Summary: Intel, which has been promoting software patents, buys some from RealNetworks

CHIPMAKING monopolist Intel, a corrupt company that lobbies for software patents [1, 2], is reportedly buying some software patents [1, 2] from a familiar company. The general observation is that Intel is unlikely to use those patents against Linux or Free software in general, so it’s better off in Intel’s hands than in the hands of some patent trolls or Linux foes like Apple and Microsoft. █

• How M$’s Empire is Crumbling

  M$ can raise its prices for years to come to keep the money rolling in from the suckers but they cannot lock in more users it seems. Consider this. In October, Wikimedia records 91% of visits were “non-mobile”, mostly that other OS. 9% were “mobile”, mostly not that other OS. In October a year ago, the numbers were 95.2% and 4.8%. M$ is losing 5% share per annum on the move to mobile alone. In 2010, M$ had 84.29% share but now have 78.38% share, down about 6% per annum.

  See also this article.

• M$ Verging on Irrelevance

  Asked early in 2011 what consumers thought of that other OS on a tablet, 45% were interested. Now, the number is 25%. At that rate of decline, interest will be ~10% by the time M$ moves its bowels to deliver “8″.

• Science

  • GmailTex, a nifty toy to show Latex in Gmail.

  • Safecast: Global sensor network collects and shares radiation data via CC0

    Multiple sources of data are always better and more accurate when aggregated.

• Hardware

  • 2012 Will Be A Great Year in IT

    Remember when ASUS shook the world with the announcement of GNU/Linux on a netbook? Well, that will look like a teardrop compared to the flood of innovation 2012 will bring. Expect Android/Linux and GNU/Linux on ARM to intrude into the desktop/notebook space previously dominated by Wintel

• Security

  • CNet/Download.com bundles malware with free software as “CNet Installer”

• Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Seymour Hersh: Propaganda Used Ahead of Iraq War Is Now Being Reused over Iran’s Nuke Program

    UK politicians are also pushing for war.

  • Israel is denying the Palestinian Authority $100 million in taxes owed

  • 5-Year-Old Handcuffed, Charged With Battery On Officer

    A foolish “Scared straight” stunt whent wrong.

• Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Kyoto protocol round up

  • Industrial pollution ‘costs UK billions each year’

    Health and environmental damage from industry costs up to €18bn a year, according to the European environment agency

  • A second person dies of brain eating amoebas from Tap Water.

    Naegleria fowleri is primarily a tropical disease but as the climate warms up, tropical diseases are moving north. Naegleria fowleri needs 80F water to cause infection

• Finance

  • The large banks, while shamming concern about global heating, have invested heavily in increased coal burning.

  • Wall Street Recidivists

    Many big Wall Street firms have settled fraud cases brought by the government with a promise to never violate the same law. But an analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission documents by The New York Times found that since 1996, there have been at least 51 repeat violations by those firms.

    Massachusetts has sued the big US banks for foreclosure fraud.

  • The European Union has created a “debt crisis” to impose austerity.

    As with the manufactured debt ceiling crisis in the United States, the E.C.B. is withholding relief in order to extort austerity measures from member governments—and the threat seems to be working.

  • Bernanke: There Was No ‘Secret’ Bank Bailout, And It Was Only $1.5 Trillion

    Claims everyone knew what was going on but no one else can count. The only mystery, supposedly, was who was getting the money but it’s now revealed that the money went to McDonalds. Gee, thanks.

  • Economists Statement in Support of Occupy Wall Street

    We are economists who oppose ideological cleansing in the economics profession. Equally we oppose political cleansing in the vital debate over the cause and consequences of our current economic crisis.

    We support the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country and across the globe to liberate the economy from the short-term greed of the rich and powerful one percent.

    We oppose cynical and perverse attempts to misuse our police officers and public servants to expel advocates of the public good from our public spaces.

    We extend our support to the vision of building an economy that works for the people, for the planet, and the future, and we declare our solidarity with the Occupiers who are exercising our democratic right to demand economic and social justice.

• Anti-Trust

  • Canadian Supreme Court to hear Microsoft Case

  • Verizon now claims they are not blocking Google Wallet — but you can’t use it either.

• PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the PM

    Special undercover investigation: Executives from Bell Pottinger reveal ‘dark arts’ they use to burnish reputations of countries accused of human rights violations [and] to bury bad coverage and influence public opinion.

    They claim to be able to manipulate Google results and Wikipedia, manipulate weak minded politicians, create doubt with unimportant details, to run fake blogs and all that other Arron Barr trash. Because they also claim to be true belivers in their clients, they are themselves the most manipulated party.

• Censorship

  • RMS recommends signing this petition against SOPA

    Please sign it too. Almost a million people have.

  • Vint Cerf spoke against SOPA, and seizure of domain names in general.

