11.16.09
Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, NetWare, Oracle, Protocol, Samba, Servers, Standard, Windows at 11:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: An example of disinformation about history being spread by those to whom open, royalty-free standards are a foe
ONE of our readers has alerted us about what seems like revisionism — a topic that we covered many times before, e.g. in:
Getting down to the latest claim of revisionism, our reader points to this article which says: ‘“In the dot-com bust it was Unix to Linux migration because Linux was cheaper than Solaris on SPARC,” says Barry Crist, CEO of Likewise, a maker of integration and identity management software for mixed environments. “Phase 2 [of corporate open source adoption] has been accelerated by the current economic conditions. IT is looking to do things in a cost-effective manner and there are a lot of viable open source solutions out there.”‘
Our reader says: “It looks like another Microsoft partner trying to establish revisionist history of the history of the WWW.
“You can spot the Microsoft partners by how they stick to Microsoft talking points and how they exist to rope businesses into Microsoft infrastructure and elimination of open standards.”
–Anonymous“During the dot-com, Linux was being added in addition to SunOS on Sparc and Digital Unix on Alpha. Microsoft had not yet even begun to infect the server room at the time, despite the beginnings of FUD and even a smattering of false advertising.
“Linux was often used to get a web service up and running with the least amount of delay on old PCs while the real hardware request was making its way through administrative channels.
“Unluckily, Linux ended up giving managers the idea that Windows servers worked. Most of the claims of growth for Windows in the server room can be blamed on Microsoft eating Novell Netware’s market through false advertising (see court cases) and BSA strongarming. Once those were in place, users bitched up a storm at the loss of reliability. The fast response by the IT dept was to slap Samba on a machine and not tell anyone. The increased reliability of files services for Windows users was attributed then to Windows Server, rather than Samba on Linux. Often the Windows server that a zealot manager forced on the IT department sat in the corner humming away, consuming electricity, WITHOUT a network cable. Then came the day, that under the belief that the server room was using Windows, the managers replaced a departing tech with a Windows monkey who promptly zapped the Samba…”
We gave several examples of migrations without permission back in August. This issue is real.
As for Likewise, it is the "Microsoft version" of Samba (adding software patents to the original software). Our reader shares this older article which starts with: “What’s it like to be an open source company that’s also a Microsoft partner dependent on the Windows world? Not bad, says Barry Crist, CEO of Likewise Software…
Our reader then adds: “You can spot the Microsoft partners by how they stick to Microsoft talking points and how they exist to rope businesses into Microsoft infrastructure and elimination of open standards. That company is peddling Microsoft alternative to Kerberos+LDAP+(puppet/radmind)
“Another apologist company is Cloudera, which seems to be one of Microsoft proxies to damage the Apache foundation and Hadoop in particular.”
Our reader points to a press release, but this latter assessment/speculation is highly questionable. Cloudera was formed by a man from Oracle, whose company had been bought before he left (one can see its genesis in the official Web sites), so any suggestion that its GNU/Linux-based Hadoop distribution is a negative thing would require considerable proof. Regardless, the part about Likewise was worth a quick discussion. There are reasons for distrust, many of which we covered before. █
“What we are trying to do is use our server control to do new protocols and lock out Sun and Oracle specifically”
–Bill Gates
“Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the US Department of Defense.”
–Richard Stallman
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Posted in Hardware, Microsoft at 11:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Almost one million customers of Microsoft are permanently banned and sales of Xbox 360 drop considerably
MICROSOFT is being rather tactless with its more ‘naughty’ customers, up to a million of whom it is reportedly banning, even permanently. From Microsoft’s own ‘news’ site (joint venture with NBC, maybe to be inherited by Comcast):
“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live,” Microsoft said in a statement Wednesday.
At Groklaw, in relation to the above Pamela Jones wrote: “So. If all those who insisted Microsoft would never use terms of use like this would please line up and apologize to me, I’d love that.”
