09.27.10
Posted in Microsoft at 8:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Have chairs been thrown yet?
Summary: A “Microsoft startup guru” is leaving the company and so does Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Mobile Services
MORE layoffs are said to be coming Microsoft’s way [1, 2, 3] and some people are already leaving, including the man whom VentureBeat calls Microsoft’s “Silicon Valley ambassador” and the Microsoft boosters call “Microsoft startup guru”.
There is an addition to the many Microsoft departures at a President or Vice President level. Many such people have been leaving since the Vista debacle and we have a Wiki page for tracking some of the names.
The significant departures resume. This times it’s Arbogast, Corporate Vice President of Mobile Services, who calls it quits:
Arbogast’s latest title was the Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Mobile Services.In that role, Arbogast was in charge of “the mobile services strategy, platform, and experiences for Windows Live and Windows Mobile, as well as the strategy, platform, and integrated services for network operators and other syndication partners.”
The next rebranded (Seven-washed) release of Windows Mobile is not even out yet and release time is unknown. A lot of executives behind Vista Phone 7 [sic] are already out of the company and everything in the product is still in a crude state (more on that in a separate post). Microsoft Nick parrots Mary Jo Microsoft and adds more recent departures for context.
ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley spotted the posting and mentioned speculation that Arbogast might end up joining other former ‘Softies at Yahoo. (All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher reported Sept. 9 that John Matheny, general manager of the Windows Phone app studio, had left Redmond for Yahoo. That story was overshadowed by the departure of Stephen Elop, former president of the Microsoft Business Division, to become CEO of Nokia.)
The next post will deal with Microsoft entryism that Microsoft departures lead to. In particular, it will deal with the ill effects of Stephen Elop inside Nokia. █
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Posted in Deception, Mail, Microsoft at 8:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft creates a LinkedIn tie-up, not just a Facebook tie-up; it pays people to use its services and security in Microsoft’s Web services is shown to be poor nonetheless (the company lobbies to slacken privacy laws)
HAVING recently hooked up with Facebook by sharing some more data*, Microsoft now turns to LinkedIn. Microsoft Emil (Protalinski) and other Microsoft boosters from Seattle write about that. It’s an attempt to integrate Web services with components of Microsoft Office and other such instances:
LinkedIn integrated with Windows Live, Facebook chat hits Hotmail
Microsoft has started rolling out multiple updates for the web services complementing Windows and Office. Over the last few months, the software giant has been regularly updating these services, but the number of features just announced implies today’s releases are not a coincidence.
There is a similar treatment of Twitter as well (they pass data directly to Microsoft for example). A little later we’ll write about security problems in Twitter. “Survey Finds Low Use of Microsoft Encryption Technology,” says IDG and one of the company’s former interns says that Microsoft admits that the Live@edu scam is not encrypted on servers.
Microsoft’s head lawyer is working to change the law [1, 2] right now, in order to reduce privacy. This would help Microsoft when details about its clients leak, as they so often do.
“Facebook will give access to information which is otherwise quite private in order to help Microsoft’s Bong [sic].”Yesterday we wrote about the implications of Microsoft controlling Yahoo!. There too exists some data for Microsoft to mine, not just in Facebook, which helps Microsoft’s privacy intrusion [1, 2]. Facebook will give access to information which is otherwise quite private in order to help Microsoft’s Bong [sic]. Furthermore, the fake donation tricks we alluded to earlier will be used to advance Bong. IDG and Mary Jo Microsoft play along with Microsoft’s tricks, flaunting bribe and putting it euphemistically, hidden under “donation” banners (“avoid Google to help the world” so to speak). The conditions for entry are also troubling (thanks to Will for this link), but the Microsoft spin from MSNBC/Fool says, “Use Bing, Get Rich” (silly headline given what’s actually involved ). MSNBC does not want to touch Silverlight (Silverlight it going nowhere), but it sure advertised it a few days ago by glorifying Netflix (Silverlight pusher with former Microsoft employees in charge).
The content of articles says “(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)” Does that help magically eliminate bias or at least just warn about it? Some other blogs are referring to these latest changes as rather minor while Mary Jo Microsoft is spinning this as featureful and some describe it as a response to complaints, at least in Hotmail’s case:
Microsoft has plastered Hotmail with yet more updates, after customers continued to complain about the firm’s recent shaky overhaul of its free web email service.
