11.23.09
Posted in Antitrust, Europe, Java, Microsoft, OpenOffice, Oracle, Patents, SUN at 7:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: SAP/Microsoft lobbying against Oracle and Sun leads this former (proprietary) pair to an alliance which the European Commission ought to scrutinise
Microsoft and SAP were almost made a single company, but regardless of the outcome they conspire and lobby together for software patents in Europe [1, 2] and more recently we witnessed Microsoft’s and SAP’s joint lobbying attack on Oracle and Sun [1, 2, 3]. Victims include Java and OpenOffice.org.
According to this report, SAP is now acknowledging its role in blocking the acquisition of Sun.
SAP acknowledged in its statement that it has raised concerns about Oracle’s $5.6 billion bid to buy Sun “with the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission as well as a number of other antitrust authorities throughout the world, and will continue to cooperate with these agencies in an open and transparent manner.”
Watch what happens less than a week later. “Microsoft and SAP: Oracle in the Crosshairs,” says the ‘Microsoft press’ and another source says that “SAP, Microsoft Gang Up on Oracle” (or “Microsoft and SAP Again Team Up Against Oracle”). “Microsoft And SAP Look To Take On Oracle By Joining Forces,” puts it another source, with others that say “SAP, Microsoft align against Oracle in business software market” or “Mutual Need Drives SAP-Microsoft Alliance”. This is what anti-Trust laws were established to prevent. These two were going to merge (takeover), but instead they work as a pair. How is this beneficial to the market?
If the European Croniession is looking for anti-competitive behaviour that harms the market, SAP and Microsoft too are worth looking at, not Oracle/Sun. Some of Microsoft’s latest alliances are just meant to obstruct competition and SAP is one the accomplices. This helps absolutely nobody but SAP and Microsoft [1, 2]. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Windows at 6:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: NComputing makes it official with Microsoft after adding Will Poole to its management; NeXplore makes similar mistake
NComputing was spreading GNU/Linux around the world, including some very large deployments. It was then that we noticed that a Microsoft executive had entered the company and it was only a matter of time before NComputing lost its direction. In chronological order, we wrote about the subject in:
- Hiring Corporate Poison
- Is Microsoft ‘Hijacking’ NComputing in Order to Tap Children?
- William Poole of NComputing (Formerly Microsoft) Blamed in the Big Collusion
- Moles Watch: Will Poole, Sprint Nextel, Wipro, Slate
- EDGI Executive from Microsoft and His Conflicts of Interests
Microsoft may have identified the risk of NComputing, which in turn hired an anti-GNU/Linux executive (EDGI) who went over there. Just as a reminder, Microsoft's Will Poole participated in sabotaging OLPC because just like NComputing it was not helpful to the Windows monoculture. Doing this is not illegal, but it’s akin to a totalitarian regime looking to change/overthrow anything or anyone with a dissenting opinion.
Over in the news, the inevitable has happened: “NComputing announces new Microsoft partnership”
According to the press release,
Initially, the collaboration with Microsoft is aimed at helping educational institutions take full advantage of multiuser computing on the Windows Server platform. NComputing and Microsoft share a commitment to advance multiuser or shared resource computing to make it easier for teachers and students in libraries, labs and classrooms to gain access to a genuine Windows experience at a lower total cost of ownership.
[...]
NComputing also supports OpenSUSE Linux, but for institutions looking to grow their Microsoft infrastructures in very cost-effective ways, this partnership should spell improved functionality and speed, as well as a real alternative to vanilla Terminal Services or TS-based Citrix solutions.
To what extent did the appointment of Will Poole lead to this? He was one of the people in charge of Windows before being relocated to Microsoft “anti-GNU/Linux” units — those that dump software to battle market diversity.
Another company that’s at risk now is NeXplore. From Marketwire: “Former Microsoft Executives Nehru and Imam Join NeXplore”
NeXplore Corporation (PINKSHEETS: NXPC) today announced the addition of two former Microsoft executives to the company’s strategic development team and board of advisors. Amar Nehru, former general manager, emerging markets group for Microsoft Corporation, and Hani Imam, former general manager, finance operations for Microsoft Corporation, will provide strategic guidance to NeXplore’s senior executive team in support of the company’s aggressive business and revenue growth goals.