  • Kspersky Quits BSA over support of SOPA

  • More Collateral Damage From SOPA: People With Print Disabilities And Human Rights Groups

    The first is that Bookshare, an online library for people who can’t read standard print books … Bookshare is legal in the US, but that doesn’t stop authors, agents or publishers who don’t know much about people with disabilities or copyright law sending cease and desist letters. … Benetech develops free software to help human rights activists around the world safely record stories of human rights abuse. … when asked if we know whether or not there are “pirated” copyrighted materials, we can’t say. … [under SOPA] If any single publisher or author of any one of the more than 130,000 accessible books in our library gets antsy, they can send a notice to VISA and MasterCard and say, stop money from going to Benetech and Bookshare.

    This article uses the propaganda term “piracy” for sharing. The point of SOPA is to give publishers the power to shut down whoever they want and that is unacceptable.

  • Big publishers Censor the Web in Belgium by DNS

    A few days after the verdict was announced The Pirate Bay registered depiraatbaai.be, a new domain not covered by the court order. Today, just a few weeks later, this domain is already the 124th most-visited in Belgium, on its way to enter the top 100.

  • Police in Kashmir attacked journalists, as they often do.

  • Apple is censoring information about abortion providers,

  • TV manager put on trial for showing a movie

• Privacy

  • Cyber Intelligence Bill Threatens Privacy and Civilian Control

    [a bill] permitting ISPs to funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls. The bill does not specify which agencies ISPs could disclose customer data to, but the structure and incentives in the bill raise a very real possibility that the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand would be the primary recipient.

    “Cybersecurity” is impossible as long as people run Windows, but government wants weak security for spying on citizens.

  • Facebook Security Flaw Reveals Zuckerberg’s private Photos.

  • IMDb and Amazon vs. the “Ageless Actress”

    She claims that her age was requested as part of the routine sign-up sequence along with credit card, address, and other related data, and that it was not made clear that IMDb claimed the right to then use this information in their public database. When she asked them to remove this data from public view, IMDb reportedly declined. … Amazon seems to be largely “blowing off” concerns about their behavior in this matter, and worse, is attempting to preemptively shift blame to the plaintiff.

  • Open data in the UK means giving your medical records to drug companies.

    If the Coalition’s plan is implemented, it would mean that national healthcare patients would be required to proactively take themselves off the list, to prevent their personal medical data being shared with researchers. … Apparently, outsourcing medical research is the way forward for the NHS, but to do that, data needs to be shared.

• Civil Rights

  • US Citizens, please sign this ACLU petition. Tell Congress: Say NO to Indefinite Detention and Endless Worldwide War

  • NDAA passes house for “National Security Reasons.”

    Reddit and Twitter both experience problems.

  • Ten minutes of corporate media time was given to NDAA.

  • Welcome to the War

    The passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) through the Senate last Thursday saw the culmination of a ten-year crusade by Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to make the law of war apply on US soil. … In summary, once the NDAA becomes law a US citizen on US soil can lawfully be killed by the US military if the military believes that citizen to be a terrorist affiliated with Al Qaeda or its allies.

  • America the Battlefield: The End of the Rule of Law

    As Senator Lindsay Graham recently remarked as an explanation for his support of legislation allowing for the indefinite detention of Americans, “Is the homeland the battlefield? You better believe it is the battlefield.” … If signed into law by President Obama, this bill will not only ensure that we remain in a perpetual state of war — with this being a war against the American people — but it will also institute de facto martial law in the United States.

  • Are Americans in Line for Gitmo?

    The Senate clearly wished for the military’s “law and order” powers to extend beyond the territory of military bases on the theory that there may be “terrorsymps” (short for “terrorist sympathizers”) lurking everywhere. … By noting that little-known fact [about Awlaki], am I showing “support” for “al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces”? Will the U.S. military be obliged to target me, too?

    It is worth reading the whole article.

  • Exclusive: Government Activating FEMA Camps Across U.S.

    An interesting accusation and summary of previous US crowd control/population lock up plans in light of NDAA.

  • ‘Occupy’ protesters reclaiming foreclosed homes in 20 cities

    Tuesday’s “Occupy Our Homes” action in at least 20 cities makes it clear that they are standing up to banks to reverse foreclosures. … We’re here because [there are] a lot of empty buildings owned by Wall Street banks and we’re going to liberate them

  • How the Gingrinch Stole Christmas.

    This is from the 1990s, when he advanced the Contract on America.

    If you did not believe the Republicans said what they meant and meant what they said back then, you should look around today and read this again.

  • LEGAL EXPERTS BLAST SAN DIEGO FOR ARREST OF RAY LUTZ, FORMER CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, OVER VOTER REGISTRATIONS AT CIVIC CENTER PLAZA

    Ray Lutz should not be confused with this clown, Frank Luntz

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Flood of EU Software Patents on the Way?