Other reports confirm the numbers, but they are filled with propaganda, comparing these people who hack their own hardware which they paid for to people who attack ships, murdering and raping in the process. This is merely echoing the same ugly terminology that Microsoft is using despite the ironic truth. CNN is among those who use propaganda terms and even Charles Arthur uses improper words like “pirated”.
Microsoft Nick continues to show that Microsoft endorses this misuse of language by even creating an “Anti-piracy” Twitter feed. We wrote about Microsoft’s role at Twitter under the following posts:
- More Microsoft AstroTurfing (aka ‘Technical Evangelism’) in Twitter
- User “Microsoft Incentives” Wants to be Your Friend, Too
- Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf Continues
- Who is Pumping MSFT and Pimping Microsoft in Twitter?
- Microsoft Hires Federated Media for Twitter AstroTurfing
- Does Microsoft Still Create Twitter Accounts for Guerilla Marketing?
- Microsoft’s AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
- Microsoft Twitter Bots, FTC Blowback, and Paid-for Vista 7 Glorification
- Microsoft Feeds Hundreds of Korean Bloggers to Promote Vista 7
- Are Microsoft Employees (Technical Evangelists) Using Spammers in Twitter?
Regarding the Xbox 360 bans, it is a subject we alluded to last week, after we had explained that Xbox 360 is merely rented, not sold. A lot of Microsoft products are like that.
With such policies in place, Microsoft will only be putting off and driving away customers. According to US-only statistics, Microsoft has dropped to 4th place in its very own home ground (losing to the Japanese).
507k – Wii
458k – Nintendo DS
321k – PlayStation 3
250k – Xbox 360
175k – PSP
118k – PlayStation 2
Xbox 360 is going nowhere, fast.
Adding insult to injury, Microsoft blocks young people from entering Facebook on the Xbox 360.
Pre-pubescent and teenage Xbox 360 users looking forward to blending their online gaming and social networking habits are likely feeling a little disgruntled today after Microsoft revealed that the Xbox Live integration of Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm will initially be limited to over 18s only.
In Microsoft’s eyes, Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm must be the new “porn”. At one stage, Microsoft also blocked Google from youngsters [1, 2].
But anyway, why would Microsoft deal with Facebook like that?
Microsoft has already decided to lock/shut GNU/Linux users out of the Winter Olympics, including the many who just use an ARM-based appliance to access something as simple as this popular Web site. Microsoft is now doing to Facebook what it has done to the Winter Olympics, according to reports.
Microsoft on Monday unveiled Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform, enabling use of Microsoft technologies such as Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) in conjunction with the Facebook social platform.
There is more information about this in:
We previously showed that the management of Facebook is close to Microsoft and even its patent troll. On the other hand, in the news we now find that Facebook supports the rival of Xbox 360:
Will Sony also have an adult-only policy for Facebook? Will it ban its users? Perhaps it’s Microsoft’s attitude that made Xbox 360 such a commercial failure, raking in billions of dollars in losses. █
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 10:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Not just Cisco but Microsoft Windows Mobile too is proving to be problematic for Vista 7 users
THE previous post was about the rapid demise of Windows Mobile. According to the following new report, Windows phones do not work properly with Vista 7. Actually, many things turn out to be incompatible with Vista 7. This month alone we showed several examples [1, 2, 3, 4].
The latest example is this:
Here’s where things started to get a little frustrating. Even though Microsoft just introduced a new operating system (Windows 7), Samsung says 7 is no-go for the upgrade — the software will only run on a Vista or XP computer.
Wonderful.
What else is not compatible? The unified communications products from Cisco:
Cisco warns UC users of limited support for Windows 7
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is warning customers of its unified communications products that support for Windows 7 won’t be forthcoming until the product’s 8.0 release scheduled for the first quarter of 2010. About a dozen more UC products will not support Windows 7 until version 8.5, in the third quarter of 2010 and at that time, only the 32-bit version of Windows 7 will be supported.