As several readers independently tell us, Microsoft is more of a “religion” than a company. That is why we keep track of its employees as they pass their sermons to other, “non-believer” (in Microsoft products) companies. It is worth adding that Mono too has its share of former Microsoft people. The project is very beneficial to their former employer. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 6:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another look at Microsoft’s abuse of the law and its relationship to Office 2010, which will not support OOXML
YESTERDAY we wrote about Microsoft's abuse in France paying off. Groklaw has highlighted this corresponding page which is suitably titled “François Fillon’s gift to Microsoft” and it states:
The decree validating the General Interoperability Framework was published in the French “Journal Officiel” on the 11th of November 2009. It ratifies the 12th of May 2009 version which spreads confusion by recommending two rival standards for office documents. April had already denounced a writing opposed to the goals of interoperability and accessibility of e-administration for all citizens.
“RGI as it is written maintains the confusion about office documents standards. It hands public administrations over to Microsoft’s deceptions and dooms their data to be kept locked in proprietary formats” explained public affairs manager Alix Cazenave. “Far from promoting interoperability this duplicity will generate discrimination between citizens for the access to electronic administrations.”
In April’s opinion, this record confirms that the French executive authority hardly pays attention to competition in the software market. “After the intervention of the President’s people in favor of Microsoft’s OOXML standardization, the fact that the Prime Minister ratifies this order confirms the support of the French executive authority to Microsoft’s dominant position. We have just missed a historical opportunity to support openness and innovation in the software market” denounced Frédéric Couchet, executive director.
To the above, adds Groklaw (no permanent link): “The silliness of this decision can be gleaned from footnote 4, which reads in part: “The current document recommends the use of either Open Document format or OOXML format. DGME, French Directorate-General for State Modernisation, however admits that ‘no implementation of this standard currently exists’.”
“So you can use either ODF or OOXML, except actually you can’t use OOXML currently, and in fact nobody in the world is, but they chose it anyway as an interoperability standard.”
–Groklaw“It’s quoting from the RGI document, which you can verify by reading it — it’s a pdf and in French — and then look at page 61. Sean Daly translates paragraph five for us: “Office Open XML is an XML-based office productivity format. It natively supports a subset of existing binary formats. As of this writing, no implementation of this standard exists.” And the last paragraph on that page: “This sheet is based upon information available as of May 2009 and will be revised before the official publication of the reference document [RGI] if new information pertinent to the evaluation appears.” So you can use either ODF or OOXML, except actually you can’t use OOXML currently, and in fact nobody in the world is, but they chose it anyway as an interoperability standard. Silly or what?”
Well, anyway, Microsoft was accused of lying last week when asked about OOXML support in Office 2010. Based on this early review of Office 2010, Microsoft is ‘pulling another Ribbon’ and giving more people reason to despise Office 2010.
The fun doesn’t end with Outlook. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all infected with what I’ve dubbed the Back Stage Virus. I’m referring, of course, to the new Back Stage view that pops up whenever you click the File tab in any of these applications. Instead of the drop-down menu that appears on all previous ribbonized applications (including the Windows 7 Paint and WordPad accessories), Office 2010 presents you with a dedicated, full-window pane containing a schizophrenic array of buttons, button menus, and hyperlink-like text labels.
This can also be found here: “Microsoft Office 2010: So Many Reasons to Hate It”
Office 2010 is clunky — that’s the first word that comes to mind as I meander around the recently leaked official beta release (build 14.0.4514.1007, for those keeping score). The default color scheme is a ghastly gradient gray blur, while the new Outlook Scenic Ribbon toolbar is a disorganized mess.
VentureBeat argues that Microsoft “misses the boat” when it comes to web applications and the Gerson Lehrman Group has a typo in its report’s headline/title, which says: “Microsoft Protects its Flanks to Save It’s Ass”
Summary
* Microsoft is making a defensive alliance to complete its stack
* Fortunes will be made and lost developing cloud offerings
* Despite the hype Cloud Computing is a real long term trend
As we will show later today, Microsoft is now conspiring with companies to attack its ODF-supporting competitors in a gangster-like fashion. That’s the only thing Microsoft has left as bullies will be bullies. █
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Posted in Asia, Finance, Microsoft, Windows at 5:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.”
–Bill Gates
Summary: Microsoft is again pretending that it does not tolerate the very same practice it thrived in; Pequot-Microsoft story returns
Microsoft recently signed some deals [1, 2] in the UAE, which it had been exploiting for a long while [1, 2]. Dumping is a form of abuse, too.
These deals are not enough for Microsoft, which breaks down in (crocodile) tears and attacks partners, as usual.
Complaints filed by Microsoft Gulf led to raids on resellers in the UAE and the confiscation of pirated software, the company said.
During the last month, five anti-piracy raids took place in Dubai and Sharjah and resulted in the confiscating of software CDs and personal computers and laptops loaded with pirated copies of Microsoft software.
A few days ago we explained why Microsoft is being extremely dishonest here. Speaking of dishonesty, the Pequot scandal is back in the news and it involves Microsoft. From Bloomberg:
The ex-Pequot Capital Management Inc. employee now at the center of a U.S. insider-trading probe told his therapist that the hedge-fund firm fired him in 2001 after he stopped delivering secret information on Microsoft Corp., the psychologist said in a deposition.
We also wrote about this in [1, 2]. █
“If they’re going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else”
–Jeff Raikes, former Microsoft Business Group president
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11.22.09
Posted in Deception, Finance, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Marketing, Microsoft, Search at 11:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Conflict of interests found inside Nielsen, which is yet another company that promises to deliver objective assessments
Microsoft loves contracting the very same firms that compare Microsoft to other companies. We previously named Netcraft as an example [1, 2, 3] and also comScore as a more relevant example, which we wrote about in:
We mentioned comScore and Nielsen in the following post, which continues to speak about how Microsoft uses partners or even its former employees to assist with lies (selective, incomplete analyses) about competitors like Google. This seems like a standard procedure as we will show in just a moment. Net Applications, for example, has former Microsoft staff and Microsoft is also their paying customer [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], so their belittling of GNU/Linux is unsurprising. Conflict of interests? Of course. Money on the table? That’s a fact.
“As long as money flows towards an examiner’s pocket, the results are suspect and the methods for measuring some given unit are designed to bring about the desired conclusion.”There are other meters just like that, which can be biased and deceitful. As long as money flows towards an examiner’s pocket, the results are suspect and the methods for measuring some given unit/s are designed to bring about the desired conclusion. That’s their business model; those who pay will receive pleasing results. They can sell bias, just as others are selling fear. Let’s not forget NPD [1, 2, 3], which is doing exactly that.
With a bit of background out of the way, we now present the news about Nielsen, which turns out to have signed a “partnership” with Microsoft. It seems like the type of deal that will involve Microsoft paying Nielsen, not the other way around.
On Thursday, the company announced a partnership with Nielsen that brings TV ratings to Xbox Live’s “1 vs. 100″ online trivia game show.
[...]
Microsoft and Nielsen also plan to collect data across the entire Xbox Live network. While this is not the first time Nielsen has measured videogame metrics, it is the first time it will measure content across a game console network–Xbox Live–and be able to get very “granular” information, says Gerardo Guzman, director of Nielsen Games.
[...]
This latest partnership with Nielsen gives a boost to Microsoft’s aspirations to be more than just a platform for traditional videogames.
If Microsoft is hiring Nielsen, i.e. paying them, then Nielsen is not an impartial, independent party. Microsoft does not to bribe them but give them contracts instead. This is clearly part of Microsoft’s tactics as it put them down in paper [PDF]. We have seen examples before and here is another new example where a Web site delivers a message without exactly saying that corporations are behind this message. It relates to a recent Microsoft-sponsored IDC study which was produced for lobbying purposes [1, 2]. Now, how about this one?
Among workers, two out of five had trouble staying motivated at work in the last year and a quarter do not feel loyal to their employer, according to the survey of employers and workers for CareerBuilder.com, an online jobs site.
[...]
CareerBuilder is owned by Gannett Co. Inc, the Tribune Co., The McClatchy Co. and Microsoft Corp.
So these statistics can be warped to reflect and project Microsoft’s agenda, without appearing as though they came from Microsoft. With Microsoft's long track record of push-polling, everything is possible to show, along with supportive data. The task of conducting studies with questionnaires is just externalised to other agencies. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Kernel, Microsoft, Windows at 10:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Mainstream press heralds the decline of Windows Mobile while Linux phones are selling exceptionally well
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile seems like a lost cause and while RIM is doing OK rumours persist that Microsoft may attempt to buy them one day, maybe next year. If smartphones (or mobile devices in general) are the future, then Microsoft has no choice. It tried to save itself by buying Danger, but this ended up as a total mess. It is an issue that we wrote about in:
CNN has just published an article blasting Windows Mobile, which is strange because CNN is run to serve the very same corporations that fund its operations.