The software vendor didn’t want to draw too much attention to those gripes, by instead saying it had responded to user “feedback”
“Feedback” as in complaints [1, 2]. As always, watch out for hype. It’s Microsoft’s and Apple’s main output. █
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* One news site’s headline asks, “In social media, is Facebook becoming the new Microsoft?”
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Novell at 6:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately [sic].”
–Miguel de Icaza
Summary: The joining of former Microsoft employees to advance Microsoft APIs inside GNU/Linux; fear of the GPL also somewhat intensified for the selling of proprietary software from Microsoft-connected companies
IN OUR previous posts about Likewise we explained that it’s a proprietary (‘open’ core) company which has roots in Microsoft and helps Microsoft battle Samba with software patents. Not surprisingly, based on this new Likewise post about VMware (managed by former Microsoft employees), for VMware to own Mono (by buying part of Novell) would be beneficial. The Source has responded to this as follows:
Now, by the authors own admission in the article, he has a “pro-Microsoft-tools bias”, but I think the future of Mono depends on a large pimp commercial sponsor, and if VMWare is assembling a SUSE+Mono foundation that is troublesome for Free Software.
That’s just an example of Mono promotion from companies that have roots in Microsoft. Not all Mono promotion is tied to Microsoft (SparkleShare as a new example seems connected to neither Microsoft nor Novell [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]), but a lot of it is. There are some major Mono projects that were created by former Microsoft staff. In the same vein, a lot of people’s fears of the GPL come from companies whose founders/CEOs are from Microsoft. One example is Black Duck, which organises this new event that Roberto Galoppini mentions:
Risk & Compliance: Managing Open Source – In this webinar, co-hosted by Black Duck Software, Bird & Bird and Clearvision, will discuss open source governance and OSS policy development.
Galoppini has also compared CodePlex and Google Code recently. Here is what was said about it:
Codeplex does the same thing, he found. Its box lists the Microsoft licenses that are no longer popular, according to Black Duck Software. And it doesn’t list more popular licenses like the Artistic License or GPLv3.
Black Duck Software previously copied without permission a GPLv3 database from a competitor (Palamida). Then, Black Duck advertised itself as an authority on these matters. This helped control people’s perception of the GPLv3′s success.
Galoppini further notes that an “OpenLogic webinar will discuss the key issues associated with mobile apps, app stores, and open source compliance.”
We wrote about this some weeks ago, noting that it was creating unnecessary fear.
“Black Duck Software previously copied without permission a GPLv3 database from a competitor (Palamida).”Right now, citing the likes of Black Duck with Microsoft roots (OpenLogic’s CEO is from Microsoft as well), there is commenting about the threat from Free software licences (real and perceived). For a change, CodePlex’/Microsoft’s Stephen Walli went a little against some FUD. IDG’s pseudo-open source blog (whose authors include OpenLogic and Black Duck people) has a new post from Microsoft’s Walli who maintains that “Open Source” licensing is actually not all that bad, but then again, Walli is assigned to look at Microsoft’s repository and try to attract Open Source developers to it. Microsoft’s general policy is different [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
Lastly, there is proprietary software from Protecode [1, 2]. It does something similar to Black Duck and OpenLogic, but unlike those two, it appears to have no connections to Microsoft (only by product support, not staff). A new release has just been announced:
Protecode, Inc., a solution provider for managing open source software licenses, today announced a significant new capability that will enable software development organizations to view their code from a pure license obligation perspective reported in plain English. Expected to be released this month, the Protecode System 4™ License Obligations Report (LOR) displays information entirely in terms of licensing obligations, unlike conventional license reports that are generally organized by software structure and content.
In order to comply with the licence, one thing any company can do is ensure it spreads Free software, unlike Protecode. The GPL, for example, is designed to encourage that. █
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Posted in Hardware, Marketing, Microsoft at 5:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The real story about “Halo: Reach”
Summary: Microsoft stops concentrating on Xbox 360 (and to some extent KINect, which is behind) and instead it is trying to sell a game
LAST week we wrote about fake Halo hype. A lot of money got spent on a lot on marketing, so the hype machine was busy and it was used to affect the stock as well.