No wonder Apple moves in for the kill; GNU/Linux advocates too should warn peers, colleagues, family and friends that Vista 7 is incompatible with hardware and software. It’s the same objective truism that killed Windows Vista. █
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Posted in DRM, Microsoft, Windows at 10:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Windows Marketplace has its copy protection mechanism broken almost immediately; future of Windows Mobile seems grim
ONE of the arguments against DRM is that it’s always ineffective anyway. It’s not the main argument, but it is an argument that proves to be correct time after time in real-world scenarios. Microsoft is no exception and in fact it took just 2 hours to crack Windows Marketplace, according to this new report.
Earlier too Chainfire had found a hack for the CAB file based copy protection in less than five minutes. Now, Chainfire again cracked the code of protection layer.
Obviously, Chainfire won’t be releasing the hack to public as his intention is to make Microsoft aware about the weak copy-protection measures implemented. This might shake up the developers who’d be looking forward to make some money off the Windows Marketplace.
Users of the already-struggling Windows Mobile may find themselves under fewer restrictions. Meanwhile we find that Windows Mobile sales are down very sharply (“Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share” says the latter report) and Mini-Microsoft, an anonymous Microsoft employee, leads to more dysphoria. DRM is not the way to save Windows Mobile and speculations have just returned that Microsoft might buy RIM in the future. Sales of smartphones are generally up because they offer a richer experience, whereas fewer people buy full-sized computers where Microsoft has leverage. Linux is very triumphant in this former, ever-emerging area. █
“DRM is the future.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
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Posted in Deception, Marketing, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Vista 8, Windows at 9:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Vista 7 turns out to be the most expensive service pack ever; Sales do not proceed as hoped and planned, reveal reports from the mainstream press
THE reality behind Vista 7 continues to unfold. Earlier this month we showed that sales of computers were mostly flat despite Vista 7. Microsoft lies about it, but not the press in Asia, which claims “No Boost in PC Sales After Windows 7″
Here is an interpretation from the New York Times:
The story also notes that a PC sales upswing is unlikely for 2009, “due to most Windows Vista users not needing to replace their PCs in order to upgrade to Windows 7.”
Here is the original report.
Demand for PCs and hardware did not turn strong after the launch of Windows 7 in late October and is unlikely to do so in 2009 due to most Windows Vista users not needing to replace their PCs in order to upgrade to Windows 7, while some users are waiting for Microsoft to release Windows 7′s first service pack, according to sources at PC vendors.
Many people are waiting for Service Pack 1 before even considering this newer version of Windows. In the mean time, Microsoft has gossip going on about Vista 8 vapourware, which some Web sites are naively parroting.
Another important observation was sent to us by a reader who wrote:
Vista is in the News Again
A strange wave of contortion and optimism about Windows 7 is spreading around. Inflated Windows 7 numbers are reported by both the WSJ and Information Week along with nearly identical talking points about how it’s “a Windows World.” The WSJ (aka Fox News) quotes Net Applications uncritically and belittles all other competitors. Randal Kennedy quotes the same talking points but gets his numbers from Information Week’s own skewed measuring system. Even a Mac magazine catches some of this buzz. Kennedy makes an interesting observation that most others missed and turns all of the happy talk on it’s head.
Kennedy noticed that Windows 7 is mostly being bought by unhappy Vista users. He tries to spin this as positive, “pent up demand for something better than Vista,” but he needs to listen to himself and consider all of the options. This is the man who rightly told us all that Windows 7 was just Vista with a new coat of paint.
Windows 7, in effect, has a cap on its growth which is Vista’s minority market share. The 30% of 22,000 Information Week readers gullible enough to install “Windows Pulse” probably represents the 12% of the real world that said they wanted Vista in consistent market surveys. There’s little chance at 100% conversion to Windows 7. What we will see is a more fragmented and difficult to support Windows market, maybe 5% on Vista, 5% on Windows 7 and 100% of windows users looking for something that works. Microsoft will run out of money long before they can make Vista users happy or turn XP users into Windows 7 users.
Despite clueless optimism and amazing contortions from people profiting from the Windows upgrade treadmill, Microsoft’s time has come and gone. The average computer user today is using a smart phone or a netbook, places where Windows 7 has no chance.
