03.22.10
Posted in Asia, Bill Gates, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Office Suites, Search at 3:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Linux” is the new “democracy” in China if Microsoft gets its way
Summary: As Google makes new moves to render Office obsolete, Microsoft warms up to communism and tries to capitalise on Google tensions in China
WE are not advocates of Google, but one must remember that Google helps weaken Microsoft and it also spreads GNU/Linux. It does a few other things that are beneficial to Free software, notably Summer of Code. For all practical purposes, Google is better off avoided for a plethora of other reasons. Google is valuable to search, but in other areas it likes to get hold of people’s data under promises of “cloud computing” and other fluffy new jargon.
Microsoft’s booster Gavin Clarke writes about Microsoft and Google in the following article which makes a quote-worthy observation:
In health, for example, you have Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health – two growing repositories that are seeing Microsoft and Google set themselves up as massive gatekeepers of information. They have recognized that in the information age, survival comes not by adding more features to applications or operating systems but by owning the information itself and then letting others access it. Talk about buying your way into the future.
Microsoft has resorted to government lobbying in order to gain possession of this data. It’s a very serious matter. But in other news, it appears as though Google is poaching Microsoft’s business customers as the fight for people’s personal data and mail carries on [1, 2].
Earlier this month we wrote about Google's DocVerse acquisition (which is still in the news). It’s about poaching Microsoft Office customers. One financial op-ed says that “Microsoft [is] in Danger if Office Margins Fall to Google App Levels”
Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Office Suite is a group of desktop applications used primarily for word processing (Word), spreadsheet preparation (Excel), presentations (PowerPoint), and email (Outlook).
Microsoft is releasing the full version of the new Office 2010 to businesses starting in May 2010. The May release will include a web-based version of Office for the first time. This is response to Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) cloud-based Google Apps productivity software which has been available online since 2007 and is increasingly gaining traction amongst both consumers and businesses.
We believe that the shift to more cloud-based software is likely to continue and result in a decrease in Microsoft’s Office software margins. Microsoft will incur higher costs as a result of delivering a cloud-based version of Microsoft Office and this can have an impact on the Microsoft’s stock.
There is also this in the news:
Microsoft Mum on Plans to Answer Google Apps Marketplace
Microsoft may one day counter Google Apps Marketplace with a third-party integration shop for cloud computing of its own, but if there are any such plans in the works, Microsoft won’t share them as it competes in the cloud with Google, IBM, Salesforce.com and others. IDC analyst Melissa Webster says Microsoft, which has always worked well through channels, may consider offering such a store in the future. Google Apps Marketplace Product Manager Chris Vander Mey tells eWEEK that four Marketplace partners have each logged over 1,100 domains installed.
Google moves further by targeting Outlook users with migration tools (Novell’s GroupWise is also targeted by this, as we showed over the weekend). Coverage in the news includes:
• Google Builds Microsoft Exchange Escape Route
• Google Apps Migration Tool Makes Ditching Microsoft Easy
• Google Tool Moves Users from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps
• Global CIO: Google, At Last, Goes For Microsoft’s Throat
• Switch from Microsoft Exchange says Google
• Now migrate between Google and Microsoft
Another chapter has been added to the ongoing cold war between Google and Microsoft. Google has come up with a new tool to give a big advantage to its enterprise business by this latest application that it offers.
• Google Apps punts kill-Microsoft-Exchange-now tool
While Microsoft has been failing to outfox Google in the web search and ad game, Google has – apparently – swiped a few of Redmond’s customers away from MS Office.
The Mountain View Chocolate Factory gloated on its corporate blog that 25 million people worldwide had switched to Google Apps in the past year.
IBM pressures Microsoft too (services built on GNU/Linux) and Microsoft is being compared to “a dinosaur” by NetSuite, which Microsoft tries to fight rather aggressively using incentives.
An internal memo from NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson dismisses Microsoft’s bid to attract NetSuite customers as “the last gasp of a dinosaur trying to protect its Stone Age software products.”
Now comes the more interesting part. According to reports that Google declines to comment on, the company has been put under pressure that may lead it to leaving China within weeks. This would be good news for Microsoft [1, 2], but Fortune/CNN writes the post titled: “Who wins when Google leaves China? Microsoft and Baidu might not like the answer”
Some industry watchers suspect that there may have been Microsoft manipulation intended to game the Chinese government and drive Google out of the country. Bill Gates and others from Microsoft have special relationships with the Chinese government, as we showed before. From a Wall Street Journal blog:
However the Google episode pans out, it’s likely to have a lasting impact on the way foreign companies deal with China. Over the years, foreign executives have frequently made the mistake of copying the way that Chinese officials deal with their superiors. The approach is best summed up in the Chinese phrase “pai ma pi” – “slapping the horse’s rear”. The problem with sycophancy isn’t so much that it’s offensive to watch, but that it’s a lousy business strategy. China may enjoy the kowtow, but it doesn’t respect it.
