode’, and uses a off the shelf broadband wireless modem, which worked perfectly from the start with ‘Mobile Manager’, standard on that model.

She paid $400 for that unit, brand new.

Windows, its all about (the removal of) choice.

According to this potentially-new revelation, Microsoft may charge $150 for Windows XP at the OEM channel. Is this possible?

I expected to have to dig around to find the comparison between two comparable systems, one with MSWindows and one with GNU/Linux. Boy was I wrong. Dell put the cost of MSWindows front-center with a button titled “Personalize with WindowsXP for an Additional $150. Good for Dell!

If Microsoft is able to remove choice, then it can charge as much as it wishes. How is this beneficial to consumers? █

More information:

• Intel-Microsoft Collusion in Sub-notebooks: A Smoking Gun
• ASUS Enters the Slog Business
• More Suspicious Moves from ASUS
• It’s Unofficial: Microsoft Pays ASUS (Kickbacks) to Block GNU/Linux. Will EU Commission Step in?
• ASUS: “Currently, We’re Closely Tied up With Microsoft”
• What is Going on with ASUS and GNU/Linux?
• ASUS Profits Fall 94% After Getting “Closely Tied Up with Microsoft” at the Expense of GNU/Linux
• Microsoft Embracing, Extending, and Extinguishing Sub-notebooks
• Does Microsoft Blackmail Sub-notebooks Vendors?
• What Microsoft’s Anti-Linux Taskforce in Wal-Mart Teaches Us About Sub-notebooks

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Microsoft Raises Prices, Dodges Old Brands

Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 8:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft adopts a suicidal approach to making a comeback

Windows Mobile is already struggling for survival as its small (single-digit) market share continues to fall. Microsoft seems determined to make this platform even less appealing by elevating the cost of Windows Mobile-compatible software. From one among many reports:

Microsoft Doesn’t Want Its App Marketplace To Be A Dollar Store

[...]

During a developer camp hosted by Microsoft yesterday at its Redmond headquarters, a mobile exec instructed developers to not be shy when it comes to pricing your applications, reports TechFlash.

Helping people in a bad economy? That’s not on Microsoft’s mind.

Microsoft to increase 360 Arcade price in UK, retailers confirm

[...]

Retailers have told Eurogamer that Microsoft will increase the price of the Arcade Xbox 360 bundle to GBP 159.99 (from GBP 129.99) starting September 1. The five XBLA games will no longer be included in the bundle, either.

With a very high failure rate and other major issues, Xbox 360 is heading the wrong way. Now comes Sony with another challenge (on top of the Wii, which has already given Microsoft a headache):

Pachter: PS3 Price Drop May Force Microsoft To Act

[...]

We think it might be the latter; video game consumers are a savvy group, as history has proven, and when a logical, rational-minded individual sets out to buy a new game console and sits down to compare the PS3 and 360, the combination of the new price, Blu-Ray, better exclusives, better reliability ratings, and free Network ought to steer them towards Sony’s machine.

Hardware and Microsoft just don’t seem to blend. Microsoft keeps renaming products like embedded Windows and Live Search, but this is not a solution, it’s wishful thinking. Brand-dodging may even be Microsoft’s strategy with Windows Mobile and it is already the strategy adopted for Vista 7 (Microsoft calls it “Windows 7″ although it is just “Vista extended”). More on that in the next post. █

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Intellectual Monopolies and Bottling up “Free Water”

Posted in IBM, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 8:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: How companies such as IBM and Microsoft take away algorithms and then ‘donate’ or ‘sell them back’ to us

NOW that an ex-IBM executive is in charge of the USPTO [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], things may get interesting. IBM needs to be pressured to drop its defense of software patents, particularly as long as other very massive multinational giants are spreading this mechanism of oppression against programmers. IBM would say, “but the shareholders! The shareholders.”

“IBM needs to be pressured to drop its defense of software patents…”IBM is not an enemy, but there is also room for improvement when subjugation occurs and marketing of IBM’s own Linux products is hinged on indemnification that only IBM can offer.

FFII’s president writes: ‘”Bilski Vs Doll” at the US Supreme Court becomes “Bilski Vs Kappos” or “Bilski Vs IBM” if you prefer.’

Scientes replies with: “Bilski trying to sue to get a business method patent issued, USPTO refused their patent, seek judicial review.”

Jose_X brought up the subject earlier today and he also wrote many things in Linux Today, including:

In case, this comment appears cryptic, I think the OIN way is superior to the Microsoft way, but the OIN way still leaves much to be desired. The IP moguls are bottling up “free water” so the rest of us have to pay for it.

