Summary: A gentler, kinder Microsoft? Not so fast, reveal news items

● Legal Trouble For Google In Europe: Courtesy Microsoft (see previous coverage of this)

It is interesting to see Microsoft is now fighting for the same reasons it has supposedly dominated the tech segment. The company which once called Linux a cancer; which killed Netscape and many such competitors; forcefully brought OOXML format; and has been ignoring all CSS standards is now looking for healthy competition.

● Microsoft says Google acts raise antitrust issues

Microsoft Corp made its most vehement and public attack on Google Inc on Friday, calling its internet rival's actions potentially anti-competitive, and urging victims to file complaints to regulators.

The broadside comes days after a Microsoft-owned business, along with two other small online companies, complained to European Union regulators about Google's operations there. Microsoft is also fighting a plan by Google to digitize millions of books, currently under scrutiny by the Department of Justice.

● Does Microsoft want a Linux trial?

● Has Microsoft Redefined The Meaning of Cross-Licensing Agreements? (more on the Amazon patent deal in [1, 2, 3])

According to an article by Rick Aristotle Munarriz, published on The Motley Fool, the recent cross-licensing patent agreement between Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) provides each tech giant access to the patent portfolio of the other company. While some people figured that the deal does not involve the leading online retailer trampling over the intellectual property of the world's largest software company, MSFT’s press release suggests otherwise. The press release indicates that MSFT is receiving payments from AMZN.

● FOSS equals piracy. Or so they say (see previous coverage of this)

An American lobby group [tied to BSA and Microsoft] has asked the US trade representative to put countries like India, Brazil and Indonesia on a special watchlist simply because these three countries encourage the use of open source software.

[...]

Citing this survey, another poster to the same mailing list, Erik Christiansen, noted that in 2007, Israel and Norway had effected the induction of some free software while Malaysia and Japan had encouraged switching. Singapore had offered tax breaks for switching to GNU/Linux.

● A race for smarties (warning about history being rewritten)

Sure, it’s had challengers. Anyone remember DR-DOS, once owned by Novell? It got some traction, but never enough to pose a serious threat to Microsoft.