As a side note, let’s remember what led to the diplomatic tensions between Google and China. It all started when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer led to attacks on Google [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. After this incident/episode, Google stopped censoring results, whereas Microsoft continues to collaborate with totality and suppression, which Microsoft is so akin to anyway. Here is another new statement which merits discussion.
However, with possible success in China, it is possible that Microsoft’s acquiescence with Chinese censorship may cause the company to face heat in the United States.
Microsoft’s ‘search’ is already all about censorship (even in the West where there is deliberate demotion or exclusion of Microsoft’s competitors), so why would Microsoft have any special sense of guilt in China? On Chinese phones that run Android/Linux, Microsoft already tries to sneak in its illusion of 'search'. █
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Posted in America, Asia, Bill Gates, Finance, Microsoft, Office Suites, Steve Ballmer, Windows at 2:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Latest examples of Microsoft entering the non-commercial arena and influencing decisions so as to help its bottom line
THE FCC family grows and the latest addition is covered by BusinessWeek, which says:
‘Sexiest Man’ Joins Navy Admiral, Microsoft Veteran at New FCC
[...]
Also among Genachowski’s recruits are retired Navy Rear Admiral James Barnett Jr., 56, who is chief of the FCC’s bureau of public safety and homeland security; Steven VanRoekel, 40, the agency’s managing director, who came from Microsoft Corp.; and Steven Waldman, 47, founder of beliefnet.com, which offers prayers and commentary to help users seeking spiritual guidance. Waldman, a former Newsweek correspondent, heads an FCC task force on the state of the media.
[...]
VanRoekel oversees the agency’s day-to-day operations. The former Microsoft executive and aide to founder Gates on speeches and strategy says he has worked to boost technology use since arriving to find an agency where “the status quo was the norm.”
We wrote about this tactless appointment before [1, 2]. The FCC took on Apple just weeks after VanRoekel had become the Managing Director of the FCC. But anyway, why does BusinessWeek care so much about a man’s appearance? It’s not as though people should vote for someone based on whether he is “Sexiest Man” or not.
Apropos, a couple of weeks ago Schwarzenegger put himself in Microsoft's pocket and now he’s getting bitten in the rear. From the San Francisco press we now learn:
Glitches in Microsoft’s California vouchers
[...]
Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Microsoft Corp.’s Silicon Valley campus to announce that the tech company would hand out more than 70,000 training vouchers through the state’s One-Stop Career Centers. The idea was to give Californians – whether unemployed or working – a chance to take online computer courses and get free tests to certify their skills.
This Microsoft-sponsored program, called Elevate America, mainly offers intermediate training in office programs – Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Vista – with some vouchers set aside to provide advanced online training to people hoping to work in computer administration.
[..]
Microsoft has run this same program in 12 other states and officials say the average completion rate has been just 30 percent – giving local workforce boards a chance to improve on that ratio by making sure that Californians follow through and take advantage of the training.
This is just nationwide dumping, as we have already explained. Microsoft tries to indoctrinate everyone by means of Windows and Office “training” that it “donates”. This programme is mostly being used in the US, but there are similar things going on in the UK. We gave examples.
To the US government, Microsoft is the tail that wags the dog. Last month we showed that a former Microsoft manager (Hunter) had entered the government where he is now helping Microsoft escape tax [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft’s darling press, the Seattle Times, still seems to be unwilling to cover this blunder; instead it says that “State tax break entices tech firms to build data centers”
Legislators and businesses have been worried about losing new data centers to other states since Microsoft, citing the state’s tax law, moved its cloud- computing platform Azure out of Washington to another U.S. data center. The news was distressing to the Grant County town of Quincy, where Yahoo, Microsoft and Intuit have built large server farms, drawn to the county’s cheap and green hydropower.
Server farms send data and software across the Internet to users and to Web sites around the world. Microsoft continues to operate a data center in Quincy but chose last year not to expand Azure there. Running a server farm requires large amounts of energy and bandwidth.
The Seattle Times should be shamed of itself for continuing to ignore a serious fiasco that hurts citizens of Seattle. Is this publication paid by Microsoft in any way (directly or indirectly)? There’s quite a déjà vu here because other Seattle or Redmond ‘publications’ are dedicated just to Microsoft boosting and some masquerade as government-oriented Web sites that offer impartial advice to governments.