GreyGeek replied as follows:

The IP moguls are bottling up “free water” so the rest of us have to pay for it.

That sums it up pretty well. It doesn’t matter that FREE software was around before Bill Gates stole BASIC out of a dumpster behind YALE’s IT bldg.

Now the “IP Moguls” are trying a new spin, which you remarked on in another post: “Patents promote innovation because they make FOSS possible”

That’s like claiming that settlers made free range possible because they put up fences. (After they stole the free range from the natives, and used their own laws to enforce the theft. Sound familiar?)

David Gerard concludes with: ‘William Patry agrees: use the phrase “intellectual monopoly”, not “intellectual property” http://is.gd/2uKKx patents are corporate welfare.’

These are also corporate warfare (against competition that rises from the bottom). Microsoft is unlikely to fight against software patents, but IBM can possibly change its ways, especially if the Free software community is able to see what IBM is up to and how easily it can improve things with its enormous influence over the USPTO. █

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IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: August 23rd, 2009

Posted in IRC Logs at 7:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Read the log

Enter the IRC channel now

To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.

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Links 23/08/2009: SLAMPP 2.0, Nokia May Enter Sub-notebooks with Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 7:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

Jack Vice, Founder of robot maker Anthrotronix, Inc. 03 (2005)

Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

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Microsoft and the Publishing Industry as Inseparable

Posted in Deception, DRM, Google, Microsoft at 8:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“DRM is the future.”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Summary: A look at new stories which illustrate Microsoft’s control of public perception using the press

Ashley Highfield, whom we previously mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], was largely responsible for the Microsoft-BBC fiasco. He was in charge and he lied a lot.

“We have 17.1 million users of bbc.co.uk in the UK and, as far as our server logs can make out, 5 per cent of those [use Macs] and around 400 to 600 are Linux users.”

–Ashley Highfield

Later came the “damage control”, which was costly. Highfield told Groklaw that his foolish Microsoft/DRM move at the BBC should not be part of the future, but in this new article from The Guardian — now that he left the BBC and joined Microsoft — Highfield spreads propaganda terms like “piracy” and also deals a low blow to Google, which is his competitor that Microsoft could not compete with [1, 2].

Highfield announced he was leaving the BBC in April last year to join the ill-fated Project Kangaroo. Less than two months later it emerged that the BBC’s annual digital budget managed by his division, future media and technology, had suffered a £35.8m blowout in the year to the end of March 2008. This represented a 48% increase on the original budget set at £74.2m. Officially, most of this extra £36m was judged to be a “misallocation of general overheads and costs from other budgets”, with just £3.5m considered to be actual overspend. However, the BBC Trust lambasted the corporation’s executives for “poor financial accountability” and a lack of management control.

[...]

For Highfield, pushing TV companies to embrace the lessons of the internet is pointless without protecting their content to allow monetisation. “Most popular YouTube content is based on TV programming in bite-sized portions,” he says. “Most broadcasters and producers are not getting revenue from that content.

Why is The Guardian letting Microsoft grab the microphone like this? Microsoft’s press/channel control (gaining influence/ownership of more news Web sites as of late [1, 2, 3]) is a truly troublesome trend. Here is Microsoft using an NDA embargo only to see it backfiring. The UK-based Inquirer reports and then corrects as follows (only yesterday):

Play.com breaks Microsoft’s NDA embargo

[...]

Update: It now appears Microsoft was at fault for getting Play.com in trouble. Vole central dispatched the advert to the online retailer without telling them to keep schtum until September 9th, according to a Play.com spokesperson.

So, the press falsely accuses Play.com because of Microsoft’s very own incompetence — failing to police coverage properly. We’ve already seen how Microsoft polices coverage at The Inquirer too. █

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Gartner Group Shows Its True Colours — Censors Reporters

Posted in GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft at 7:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The Gartner Group has no shame when controlling people’s speech by intimidation

THE GARTNER Group is boycotted by us for reasons that we wrote about in:

• Gartner et al Fixing the Price for the Entire Industry?
• How Jim Allchin, Gartner and Enderle Lied to the Whole World
• IDC, Gartner and Yankee Group’s Latest Press Attack on Customer’s Competitors
• Analyst Firms, Including IDC and Gartner, Named and Shamed for Serving as Microsoft Mouthpieces
• Another Hopeful ‘Prophecy’ From the Gartner Group(‘s Paying Clients)
• Microsoft ‘Bribes’ Mac Bloggers to Slam Apple, Gartner Hosts Google FUD

There are some more recent examples where Gartner attacks GNU/Linux for Microsoft's sake and we have antitrust exhibits to show this, e.g. [1, 2, 3].