“‘Halo: Reach’ doesn’t deserve all the praise,” says the headline from TampaBay.com and GamaSutra.com publishes “Analysis: Is Microsoft Putting Halo At Risk?”
“All that Microsoft can do is spew a lot of other news to overshadow what it does not want people to see and talk about it.”There are more reports this week about ‘disc read’ errors [1, 2, 3]. “HD constraint affects Microsoft Halo series” says another new headline. All that Microsoft can do is spew a lot of other news to overshadow what it does not want people to see and talk about it.
The negativity got sidelined to a certain extent by the marketing blitz, most of which was about future release frequency [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Can Microsoft really use another studio to reinvent itself? It would not be so profitable and commitment to PC gaming is still doubted by some.
In the article “Bungie’s Halo slips”, the author is again slipping in/dropping unbacked figures from Microsoft (rave numbers like the ones we saw years ago, calculated using fuzzy maths):
SOME OF the $200+ million worth of Halo: Reach discs sold don’t blooming work, meaning that rather than be able to play as Noble 6, users have to suffer the ignominy of trawling through forums for help.
[...]
We’ve asked Microsoft in the UK whether this is a disc problem or a hardware problem, and requested information about what frustrated users should do if they don’t want to call a US phone number.
We are still waiting for a response from Microsoft.
When it comes to the Xbox franchise, there is no indication that they will even stay in the market (no plan for future hardware, just procrastination from Microsoft’s UK boss).
EA says that Sony’s Playstation 3 can beat Xbox 360 even in the UK where the Japanese consoles are relatively weak in terms of sales [1, 2].
“It is clear that in terms of sales Nintendo is the winner and on technical grounds, Sony is ahead.”Rather than brag about international sales figures, Microsoft talks mostly about the US and right now it speaks of individual games rather than console sales (which it only speaks about in context/relation to this game). It is clear that in terms of sales Nintendo is the winner and on technical grounds, Sony is ahead. To quote one new article, “Sony’s Playstation Move does beat rival Microsoft’s Kinect to the table by a good two months—ignoring, of course, that both have been trumped by Nintendo’s Wii since the console’s birth in late 2006 (and the launch of its Wii MotionPlus controller add-on in June of 2009, which builds an additional gyroscope onto the console’s motion controllers).”
The “Move” receives overwhelmingly good reviews (whereas KINect is said to be unready for production due to bugs and Milo is said to be dead already). From NYDailyNews.com: “Hence the PlayStation Move, Sony’s foray into motion controls, arrived with much ballyhoo last week, and after spending plenty of time with the gizmo, I’m definitely impressed. It’s not the sheer leap forward that Microsoft is attempting with the no-hands Kinect that will be released later this month, but the Move is definitely the pinnacle of motion-sensing technology.”
When all that Microsoft can speak about (and spend a lot of money marketing) is one single game, no wonder Sony ridicules them (for the huge spendings on marketing). It’s hard to tell just how much money Microsoft has lost on Xbox already; just being in the market is not enough for making money (as in a profit) and loads of Xbox executives have been leaving lately. It speaks volumes, unlike all the hype. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Marketing, Microsoft at 4:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A sample of new ‘donations’ from Microsoft and an exposé from the British press about what happens to money Bono is given for charity
LATER on in the week we are going to deal with the Gates Foundation separately. Today, we shall start by focusing on the man who was famously shown on the cover of Time along with Bill and Melinda. The British press is currently exposing his charity as somewhat of a farce. He got caught in a ‘charity’ scandal and current news headlines include:
1. BONO CHARITY SPENDS MORE ON WAGES THAN GOOD CAUSES
2. BONO’S ONE CAMPAIGN GETS £10M DONATIONS BUT GIVES JUST £118K
Another charity effort gone awry? Well, in Gates’ case it is even more complex because a lot gets spent on publicity (i.e. controlling stories in the press to eliminate or wash aside legitimate criticism). But there are many other factors. Either way, the party best known for fake donations would be Microsoft in our case. Later on we are going to write again about Bong [sic] bribes, which the company labels “charity”. Looking at last week’s news we find several more examples of this kind.