“The Seattle Times should be shamed of itself for continuing to ignore a serious fiasco that hurts citizens of Seattle.”Here is the latest example of Microsoft promotion as an ‘article’ in one these Web sites; Microsoft seems to have gotten its own magazines to sell its products and deceive readers (under the the illusion that these are “news” sites). Here is one new example and another one. These new articles may seem like news, but they are embedded in sites that are named after Microsoft products. It’s an insult to real news sites and it dilutes authentic reporting as a whole. Shouldn’t the FCC look into such issues of misreporting (or improper media centralisation)? Oh wait, the FCC would not care because it’s partly run by a former colleague of Gates and Ballmer. It’s all just PR from a highly PR-dependent company that he used to work for, so why would he care?
Speaking of government influence, Microsoft will have a conference in Costa Mesa next week and we also learn that it has “workshops” in Bahrain, where these simply enable Microsoft to send instructions to people who make decisions:
Furthering its commitment to promote good government practices through the use of technology, Microsoft Bahrain today announced that it hosted a workshop for senior technology executives from the various entities within the Government of Bahrain.
This is wrong on very many levels. No wonder so many governments blindly sign contracts with Microsoft and sometimes get sued for it by their citizens. In some cases, the lawsuits come from competitors. Take Switzerland for example. We covered it in:
- Microsoft Sued Over Its Corruption in Switzerland, Microsoft Debt Revisited
- Can the United Kingdom and Hungary Still be Sued for Excluding Free Software?
- 3 New Counts of Antitrust Violation by Microsoft?
- Is Microsoft Breaking the Law in Switzerland Too?
- Microsoft Uses Lobbyists to Attack Holland’s Migration to Free Software and Sort of Bribes South African Teachers Who Use Windows
- ZDNet/eWeek Ruins Peter Judge’s Good Article by Attacking Red Hat When Microsoft Does the Crime
- Week of Microsoft Government Affairs: a Look Back, a Look Ahead
- Lawsuit Against Microsoft/Switzerland Succeeds So Far, More Countries/Companies Should Follow Suit
- Latest Reports on Microsoft Bulk Deals Being Blocked in Switzerland, New Zealand
- Swiss Government and Federal Computer Weekly: Why the Hostility Towards Free Software?
- Switzerland and the UK Under Fire for Perpetual Microsoft Engagements
- Lawsuit Over Alleged Microsoft Corruption in Switzerland Escalates to Federal Court
Microsoft’s manufactured ‘studies’ are another important subject that we mentioned last week (Microsoft uses these for government lobbying) and here is the latest example.
Microsoft’s Worldwide Utility Industry Survey 2010 is their latest attempt at doing this, and while this is not really a major study, there are a handful of meaningful conclusions that I think will – and should – resonate with utilities.
In the next post about the Gates Foundation we will show the latest ‘studies’ that they fund to serve themselves. This type of behaviour ought to be exposed because it only adds ‘noise’ to the debate and it harms citizens for the benefit of few large corporations. █
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03.21.10
Posted in Microsoft, Security, Windows at 7:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Fuerza Bruta”
Summary: How Windows botnets enable criminals to make a lot of money at the expense of Windows users
WINDOWS means business. Sure, it stands in the way of many legitimate businesses, but at least some bad guys manage to make a living out of Windows’ flaws. Here is the latest example:
Facebook’s 400 million users have been targeted by a spam run that could infect their computers with malicious software designed to steals passwords and other data, according to security researchers at McAfee.
There are two elements at play here; first, there is the brute-force mailing, which typically requires botnets; secondly, there is malware here that only runs on Windows (the article neglects to say this, just like many others). Tracy Anne corrects this in the comments, but it really should not be required if journalists do their job properly.
It wasn’t so long ago that the SEC reported the effects of SPAM (Microsoft Windows zombie spewage) on Wall Street trade. It was reportedly the same outside the United States. Botnets were affecting stock prices with manipulation through brute-force disinformation for pump-and-dump schemes (references here). Wired Magazine reported the following some days ago:
SEC: Hacker Manipulated Stock Prices
U.S. regulators are moving to freeze the assets and trading accounts of a Russian accused of hacking into personal online portfolios and manipulating the price of dozens of stocks listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange.
A New York federal judge on Tuesday sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission and froze the assets of Broco Investments, believed to be a one-trader operation based in St. Petersburg, Russia. The SEC said Broco capitalized by artificially moving prices of more 38 thinly traded securities — enabling Broco to profit from up-or-down price swings.
[...]
The so-called “hack, pump and dump” scheme is among the latest illicit methods of gaming the market though hacking.
