05.20.13
Microsoft Entryism and Bribery Get the Microsoft Way Implemented
Violent revolution by Microsoft, CIA style
Summary: A recollection of very dirty tactics from Microsoft, which uses money to oppress, overthrow, and even hijack its opposition
Paul E. Singer (aka “Elliott“, a misnomer for a bunch predatory investors) can be accused of letting Microsoft grab Novell’s patent portfolio through CPTN. More recently we saw this vulture preying on another company and now we see it destroying BMC for personal gain. The Microsoft booster (only occasional) at the Financial Times says: ‘The deal marks a success for Elliott Management, the activist investor that accumulated 9.6 per cent of BMC shares and won two seats on the company’s board.”
That’s entryism. Pamela Jones wrote about it that “Elliott Management forced the Novell deal too. Since Microsoft was involved in all that, what is the real purpose of all this?”
Novell is no longer a focus of ours. We mostly ignore articles about SUSE, taking a passive approach. But Novell’s patents and the tactics of entryism cannot be ignored. Microsoft is now doing to Nokia what it did to Novell and at the end of the day we are left dealing with just another SCO. Here is some more coverage about Novell and SCO, courtesy of Jones:
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SCO: But waitaminnit, yer Honor
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The Novell v. Microsoft Hearing at the 10th Circuit – Eyewitness Report ~pj
Our own Justin Ellis attended today’s hearing at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Novell’s appeal in Novell v. Microsoft. This is the antitrust litigation Novell brought over WordPerfect. He has a report for us. He begins with his general impressions, and then provides his notes on the arguments.
What we have learned from those two cases is that Microsoft can turn opponents (like Nokia) into allies using entryism, essentially an infiltration and/or bribe. Microsoft funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars for Novell to change teams after Novell had become a fierce antitrust opponent of Microsoft and Microsoft paid tens of millions of dollars to SCO when it attacked Linux with empty copyright claims. More recently Microsoft also bribed Barnes & Noble to defect from legal action against Microsoft to a Microsoft alliance or even a sale to Microsoft (see [1, 2, 3] for background). Not too long ago Barnes & Noble complained about the patent system and shortly thereafter Microsoft tried to abduct and silence the company for good. Regarding the news that “Microsoft Mulling Nook Media LLC Purchase For $1 Billion” Pamela Jones wrote: “And so Microsoft kills off another Linux-based offering in the market, just as its deal with Nokia killed off another. Anti-trust regulators, are you noticing the subtle strategy?” Regarding the news that Microsoft claims to be making billions from Android ‘licensing’ (extortion), Pamela Jones wrote: “To regulators: please notice that it is Microsoft and Apple who are claiming that Motorola is asking for unconscionable amounts of money. But Microsoft is making much, much more per device. Remember that they claim if they had to pay Motorola less than this per device, somewhere between $3.50 and $4.00 per unit, they couldn’t stay in business. So, the question before you has to be, is Microsoft using patents to destroy its chief competition? And NO ONE has tested these patents to determine if they are even valid. It’s all done by bullying. Barnes & Noble revealed that the patents shown to them by Microsoft were junk, that they didn’t want them, use them or need them. Please look into this. Thank you.”
What Microsoft does is almost certainly illegal, but since it takes a lot of lawyers and lobbyists to enforce the law against criminal corporations, it is unlikely that anything other than a large corporations can successful press charges against Microsoft executives, leading to a jail term (e.g. for racketeering, bribery, and so on). We see this quite frequently in the energy and banking sectors. The law is not being practised (or practised only in one direction), hence it’s just relish. █
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