References
[1] Windows 7 is quickly displacing Vista — but not XP (cross posted in pcworld)
[2] Windows 7 Adoption Nudging Out Vista, Not XP
[3] Windows 7 smashes Vista, while XP users stay away
[4] Windows 7 Usage Outpaces Vista, Closes In on Mac
This seems to suggest that Vista 7 is treated as a service pack of Vista. As for the market share of GNU/Linux, the numbers above are too US-oriented to actually mean anything to Free software [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Net Applications is also funded by Microsoft. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Security, Vista 7, Windows at 9:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: ActiveX required by Microsoft’s OneCare; investigation into Vista 7 vulnerabilities a case of “too little, too late”
MICROSOFT pretends to have changed for the better. It pretends that it allows users of Windows to use Web browsers other than Internet Explorer, but the following post — artistically titled “Microsoft being a Onecare [Wanker]“ — suggests otherwise:
For starters, it uses an ActiveX control – Internet Explorer required in other words – that’s annoyingly hard to install. You get warnings galore from Windows 7′s UAC and IE about popups and do you really really really want to install something that has the potential to roger your system well and truly?
ActiveX was designed to restrict competition by supplanting Web standards. It ended up becoming one of the biggest security nightmares out there and Novell supports this.
Here is the new story of a man who has just been fired because of these practices from Microsoft:
Linux Contractor Fired for Using Firefox/Linux
[...]
The irony? The “compentency test” was a Security & Privacy test from the four letter credit card company that HAD to be taken on MS Windows with IE?
I’ll let you be the ones to point out the obvious…the fact that this large computer/server company with three letters in their name is reportedly a “friend to Linux”. I’ll let you talk about how a Linux Professional who uses Linux as their desktop environment was denied access to employment. Employment that was based on his knowledge of Linux. Yeah, the server side…but still…
Now let’s brag about how much ground Linux has made…
And a Linux Project Manager for said company asking the question:
“What’s this Foxfire thing?”
As a secondary item of news, some days ago we argued for Microsoft liability when it comes to the latest Vista 7 vulnerability. Microsoft deserves to be accused of negligence and the following article implies deception too.
Is Microsoft Overhyping Security In Windows 7?
[...]
Microsoft has been aggressively marketing the security improvements in Windows 7, but some security experts believe this strategy could leave the software giant open to some unpleasant repercussions.
Vista 7 has been breached before and to give some examples of insecurity, we have:
Now there is the SMB flaw that Microsoft finally acknowledges.
Microsoft on Friday said it is working on a fix for a vulnerability in the Server Message Block file-sharing protocol in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2 that could be used to remotely crash a computer.
It really took them too long, having waited for attack code to appear before properly investigating. That’s negligence and it is irresponsible. Gregg Keizer writes:
The zero-day vulnerability was first reported by Canadian researcher Laurent Gaffie last Wednesday, when he revealed the bug and posted proof-of-concept attack code to the Full Disclosure security mailing list and his blog. According to Gaffie, exploiting the flaw crashes Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 systems so thoroughly that the only recourse is to manually power off the computers.
Why has Microsoft waited so long before looking into the problem? Could it be that lack of security and increased fear help Microsoft sell more ‘solutions’ to those very same problems? As we showed some days ago, is clearly profiting from Conficker, for example. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Search at 8:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s attempt to just buy market share meets barriers; Highly damaging truths about Razorfish customers are revealed
“Bribes” or “bribery” is what some of the press called Microsoft’s cashback when it was first introduced [1, 2, 3]. It’s funny that a lot of people take this for granted by now.
One of our readers says that “Mark Cuban thinks Microsoft should pay off sites to remove themselves from the Google index.” From the cited post:
Given the stakes, why stop at $ 1 Billion Dollars ? Would the top 1k most visited sites take a cool $1mm each, plus a committment from MicroSoft or Yahoo to drive traffic through their search engines to more than make up for the lost Google Traffic. After all, once consumers realized that Google no longer had valid search results for the top 25k searchs, that traffic would most likely go to MicroSoft and Yahoo.