“Microsoft donates to Tutorial Center” says this one headline, but it’s utter nonsense. They are ‘donating’ copies of something which costs nothing to reproduce. Worse — they are donating Office lock-in. “The software, valued at $57,000, are for TTC’s Microsoft Office Suite applications and Windows 7 for both Macintosh and PC computers,” says the article. This is no donation, it’s just PR. Microsoft has already explained its views on counterfeiting.
“They are ‘donating’ copies of something which costs nothing to reproduce.”For PR value that’s akin to what’s gained from American EDGI [1, 2, 3, 4], Microsoft is now exploiting the situation in Britain [1,
2] and it is pushing its lock-in into more academic environments, brainwashing young people inside the school system, at taxpayers’ expense.
As one last example of fake donations from Microsoft, consider the Russia NGOs spin [1, 2]. This Microsoft PR success story is still in the news [1, 2] as they don’t tell the original story anymore. Rather than report about Microsoft cracking down on political opposition the story told is one about Microsoft ‘donation’.
It often seems like donation is ~90% about publicity and a lot less about practical gain to society. These proportions may vary depending on individual cases and generalisations help not at all. In Microsoft’s case, the so-called ‘donations’ do great long-term harm. They may injure more than they actually help. █
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Posted in Microsoft at 3:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s efforts to control the Web are falling flat on their face; we judge this also based on the past week’s news
Silverlight has become either a niche or a dead product by now [1, 2, 3]. Success stories or major new clients have been hard to come by for well over a year; it’s almost unheard of. In one whole week, the only headline with “Silverlight” in it was a press release and it was mentioned briefly in another (no headline match). That’s the symptom of a product that does not matter anymore. When all that a product can do for publicity is get this kind of puff piece, i.e. a sort of advertisement for BizSpark (not news), then it is practically part of the past. We saw that with Surface for example. There are many other examples though. A few days ago we noticed that the Microsoft press (Redmond) had begun advertising BizTalk, courtesy of Kurt Mackie [1, 2, 3]. This publication long ago quit pretending that the press is independently reporting on Microsoft, so does that count at all?
Another product we have been tracking is hosting (in its different forms) from Microsoft, which has suffered many downtimes recently [1, 2]. That too is somewhat of a niche, at least for the time being. “Azure” for example was mentioned just once too (in a whole week’s stock of headlines). This one too seems to have become somewhat of a niche product. GNU/Linux-based equivalents are well ahead in that regard and Microsoft can only try to trash-talk or attempt to extract a patent tax from those.
In all the above examples we continue to see attempts by Microsoft to gain power on the Web. All these attempts are failing. In a later post we are going to give some numbers. For the time being, the take-home message is that Microsoft still fails on the Internet. It had high ambitions some years ago. █
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09.26.10
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu at 9:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Gripes that Glyn Moody and Groklaw are having because of proprietary (ish) tendencies at Canonical, ones that can easily be corrected
Glyn Moody is quite stubborn on matters of language (grammar, euphemisms, poetry, etc.) and knowing that counterfeiting is very different from theft he had to tell them apart and he therefore had to respond to Canonical’s COO Matt Asay (who almost went to work for Microsoft) after he had said that: “I don’t mean to diminish the wrong nature of stealing software. Theft is theft and should be punished.”
Having recently taken to task the BSA and IDC for fake claims, he responded politely (as did we) by arguing that:
It is very hard to steal software: unless you creep into a computer store and steal the boxes (do they still exist?). As you know, what really happens is that somebody makes a copy of software: that is not theft, of course, that is copyright infringement. If I make a copy of a piece of software, the original still exists, but there is now a copy that I have. I have stolen nothing – I’ve actually created something – but I *have* infringed on copyright.
But wait, you will say, when you make that perfect copy you are *effectively* stealing the money that you would have paid for a legal copy. Except that you yourself write: “$1 in “lost” licensed revenue would not magically become $1 in proprietary software sales if piracy were reduced. It’s very likely that users would elect to spend their money elsewhere.” Exactly: couldn’t have put it better myself. You can’t start talking about that money that wasn’t spent as if it were real and concrete: it’s not, it’s notional.
