01.16.11

Gemini version available ♊︎

Fog Computing a Materialisation of New Microsoft Lock-in Threats

Posted in Marketing, Microsoft, Servers at 1:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Snow flurries

Summary: Microsoft is trying to control people’s entire life — including health records — using Fog Computing as the marketing/excuse

AS we have shown over the past few years, Microsoft uses the server side to solidify lock-in that previous existed only at the client side. Microsoft found another AZune [sic] partner in spite of the departure of Ray Ozzie [1, 2, 3], which casts shadow upon it. A British Microsoft booster, Gavin Clarke, says that Microsoft co-opts NoSQL for AZune and following UK intervention from the likes of Richard Steele, parts of the British government is still in bed with AZune [1, 2] although it is mostly going underground and there is a similar arrangement reported by the United States Department of Agriculture [1, 2] (risking famine by Microsoft). Microsoft booster Mary Jo Foley promotes Azune too, but what else can be expected from her? Responsible journalism? No, it’s promotional.

One of the abominable areas where Microsoft tries to make the population depend on its existence is healthcare. It’s not a coincidence. If Microsoft can make people’s lives (e.g. health records) depend on its existence, then the company will be bailed out when it cannot repay its debt. Not so long ago Microsoft was treading on Canadian patients via Telus and the Calgary Herald has more to say (albeit not enough):

Telus and Microsoft partner to provide Canadians access to medical records

[...]

Telus wants to take medical records out of the filing cabinets of health-care providers and put them into the smartphones and laptops of patients.

Were clients asked for their consent? What happens when Microsoft employee leak this data, lose it, or take some of it home? It is inevitable, teaches history. What happens if/when Microsoft vanishes (no company lasts forever, unlike a healthcare system). There is another such bad decision being made, where the National Cancer Institute is signing a Microsoft deal, thus losing control of its own operations. Dana Blankenhorn says that Microsoft may even want to control the lives of Chinese patients now, based on this press release on the face of it. Here are two more examples of this kind. Microsoft is getting a lot of invaluable lock-in and pretending not to pursue profit with it. It’s about bailout, it’s about having people dependent on Microsoft. The abusive monopolist instantaneously becomes a matter of life or death to many, and that’s not a good thing at all. Who are the people that sign those deal? Therein lies the scandal. For that matter, Google’s analogous program for healthcare is not acceptable either. That too is proprietary and the software is run remotely. Will it take some death by ‘clouds’ to shake people a bit and pull their heads out of the fog? Why does Misys play along with Microsoft? No lessons learned from what happened to previous collaborators of Microsoft (press release is here by the way)?

“So, the question is whether Microsoft’s marketing efforts are good or bad for the cloud computing movement.”
      –Jeff Kaplan
David Linthicum’s headline alleges that “Microsoft is hijacking the cloud” and his summary says: “With TV commercials focused on the consumer, Redmond’s simplistic definition is obscuring the cloud’s full value”

Jeff Kaplan wonders “What Microsoft’s ‘To the Cloud’ Ads Really Promote” and the point he is making can be summarised as follows: “So, the question is whether Microsoft’s marketing efforts are good or bad for the cloud computing movement.”

Marketing Fog Computing is preaching ignorance, carelessness, and the following of someone else’s orders. Richard Stallman was correct when about 2 years ago he told the corporate press that Fog Computing was just marketing hype. More recently he wrote an insightful post on the subject. By that stage, more people have realised that he was right all along.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 29/05/2023: Snap and PipeWire Plans as Vendor Lock-in

    Links for the day



  2. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: GNU/Linux Pains and More

    Links for the day



  3. Links 29/05/2023: Election in Fedora, Unifont 15.0.04

    Links for the day



  4. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.1 and Smolver 1.2.1 Released

    Links for the day



  5. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, May 28, 2023



  6. Daniel Stenberg Knows Almost Nothing About Gemini and He's Likely Just Protecting His Turf (HTTP/S)

    The man behind Curl, Daniel Stenberg, criticises Gemini; but it's not clear if he even bothered trying it (except very briefly) or just read some inaccurate, one-sided blurbs about it