Windows Mobile has lost nearly a third of its smartphone market share since 2008, research firm Gartner reports. Windows Mobile had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, and last quarter Windows Mobile’s market share plummeted to 7.9 percent.
A Microsoft booster, Danny O’Brien from the Irish Times, has also published a negative piece about Windows Mobile and as a loser’s defense (“sour grapes”), Microsoft is now saying that mobile apps aren’t important. To quote:
This week at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference, chief software architect Ray Ozzie stated that mobile apps aren’t an important factor in the success of a smartphone platform.
Guess which phone is a hot item at the moment. Reuters reports:
Why is the Motorola Droid apparently gaining traction in the smartphone market, when Microsoft and Nokia are failing so miserably?
The Droid, built on Google’s Android mobile operating system, sold 250,000 in its first week on the market. That’s way behind the 1.6 million iPhone 3Gs sold in the first week after its launch, but it’s still enough for Motorola to see possible salvation after years of decline and for Google to feel self-congratulatory about its venture into mobile.
Those who believe that the general message about Linux is a negative one are perhaps paying too much attention to the desktop, easily forgetting that there is a lot more to computing than just stationary machines. The trend is clear; Linux is up sharply, Windows Mobile is down sharply. Let the morale soar and development carry on. GNU/Linux has already won.█
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Posted in Microsoft, Security, Vista 7, Windows at 9:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Vista 7 as exposed as the naked emperor; Internet Explorer received similar treatment as users are under attack and no remedy is available
OVER the past week and a half we wrote several posts about the illusion of security in Vista 7. Among those posts:
- Vista 7 Exploit is Out (Zero-Day Vulnerability)
- If Microsoft Cannot be Sued Over Liability, Can it be Sued for Negligence?
- Microsoft Won’t Secure Firefox/Chrome Users, Shows More Negligence
Reports about this subject continued to come and only an advisory (not a patch) came from Microsoft. Regarding another serious crack that led to security issues in vista 7, reports suggest that it “comes as no surprise,” proving yet again that Microsoft does not give a damn about security.
There is now the following serious incident which leads to invaluable harm. No report seems to say which platform is to blame, but the University of East Anglia is not necessarily a docile Windows shop, not based on its Web site anyway. It actually abandoned Solaris for GNU/Linux when Sun began roaming the streets looking for love. Does anyone know what mail systems are used at the University of East Anglia?
A 61MB ZIP file was posted on a Russian FTP server late last night, local time. It contains over a thousand emails, and around three thousand other items including source code and data files. Emails are peppered with disparaging remarks and a crude cartoon of sceptical scientists is also included in the archive – suggesting the hacker roamed wide across the University’s servers.
More at The Guardian.
A spokesperson for the University of East Anglia said: “We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites. Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all this material is genuine. This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and have involved the police in this inquiry.”
Regardless of what this “server in question” actually runs, Microsoft is taking a weird approach to security, suggesting/recommending a different architecture (not platform) as a cure for executables that exploit Windows by design, not just by compilation.
Meanwhile we find that users of Internet Explorer 7 (version 6 also) are under attack due to a zero-day flaw. [hat tip: Tony Manco]
According to Symantec, which has quickly tested the exploit code that appeared on the Bugtraq list at insecure.org, the code as it stands is not 100% reliable but the security researchers expect that a “fully-functional reliable exploit will be available in the near future”. And that means exploit code that will enable websites to be infected, and any IE6 and 7 users with JavaScript enabled to be compromised.
More information at IDG:
The code was posted Friday to the Bugtraq mailing list by an unidentified hacker. According to security vendor Symantec, the code does not always work properly, but it could be used to install unauthorized software on a victim’s computer.
No fix is available yet, except a download that’s called Firefox or Fedora. But Microsoft does not want people to say the “F” word, so it will probably deliver a patch very soon.
To Free software’s credit, it rarely waits for attacks to occur before addressing security vulnerabilities. █
More on Vista 7 insecurity:
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Posted in IRC Logs at 9:14 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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