Of course, it is probably true that some fraction of the people with pirated copies *would* have bought genuine ones had they not made the copy: so that is truly lost revenue. But it also probably true that pirated copies act as marketing samplers and encourage other people to buy legitimate copies that they wouldn’t otherwise have bought – to get support, updates etc. (Indeed, in the world of music, there are half a dozen studies that suggest this is the case.) After all, giving away software for free is the basis of many businesses based around open source.
Calling copyright infringement “theft” really plays into the hands of organisations like the BSA that put out these deliberately misleading studies. “Theft” is an emotive word that biases the reader against the people involved. If you call it “copyright infringement”, and note that copyright is a time-limited, state-granted *monopoly* – and I think everyone accepts that monopolies are generally bad things – then copyright infringement simply means infringing on a monopoly. That’s a rather different emotional bundle, I think, and a better one to place in opposition to the BSA’s manipulations.
In his article, Asay makes the point that Free software resolves this issue of counterfeiting altogether, but sadly enough he cites Gartner for support, despite mocking it some years back (and rightly do). The other obvious issue starts when he calls copying of software “piracy”. He will hopefully abstain from doing this in the future.
Since his appointment at Canonical we have been worried about Asay because of his professional history and many things that he wrote (still visible to the public for verification purposes). There are proprietary elements that Asay embraces, such as ‘open’ core, Fog Computing, and the love/admiration for Apple. In relation to the Diaspora contributor agreement, Groklaw has also just complained about Canonical’s contributor agreement (which other developers recently complained about). Pamela Jones wrote: “Canonical’s is also disturbing to me. You assign copyright to Canonical and you retain the right to use it yourself. But look what Canonical can do: Read the FAQ, question and answer 6: “Does clause 6 allow Canonical to potentially lock away my contributions under a proprietary license? — Answer: No — Canonical can’t lock away your contributions under this agreement, because of clause 2. Canonical could use your contributions in a proprietary program, but the contributions would remain distributable by you under other licenses (thanks to clause 2), and thus be available for use elsewhere.” So it’s open core also.”
It is important to ensure this this widely-used GNU/Linux distribution does not become the antithesis of Free software. It’s always a temptation for the horse that’s in the lead. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Finance, Microsoft at 9:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: One more time the press should be reminded that Bill Gates lobbying for heavier taxation on the rich works wonders for him as he does not need to pay tax either way
LAST WEEK we explained that despite tax exemptions that the Gates family enjoys, the press totally fails to understand the position taken by this family when it lobbies for change [1, 2, 3, 4] (which works well for anyone who is exempted from tax). Ballmer and Gates Sr. are in opposite situations/circumstances, so to spread disinformation about one caring about the public and another not caring about it would be totally clueless. But that’s just what a lot of the press in Washington (including many Microsoft boosters) are doing this weekend and last week as well. A lot of spin comes from there.
“Ballmer and Gates Sr. are in opposite situations/circumstances, so to spread disinformation about one caring about the public and another not caring about it would be totally clueless.”Here are the latest articles from Seattle [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], from AP via Seattle (here too), and other outlets which surely have not done enough homework, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4]. The really interesting story here is that not just the father of Bill Gates wants others to make up for his tax dodge anymore; Bill Jr. is joining him too and they are both de facto tax evaders thanks to the Gates Foundation whose tax avoidance is similar to Microsoft’s (legalised but clearly unfair and unethical).
Why is the media whitewashing Gates for policy laundering? Has so much of the media been paid/'bought' by him that his actions and image are untouchable now? His dad too is involved in this foundation, but the latest news is that both are now actively working to tax their peers while they enjoy their special, lobbied-for rules. As we’ll show later this week, Gates’ wealth continues to grow while the media characterises him as a giver.
It’s truly a travesty and it is Bill Gates’ spit in the face of citizens of Washington, to whom he hardly offers jobs anymore, he just fired them and then hired from abroad to save himself money, passing all the state’s benefits to people whom he brought in a visa by cursing the intelligence of people from Washington. █
“My background is finance and accounting. As a socially conscious venture capitalist and philanthropist, I have a very good understanding of wealth management and philanthropy. I started my career in 1967 with the IRS as a specialist in taxation covering many areas of the tax law including the so-called legal loopholes to charitable giving. […] However, the Gates Buffet foundation grant is nothing more than a shell game in which control of assets for both Gates and Buffet remain the same. […] The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes.”
The Gates and Buffet Foundation Shell Game
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