As we showed very briefly last week, Microsoft had resorted to intimidation against people who found holes in the cashback (“bribery”) programme and then published their findings. Microsoft also used legal means against people who abused it. That was several months ago. The press has some more coverage, such as:
• Bing hit by costly security loophole
• Bing cashback exploit discovered, Microsoft sends in lawyers
• Win $10K and a Trip to L.A. via Bing Cashback Contest
• Microsoft Stifles Information on Bing Cashback Error
Microsoft has brought out its legal hammer against a businessman who publicized a problem with an incentive program run alongside the company’s Bing search engine.
Bing has been somewhat of a failure and Microsoft is trying to keep it visible, more latterly using some localisation in the UK and reuse of old news about Wolfram.
In quite a remarkable new report, it turns out that even Microsoft employees (over 2,000 of whom are no longer with the company) are rejecting or giving up on Microsoft search/advertisements.
The latest social media survey is making the blogosphere rounds this week. This one comes from RazorFish, Microsoft’s former digital ad agency, which the company sold to Publicis Groupe earlier this year. The report is about the way various brands are using the Web and social media to spread their gospel, with various extrapolations about the fundamental nature of the Internet based on a small sample size.
Among the most interesting tidbits, though, are the data from Razorfish’s own clients. (The client list is impressive, with dozens of major brands ranging from Visa to Victoria’s Secret.) In 2008 Razorfish’s clients put 72 percent of their search advertising budgets toward Google ads. Yahoo garnered 22 percent. Razorfish could only convince its clients to funnel 4 percent of their budgets to ads on Microsoft’s live.com search engine.
Yes, they are letting people go to Microsoft rivals because they are better. Razorfish also used Apache and GNU/Linux while deploying solutions for clients. Microsoft is increasingly living in a Free software world and it must be hard to cope with, so Razorfish was discharged and totally ruined financially, at a personal level. █
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Posted in Apple, Finance, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Windows at 8:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: How Microsoft is trying to reinvent itself in the face of new reality; losses persist regardless
YESTERDAY we wrote about Microsoft's Vista 7 advertisements, which are embedded in the operating system. This is probably an attempt to fight the zero-cost proposition of GNU/Linux by subsidising Windows.
As Microsoft is killing "Works", there is an attempt to apply the same (as above) business model to office suites and Google takes advantage of this transformation.
All of Girouard’s hopes and predictions rest on the simple fact that, for a long time coming now, cloud computing has been on the rise. Users, year by year, are getting quite comfortable with the ability to have their files with them wherever they are, in the cloud. While Microsoft does offer SaaS options, Google believes it will better fill that space.
It is interesting to see this news covered by David Worthington, whose article appears in a Microsoft-gifted Web site. It seems like a good fit [1, 2].
“But criminal activity in particular is why Microsoft receives so much attention; it wasn’t Apple, for example, that gave money to SCO.”Google’s growth is proving to be very problematic to Microsoft and Google has managed not to resort to criminal activity as Microsoft did around the same age as Google. A lot of articles are now being published also about the fact that Apple’s value is approaching that of Microsoft’s. As much as we criticise Apple, the degree of illegal activity inside their company is nowhere near that of Microsoft. Here at Boycott Novell we do warn a lot about Apple; this site is not just about Novell and Microsoft, so proprietary software as a whole is considered threatening. But criminal activity in particular is why Microsoft receives so much attention; it wasn’t Apple, for example, that gave money to SCO.
As a side note from the Microsoft-sponsored news site, Seattle’s office of the mayor might be dumping Windows.
Staffers for Mike McGinn, Seattle’s mayor-elect, have asked the city’s technology department to explore the possibility of switching the mayor’s office from Windows PCs to Macs to let them stick with the technology they’ve been using, according to a post by Eli Sanders of the Stranger.
Seattle ditching Windows would be akin to Torvalds switching to Windows. Perhaps Seattle is aware of the reality behind Vista 7, so it is looking away at other options. █
“Seek simplicity, and distrust it.”
–Alfred North Whitehead
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