“David Smith commented that Gartner will not bash MS if MS chooses to slip Vista.”

–Jamin Spilzer, Microsoft

Thanks to a writer who was bold enough to talk about this publicly, we finally can learn just how Gartner is guarding its image/identity — by censorship.

When censorship goes too far, we cannot say Gar-ner anymore

[...]

So all of the information I posted and used was sent to me by vendors to make sure I knew the news. But Gar-ner does not see it that way; I still have no idea why. But what I did was to delete all blogs that have this company name in it. By deleting them I am telling them that they mean nothing to me anymore, I will no longer use their name or even care about the square they use. I know some vendors called me on Friday and Saturday to talk to me about the deleted post.

[...]

To be clear to all of my readers, we will not use, publish or mention the Gar-ner name or any reports in the future. We will come up with our own when it comes to networking, voices, video and other areas. I am sure we can do a better job any way.

TechDirt has an article about this too.

Gartner Tells Reporter: You’re Not Allowed To Mention Gartner Research Without Our Permission

Rich Kulawiec alerts us to the news that Gartner (which absolutely should know better) sent a legal nastygram to a Network World blogger, Larry Chaffin, for the mortal sin of mentioning Gartner without Gartner’s permission.

[...]

Chaffin actually did take down the posts after being threatened, claiming that in doing so he’s showing how meaningless Gartner is. He also promises never to post about any Gartner reports ever again in the future — but did talk up Gartner’s ridiculous policies and demands (amusingly referring to the company as Gar-ner).

Beyond just being of questionable legality, Gartner’s actions also seem incredibly short-sighted (especially for a firm that’s supposed to be known for being forward looking). Everyone knows the real value in a Gartner report is not in any actual analysis, but in the PR it might generate for companies that find their way into the infamous (and silly) “magic quadrant.” By forcing reporters not to talk about who’s in that magic quadrant, Gartner has just made its reports significantly less valuable. Now that’s foresight.

We wrote about the magic quadrant in [1, 2, 3]. It is almost as though Gartner is ‘selling’ recommendation to companies, but then again, that’s how their business works. █

“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]

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Microsoft Crowd Incites People Against Rival Web Browsers

Posted in Antitrust, Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 7:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The Microsoft-backed mob wants Firefox dead

AS we showed many times before, the Microsoft ecosystem is very much like a cult that acts against anything which is not Microsoft, driven by faith rather than understanding of fairness and civility. There is also a good deal of gifting (distribution of wealth within this “cult”).

In the news this week we found this report from IDG News Service. It suggests that Microsoft managed to sneak out of regulatory action virtually unpunished, as usual.

If Microsoft can’t strike a deal with European Union antitrust regulators over Internet Explorer before Windows 7′s scheduled Oct. 22 launch, the company will likely ship the browser with the new OS anyway, an analyst said today.

So basically, nothing substantial was achieved by Opera’s action. Mozilla has rightly complained about this and here is the original explanation.

In the material below we’ve tried to articulate in detail those key aspects of the proposal that need modification (Protecting User Choices and the Ballot Mechanism). Our assumption is that the EC and Microsoft may be close to a resolution; thus, the ability to radically change the proposal may be constrained as a practical matter, but I’d welcome feedback on other essential terms or clarifications that may be missing.

Needless to say, the Microsoft crowd will deform and spin this against Microsoft’s competitors.

It was not long ago that the Microsoft faithful Paul Thurrott wrote: “I’d recommend a boycott of Opera if I thought anyone was actually USING the damned thing…”

Around that very same time, Microsoft partners were boycotting Opera and urging others to do the same. It’s like some kind of economic sanction which totally neglects the crimes Microsoft has committed (with convictions) for Internet Explorer to illegally gain market share.

Here is how Opera put it, as quoted by Alibaba.com:

“Microsoft has been doing something illegal for a very, very long time,” says Jon von Tetzchner. A lot of people outside of Redmond, Wash. would probably agree. But in this case, the 41-year-old chief executive and cofounder of Opera Software, is griping about something we’ve all heard about for a decade: Microsoft’s bullying attempts to own the Web browser market by bundling its own version into Windows. Von Tetzchner half got what he wanted on Thursday, when Microsoft announced it would release Windows 7 in Europe without Internet Explorer, to counter European Union charges made in January on bundling the browser.