Earlier today we wrote about Bitdefender (which is supposed to defend Windows) simply castrating and breaking the operating system. That’s what one gets for trying to secure Windows. Our reader Tim wonders if “Bitdefender is spot on”:
Allegedly Bitdefender has identified several parts of Windows as a trojan, fixed them and subsequently brought down Windows.
Being flippant, one could argue that Bitdefender was merely doing its job and identifying Windows as a trojan was correct, another camp could list it as yet another issue Microsoft’s OS has stumbled into.
By the definition of the words “malware” and “spyware”, Microsoft Windows is both. Just because it’s widely used does not except it from the symptoms and the diagnosis. █
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Posted in IRC Logs at 7:22 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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Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, Windows at 6:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s attempts to sell hardware products such as consoles, portable media players, and phones seem destined to burial
BASED on the past week’s news, Microsoft’s RRoD saga takes a turn for the worse. RRoD has already cost Xbox literally billions in losses and Microsoft will be cutting corners from now on by not providing customers victims with “coffins” in which to bury their dead Xbox 360s and ship them to Microsoft/repair.
These days Microsoft is no longer shipping gamers who have a dead Xbox 360 a postage-paid cardboard packing box (affectionately called the “coffin”) for the return of the console. While Microsoft still pays for shipping both ways, it’s up to the console owner to provide the packing materials for the trip back to the repair center.
But wait, it gets worse. Both Nintendo and Sony shower Microsoft with insults and ridicule. Nintendo says [1, 2, 3] that it “Would Be Embarrassed to Behave Like Sony and Microsoft”. Here are the exact quotes:
Talking to the Kotaku blog, Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, went on the offensive, saying that “I think we would have been embarrassed to do what our competitors are currently doing,” adding that “all I can tell you is that we will innovate. We will provide something new. Something that the consumer and the industry will look at and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t see that coming’.”
Sony too is mocking Microsoft [1, 2], but it’s probably expected. Nintendo and IBM are the only large companies that actually make a lot of money from consoles.
Looking at Microsoft’s failed attempts to become relevant in phones, the latest step disappoints. To name some new articles:
1. Microsoft Doing Little to Reassure Mobile Biz Customers
There is a growing gap between what business technologists want from Windows Phone 7 and what Microsoft may actually deliver.
2. Microsoft Immediately Stumbles in Quest for Well-Designed Phone Apps
Sadly for Microsoft, when you start digging into the actual documents, you immediately realize: Microsoft might suddenly care about design in a new way. But it doesn’t mean that they’ve actually changed as a company.
3. Does Microsoft thinking copying the 2007 iPhone is a good idea?
Check out Todd Bishop’s spin (he is a longtime Microsoft booster):
4. Windows Phone manager’s exit a good sign for Microsoft’s strategy
Normally the departure of a key program manager does not signal positive things about a product, particularly with only a few months to go before it ships. But Mel Sampat said today that his decision to leave Microsoft’s Windows Phone team to start his own app development firm was actually a vote of confidence in the company’s potential to support a strong ecosystem of third-party apps.
Right. So if Mel Sampat had stayed at Microsoft, surely that would be a sign of Windows Mobile failing, according to the logic of Microsoft’s spinners. If a project gets abandoned by a manager, then it means success, right? Spin, spin, spin. Check out the latest Windows Mobile spin from Microsoft Nick. They are truly getting desperate for positive news. Chips B. Malroy wrote about Nick half an hour ago: “Nicholas Kolakowski over on the old MS Watch site is putting all the commentators to sleep with his excessive MS fawning. It’s like a ghost town over there.” █
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Posted in Deception, Marketing, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 6:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Photo by Alan Light
Summary: Key Vista endorser Jerry Seinfeld is named as one of IDG’s top 10 “Lousy Celebrity Endorsements”; Compatibility problems in Vista 7 stressed again to rebut Microsoft’s latest spin
Not a single headline about Vista has appeared over the past week*, but there were about 15 clusters of headlines about “Windows 7″.
We were actually amused to find Microsoft in “10 Lousy Celebrity Endorsements”, which is this new gallery from IDG. It names Jerry Seinfeld as a top example. For those who do not recall, Microsoft buried its Seinfeld ads very quickly because — just like Mojave Experiment — they failed to sell Vista, which Seinfeld is said to have dumped (along with Windows as a whole). Some might say that Seinfeld never adopted Vista in the first place. In other words, it was an endorsement as fake as it can get.
“Some might say that Seinfeld never adopted Vista in the first place.”Instead of Seinfeld brainwash and the Mojave Experiment, Microsoft decided to pretend that it built a new operating system and it even created a new deskbar. Then, it spent half a billion dollars on advertising/spin alone (“perception management” [1, 2]). It’s still going on.
