06.22.11

Apple May Receive Penalties for Market Abuses While Microsoft’s Abuses Carry on Unabated

Posted in Antitrust, Apple, Microsoft, Windows at 6:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“We’ve always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

–Steve Jobs, Apple

Summary: Software ‘thieves’ get aggressive and also get sued for their abuses; somehow, Mirosoft is getting off the hook

APPLE WAS NEVER a nice company. It was never an innovative company, either. In other words, it does not really contribute much to technology, it is an imitator that excels at marketing (a non-producing industry). Apple is about branding and at times about “enforcing” those brands, where enforcement is merely a euphemism for bullying. Consider those Chinese factories that Apple had shut down, for hypocritically claiming them to be ‘stealing’. Here is a new video that we shared earlier about this subject: [thanks to TinyOgg]

Putting new cartoons about Apple aside, there is nothing funny about what Apple is doing and we have exposed Apple’s dark side in this Web site for at least four years. Apple’s hypnosis sure is powerful and it suppresses critics in ways we explained before. This new cry from Amahi says that it has just been hit by a cease and desist nastygram from Apple. And here’s why:

After the first shock, the questions start to emerge, like … What!? … or … why Amahi?

Long story short, Apple has to show they are defending a trademark claim they have on that term. Microsoft filed a motion to oppose that trademark claim in January, among other things stating that the two words separately are generic[1], that the 2-word term is also generic in English, that it’s widely used by consumers, by the press and in the software industry to refer to the many app stores available today, and that even Steve Jobs used it in a generic way to refer to other app stores. All possible reasons to not grant the claim. Later, Amazon launched their Appstore for Android in March, and Apple filed a lawsuit against Amazon. Here is an article with a brief history of the claimed trademark. Update: apparently, Nokia is also contesting the mark in Europe.

Shame on Apple, the branding company. Without the brand, Apple’s products are just commodity PCs with a greatly inflated price and ripoff versions of BSD — or a version which is typically filled with other software that Apple merely exploited. Apple is very glad to take things from others, even vocabulary. The company is a hoarder, probably like many of its stereotypical clients. “Apple Sued In India For Practising Unfair Competition,” informed us this new article. Very well. To quote:

The Competition Commission of India, or CCI, a seven-member body that has been formed to keep anti-competitive acts at bay has found a defaulter in Apple, the manufacturer of the iPad and the iPhone. Apple’s sales practices are being questioned by the committee, and Apple has been reprimanded for practicing unfair competition in the Indian market.

According to the report prepared by the committee, Apple’s movements in a market, as competitive as India are seemingly unfair, in the sense that, its products are being made available only through a few, handpicked service providers, in addition to their own signature stores.

This site adds that the Competition Commission of India should sue Microsoft too:

The Competition Commission of India, or CCI, a seven-member body that has been formed to keep anti-competitive acts at bay has found a defaulter in Apple, the manufacturer of the iPad and the iPhone. Apple’s sales practices are being questioned by the committee, and Apple has been reprimanded for practising unfair competition in the Indian market.

This report raises several questions. Is the commission really serious about anti-competitive business practices or its driven by the desire to be able to buy shiny, expensive and proprietary Apple toys with greater ease?

If the commission is really serious about anti-competitive business practices, why can’t the commission see Microsoft’s practices as killing competition? Indian users, who want to install Linux on their machines, are forced to pay Microsoft Tax, as you can’t buy a system without Microsoft’s Windows pre-installed on it. Why is CCI not suing Microsoft and hardware vendors to not force Indian users to pay the Microsoft tax?

Why can’t the commission see Microsoft’s anti-competitive business practices where most government sites endorse or support the usage of Microsoft insecure Internet Explorer and not ensure fair competition by making it mandatory that sites must support all popular browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox and Google Chrome?

Just the other day we wrote about Microsoft's unethical/illegal bundling tactics. Here we see this again in Europe:

A no-OS-computer? You must be a pirate!

After reading this piece about a Linux keyboard PC , I got excited. I’ve been looking for a nice computer that is sold without any operating system so that I can install my own. Yes, I’m aware of the existence of System76 (Ubuntu systems) and ZaReason (several Linux offers), but I wanted to try something else. Thus, I checked the vendor’s page and, sure enough, there was a “NO OS” option. With a high heart, I selected the components of the system and submitted my request waiting to receive the quote with the price.

A day later, I received it and, with it, there came a surprise. The price was satisfactory ($555), but they had included Windows 7 Professional 32 bits and were charging me for it!

This abuse has got to end. We no longer live in a world where people can be assumed to be Windows users. Windows is a declining platform with artificial hype that is intended to create a perception that it’s actually desired. It’s part of the lobbying effort that falsely convinces regulators that Windows is what customers really always want.

To Apple’s credit, it hardly forces people to buy its products. Its founder is not rallying politicians to abuse the education system and turn it into taxpayers-funded indoctrination of children for use of his own products, unlike that other dangerous charlatan. Bill Gates “acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was,”said Ed Roberts, Gates’ employer at MITS in the 1970′s

Another reason to crack down on Microsoft is its current patent abuses. The patent extortion is clearly a sign of Microsoft’s imminent death, but while the company is dying it is trying to destroy other companies along with it. We already know that patent extortion is the last thing companies do before they implode.They just cannot yield anything of real substantial value.

“The patent extortion is clearly a sign of Microsoft’s imminent death, but while the company is dying it is trying to destroy other companies along with it.”To summarise the key findings we’ve put together in this Web site, Bill Gates, world’s biggest extortionist who misuses a $500,000,000,000/annum education budget to indoctrinate the young and lobby for companies like Monsanto (for profit) so that even all our food becomes patented, i.e. taxed, also created the world’s biggest patent troll, with whom he lobbies against elimination of software patents this month. Their plan it to turn Windows tax into patent tax on all technology. US citizens ought to report them to the authorities and explain these abuses to family/friends. These bullies see themselves as overly entitled and they control the government with their money. Bill Gates also spends on average $1 million per day buying the press, not donating (the money which would otherwise go towards taxes).. It’s a reputation laundering operation that distracts the public. Having seen the writings on the wall ($18 billion in losses for MSFT in 1998) they move on to their next scheme for world domination. Just over a decade ago Gates faced the government after he committed his crime; now that he is whitewashing his image no regulators dare to approach him. If that’s not scary, what is? Regulators are scared of him. They don’t punish Microsoft. █

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