  7. Links 29/05/2023: Videos Catchup and Gemini FUD

    Links for the day



  8. Links 28/05/2023: Linux 6.4 RC4 and MX Linux 23 Beta

    Links for the day



  9. Gemini Links 28/05/2023: Itanium Day, GNUnet DHT, and More

    Links for the day



  10. Links 28/05/2023: eGates System Collapses, More High TCO Stories (Microsoft Windows)

    Links for the day



  11. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, May 27, 2023



  12. No More Twitter, Mastodon, and Diaspora for Tux Machines (Goodbye to Social Control Media)

    People would benefit from mass abandonment of such pseudo-social pseudo-media.



  13. Links 28/05/2023: New Wine and More

    Links for the day



  14. Links 27/05/2023: Plans Made for GNU's 40th Anniversary

    Links for the day



  15. Social Control Media Needs to be Purged and We Need to Convince Others to Quit It Too (to Protect Ourselves as Individuals and as a Society)

    With the Tux Machines anniversary (19 years) just days away we seriously consider abandoning all social control media accounts of that site, including Mastodon and Diaspora; social control networks do far more harm than good and they’ve gotten a lot worse over time



  16. Anonymously Travelling: Still Feasible?

    The short story is that in the UK it's still possible to travel anonymously by bus, tram, and train (even with shades, hat and mask/s on), but how long for? Or how much longer have we got before this too gets banned under the false guise of "protecting us" (or "smart"/"modern")?



  17. With EUIPO in Focus, and Even an EU Kangaroo Tribunal, EPO Corruption (and Cross-Pollination With This EU Agency) Becomes a Major Liability/Risk to the EU

    With the UPC days away (an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court system, tied to the European Union in spite of critical deficiencies) it’s curious to see EPO scandals of corruption spilling over to the European Union already



  18. European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Supported by the EPO's Applicants, So Why Is It Still There?

    This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different (“Patente ohne Wert”)



  19. EPO Applicants Complain That Patent Quality Sank and EPO Management Isn't Listening (Nor Caring)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German (here is the first of the batch); the following is the second of the three (“Kritik am Europäischen Patentamt – Patente ohne Wert?”)



  20. German Media About Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC) and the European Patent Office (EPO)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German; this is the first of the three (“Industrie kritisiert Europäisches Patentamt”)



  21. Geminispace Continues to Grow Even If (or When) Stéphane Bortzmeyer Stops Measuring Its Growth

    A Gemini crawler called Lupa (Free/libre software) has been used for years by Stéphane Bortzmeyer to study Gemini and report on how the community was evolving, especially from a technical perspective; but his own instance of Lupa has produced no up-to-date results for several weeks



  22. Links 27/05/2023: Goodbyes to Tina Turner

    Links for the day



  23. HMRC: You Can Click and Type to Report Crime, But No Feedback or Reference Number Given

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported 7 days ago to HMRC (equivalent to the IRS in the US, more or less); but there has been no visible progress and no tracking reference is given to identify the report



  24. IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, May 26, 2023



  25. One Week After Sirius Open Source Was Reported to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for Tax Fraud: No Response, No Action, Nothing...

    One week ago we reported tax abuses of Sirius ‘Open Source’ to HMRC; we still wait for any actual signs that HMRC is doing anything at all about the matter (Sirius has British government clients, so maybe they’d rather not look into that, in which case HMRC might be reported to the Ombudsman for malpractice)



  26. Links 26/05/2023: Weston 12.0 Highlights and US Debt Limit Panic

    Links for the day



  27. Gemini Links 26/05/2023: New People in Gemini

    Links for the day



  28. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, May 25, 2023



  29. Links 26/05/2023: Qt 6.5.1 and Subsystems in GNUnet

    Links for the day



  30. Links 25/05/2023: Mesa 23.1.1 and Debian Reunion

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts