07.29.10
Fedora’s Wildeboer Says Microsoft Uses Intel-Like Illegal Tactics to Marginalise Competition
Summary: “Acer has a contract with MSFT that only gives them deep discount when they pit Win on *all* machines,” alleges a Red Hat employee
Jan Wildeboer, who works for Red Hat, responded to Glyn Moody’s rant that Acer netbooks will dual-boot the Linux-based Android and Windows XP (instead of just Android as originally planned). The Windows part seems like the ‘freebie’, not Android, so Moody asks “and why, exactly?”
It sure seems like a form of dumping and the use of XP as opposed to Vista 7 matches what we already know about Windows that’s sold for $5 apiece, given away for free, or reportedly involves Microsoft paying the OEM to saddle all machines with Windows. There are different ways of “compensating” OEMs, or passing kickbacks.
Wildeboer says that Acer has a contract with Microsoft and that it “only gives them deep discount when they pit Win on *all* machines, so even when user only uses Android, it is still a +1 on MSFT license sales”
“Acer has a contract with MSFT that only gives them deep discount when they pit Win on *all* machines.”
–Jan WildeboerThat’s probably illegal because Microsoft is a monopoly. The recent Dell-Intel scandal helps defend such an accusation [1, 2].
Red Hat or Google can hopefully challenge such tactics in court. Wildeboer does not seem to believe it would be productive. He also claims that it “has been like that for 20 years now. DoJ ignores.”
Well, just over a decade ago Microsoft had cronies put inside the US Department of ‘Justice’ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] . Some say this can explain why no government lawsuit against Microsoft has been filed since then. The monopoly abuse carried on. █
“A lot of people make that analogy that competing with Bill Gates is like playing hardball. I’d say it’s more like a knife fight.”
–Gary Clow, famous Microsoft victim
Jose_X said,
July 29, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Where are the links to the original comment?
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
It’s in Identica. There has been more going on since then.
[jwildeboer] @schestowitz 140 chars are simply too short sometimes [schestowitz] @jwildeboer see http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Acer
[jwildeboer] @schestowitz Wow, so my guess is a fact
[jwildeboer] @schestowitz And I do guess that almost all hardware manufacturers have similar agreements. Seems tough to avoid the Windows tax, innit?
[jwildeboer] @schestowitz Page 8, “Per System royalty calc”, no (4) says Acer pays even for systems without Windows. That’s my point.
[jwildeboer] @schestowitz Big Q is how current agreement looks, #95 version is outdated I guess and has been replaced a few times?
[schestowitz] @jwildeboer yes, we have other OEM agreements too (Compaq, Dell, etc.)
Andrew Macabe said,
July 29, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Newegg ad of an 7″ ARM netbook also has windows ce installed
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=772&name=Netbooks&Page=6
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Android has more applications than Windows CE.
Andrew Macabe Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Yes it does. When I read your post about microsoft & ARM OEMs, I was wondering what was microsoft up to and it seems like they’re trying to keep GNU/Linux off ARM-based netbooks with CE
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
They have always wanted to do that, but it does not mean they’ll succeed.
Agent_Smith said,
July 29, 2010 at 10:33 pm
I guess not in ARM’s turf . They can’t try to embrace all the world. x86, Yes, they succeed, but ARM is another story. In ARM’s they’re a newcomer, and, they don’t have legacy apps, their strenght in x86 market.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz said,
July 30, 2010 at 12:42 am
Update: I mistakenly had the wrong name in the drop/blockquote. It now says “Jan Wildeboer”.