Elsewhere on the Web we now find some creative new spin about the compatibility issues in Vista 7. We wrote a lot about incompatibility in Vista 7, e.g.:
- Vista 7 Roundup: Microsoft Admits Upgrade Errors, People Wait for SP1, Compatibility Issues Identified
- Vista 7 — Just Like Vista — Incompatible with Vital Services
- Vista 7 Incompatibility Issues, Crashes, and More NPD Lies
- Jerry Seinfeld Dumps Vista, Some Users Prefer Vista Over Vista 7 Because of Incompatibility
- Vista 7 Crashes on Certain Hardware, Stifles Samba Compatibility
- Vista 7 Lacks Compatibility But Finally Gains GPL Compliance
- Vista 7 Limitations, Compatibility Issues, and Hype from the Microsoft Ecosystem
- Signs That Vista 7 — Like Vista — Will Pose Compatibility Issues
- Vista 7 Starter Edition Called “Too Wimpy” by IDG, Compatibility Problems Foreseen
- Intel Unhappy With Failed Migration to Vista 7, Radical Microsoft Spin Begins
From the same site that published compatibility spin we also gather a lot of vapourware about Service Pack 1 merely existing (no release date yet). This type of spin appears elsewhere and it’s mostly indicative of effective Microsoft PR, not actual news of much value. █
____
* Source: Google News search.
“But this is going to end as all tragedies must, with tears. Steve Ballmer is getting taken for the biggest ride of his life, and one day he’s going to find himself dumped out of the limo by the side of the road wondering what happened.”
–Dana Blankenhorn (Liddell destroying Microsoft from within)
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Posted in Asia, Finance, Microsoft at 5:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The Great Microsoft Exodus carries on, particularly in a division that loses obscene amounts of money
MICROSOFT has suffered from some very major departures in recent years. Vice presidents, for instance, are dropping like flies. It’s easy to see why. Looking at Microsoft’s online business, it loses over $2 billion per year and there is no turnaround foreseen (or proven).
Microsoft’s financial situation is worse than most people realise. This is perhaps why Microsoft’s online man in China has just decided to leave after 5 years. Except for reports from China, everything else points at Reuters:
—Microsoft: Xiao Chen, MSN China’s VP of sales is leaving at the end of March to start up his own company, Reuters reports. He had been with the Chinese MSN venture since it it launched in 2005.
From BusinessInsider:
Microsoft is losing one of its top sales executives in China, Reuters reports.
Finally, here is the original, which comes in two versions:
Microsoft (MSFT.O) said on Thursday its vice-president of sales for its MSN China joint venture would leave the firm at the end of March to pursue his own start-up.
So, it’s not quite over. The Microsoft staff could potentially extend the company’s presence (ecosystem) from outside its main operation. We saw that before and it’s not an alien concept.
Here is another key man who quits Microsoft because Midori has “failure” written all over it.
It’s been awfully quiet on the Midori front lately. But here’s one bit of news related to Microsoft’s (mostly) secret operating-system incubation project: Midori team Jonathan Shapiro is leaving the company after less than a year.
Midori is just a lot of hype. Does anyone remember “Singularity”? █
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Posted in Courtroom, Finance, GNU/Linux, Novell, SCO at 4:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A new disclosure of names of those who fund SCO’s lawsuit against Linux reveals many former members of SCO
A day ago we wrote about SCO receiving $2 million. SCO is desperate for money because it can hardly pay lawyers any longer and its never-ending lawsuit against Linux is virtually all it has left. Based on SCO’s 8-K which covers the Ralph Yarro cash injection, those who are involved in the transaction are “private lenders including Seung Ni Capital Partners, LLC, Jan Loeb, Leap Tide Capital Management, Inc., Steven Shin, Henry C. Beinstein, Stanley A. Beinstein, Neil J. Gagnon, Robert Dyson, WBS LLC, Ne Obliviscaris, Ltd., Darcy Mott, Clemons F. Walker and Herbert W. Jackson (collectively, the “Lenders”). Other than WBS LLC and Robert Dyson, all of the other Lenders listed above are direct or indirect shareholders of the Company.”
“So now we know the list of names,” says Pamela Jones. “It’s that same ole gang of SCOfolk.” Did they put their own money in the jar or could someone have helped them out and provided assurance (as in the case of BayStar, which offered $50 million)? █
“[Microsoft's] Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would ‘backstop,’ or guarantee in some way, BayStar’s investment…. Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar’s investment in SCO.”
–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO
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