“Microsoft shill or fanboi, Andrew Thomas, calls for the death of Mozilla Corporation,” we learn from an alerts. Who is Andrew Thomas? Going back to Monday (August 17^th), we find him writing in TG Daily that “Microsoft uses TG Daily writers to improve Office 2010.”

Software behemoth Microsoft has roped in TG Daily writers as unpaid consultants to improve spell and grammar checking in the upcoming release of Office.

It’s revealing, isn’t it? It shows how close Thomas has come to Microsoft. It is not news to us that TG Daily delivers a lot of Microsoft propaganda. Rob Enderle [1, 2] is one of their writers and Microsoft is a major sponsor (advertiser at the very least). The tag cloud speaks for itself. And it seems like like Andrew Thomas is just another Enderle being groomed by Microsoft.

Watch what he writes about Mozilla:

How much longer are we expected to put up with these whining scumbags who patently cannot compete on a levelplaying field…

[...]

Any company that uses lawyers rather than technical excellence to make a dollar deserves to die.

“Whining scumbags,” eh? Mozilla as the bad guy.

“Actually,” tells us a reader, “the court is pointing out that the playing field is far from level. “MSFT scumbags” have been whining for years to prevent having to compete on even terms. It’s entertaining, to be sure, to read the incoherent rantings of MSFT fanbois, but maybe Punch or the National Lampoon would be a more appropriate forum for Thomas than the TG Daily.

“Look for more Microsoft revisionist history to come in the near future. Thomas hits on many points: EU requiring *unbundling* of MSIE, illegal tying of products, illegal abuse of monopoly positions (going back to the old illegal per-processor days), inability of MS products to compete on technical merits (.NET is so slow and unstable that benchmarking is banned), and so on.

“Thomas is confusing ‘common’ or ‘unavoidable’ with ‘popular’

“Elvis is popular. Digestive gas is common. Butterflies are popular. Cockroaches are common.

“It seems that the whining is due to the declining use of MSIE in favor of both Firefox and Chrome.

“Microsoft business model seems to be more about thrashing about and causing disturbances. Members at Groklaw have pointed out that Microsoft is the new SCO. Rather than let that drag on and drag down the economy further, it is time to consider the RICO Act. This one time we can benefit from vendor lock-in: at Club Fed.”

Another problem posed by Microsoft’s monoculture is insecure software which makes the Internet far from acceptable. Quoting examples from the news this week (this is an Internet Explorer issue):

i. Using IE with Hotmail’s photo uploads led to security flaw (Updated)

The Windows Live Hotmail team has indicated that it has disabled adding photos directly into the body of an e-mail due to a security flaw that occurs when using Internet Explorer.

ii. Hotmail pulls Attach-Photo feature over security concerns

Microsoft has suspended the “Attach-Photo” feature in Hotmail as a result of security concerns.

iii. “Microsoft Hotmail users angry over pulled photo feature

Windows Live Hotmail users have been venting their frustration at Microsoft Corp. for the past month since the software maker suddenly removed a popular feature because it created a security hole.

To make matters worse, Microsoft refuses to eliminate a Web browser which is not only standards-hostile (by design) but it also insecure by design.

Good news for fans of Internet Explorer 6, the version of Microsoft’s online browser that debuted in 2001. Even though the company is now up to its eighth version of the browser, it will continue to support IE6 until at least 2014.

[...]

And many developers don’t want to bother making their products conform to IE6. Mark Trammell of the Digg content rating site, blogged, “Here at Digg, like most sites, the designers, developers, and QA engineers spend a lot of time making sure the site works in IE6, an 8-year-old browser superseded by two full releases.”

With rusty software like Internet Explorer 6 out there, one ought to expect more scandals like the following:

i. Lawsuit seeks to pry information from banks on account breaches

The 11-page complaint alleged that cyber-thieves are stealing millions of dollars from U.S. bank accounts every month via virus infected e-mail spam.

ii. Hackers Stole IDs for Attacks

In addition to refashioning common Microsoft Corp. software into a cyber-weapon, hackers collaborated on popular U.S.-based social-networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook Inc., to coordinate attacks on Georgian sites, the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit found. While the cyberattacks on Georgia were examined shortly after the events last year, these U.S. connections weren’t previously known.

In the face of calls for a ban on Windows, Microsoft loves to pretend that these issues are not its fault, but as Microsoft spreads old and holey software by choice, this defense ought to be challenged severely. █

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