    The idea of bringing in a unitary EU patent system has been rolling around Brussels so long most people have assumed it will never happen. But there is a clear push on at the moment to realise these plans once and for all. … taking place largely in secret: this is a hugely important area, with implications for all businesses, and yet we are not permitted to see how the final negotiations are being conducted.

  • Copyrights

    • Royal Society Claims 1671 Copyright On Newton Letter (Copyright Law Born 29 Years Later)

Two friends have a good chat about free software at OSCON.

The CarrierIQ issue, even if it is part of an organized campaign to smear and ruin Android [2], is showing people the dangers of using non free software. Even one piece of non free software can betray users, so mostly free, “pragmatic” systems can be just as bad as regular non free systems. The free software community should capitalize on this awareness to change people’s attitudes towards their devices so that they will reject non free software in the future. Software freedom must be complete for users to have real conrtol and privacy.

Richard Stallman wrote an extensive review of Android back in September. It lists all of the parts of available phones that can be used maliciously against users, which surprisingly include the radio control firmware. The conclusion was unequivocal, “Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. … While any computing system might have bugs, these devices might be bugs.”

When the CarrierIQ scandal broke, Mr. Stallman was not surprised. His comment was,

The root cause of this problem is that the users don’t control the software on these phones. So if they didn’t put in this surveillance package [Carrier IQ], they would put in some other. The users’ only protection against malicious features (surveillance, intentional restrictions, and back doors) is to insist on free software.

Anyone in the Open Source community who’s surprised should think hard about what the Free Software Society has been telling them. About four years ago at a “Web 2.0″ meeting, Eben Moglen urged the Tim O’Reilly and the Open Source community to quit, “wasting time promoting commercial products.” O’Reilly was sad that Moglen did not want to talk about protecting people’s data on other people’s computers in “the cloud,” but CarrierIQ makes it plain that those rights and protections are meaningless if the user is stripped of privacy by malware in their pocket. It might have been useful ten years ago to hide scary talk about freedom from big companies like IBM. It worked, thanks, but talk about “best tool for the job” and “pragmatic” mixes of free and non free software should now be considered counter productive and the results dangerous.

There are community alternatives to carrier issued Android. Stallman mentions Replicant, a 100% free software replacement for Android. There is also a less careful distribution called CyanogenMod that is focused on performance and includes non free software from Google and perhaps device drivers. Jeff Hoogland, the founder of Bodhi GNU/Linux, is working on Debian for cell phones and we can be sure many others are as well. In the mean time, if you must have a smart phone, it might as well be Android because there is no chance a phone from Apple or Microsoft will be liberated, but don’t expect it to be a Freedom Box the community really wants [2 and don't trust it until it's really free.

Sadly, US law is mostly a hindrance. Senator Al Franklin had some very pointed questions about possible violations of law for the company and a lawsuit has been launched against the guilty parties - Apple, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Carrier IQ. That's good but it will be difficult to prove what actually happened, and the free software community can do better. Like Vista and Windows 7, CarrierIQ establishes encrypted communications to hide the data transmitted. It would be better to have free software on your cell phone, so the FSF has petitioned the Librarian of Congress for a DMCA Exemption Without that, it may be against US law for people to replace the software on their phones or even to delete CarrierIQ malware.

The lack of freedom in cell phones is not a natural state but is unlikely to end without changes and enforcement of US law. Android has emerged as the top cell phone OS because it is free software and creates a productive commons for the odd hundred companies that must cooperate to make a cell phoneThe obnoxious US patent system has allowed Microsoft and Apple to practice judicial extortion that should have been blocked by US anti-trust and racketeering laws[1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Spectrum licensing itself is a technically obsolete and harmful practice but the FCC could demand adherence to technical standards, demand the publication of technical standards required to operate phones, and forbid practices such as phone locking as the price carriers pay for spectrum as it transitions to open spectrum.

We are in this hole because a long running propaganda campaign by non free software owners has played down ethical issues while convincing people that they are helpless. Billions of dollars in propaganda spending still drown out the basic truth of the situation and non free software use remains prevalent even among people who have every reason to fear spying by the rich and powerful. CarrierIQ gives us a good chance to fix that.

Summary: The monopolistic company whose grossly-inflated prices and extortion of rivals depend on patents says that it is wrong for others to have them

THERE IS THIS article which we have found linked in some places after it was published yesterday, under the headline “Intel to Universities: No Patents, Please, Just Open Source”. Our wiki has a page that explains some of Intel’s crimes, so Intel/x86 apologists can get up to scratch.

“Intel wishes to see R&D with no strings attached to it (so that Intel can take it) and at the same time it wants to harm rivals using its own patent monopolies.”“But wait,” says the article, “there’s A Catch: the company has made it a condition that in order to receive the millions, your university must open source any resulting software and inventions that come out of this research funding. Yes, open source. Your university cannot stake claim to any patents. There will be no intellectual property clauses, no negotiations, no… nonsense.”

Really? Well, other than Intel’s openwashing of its image, there is a problem here because Intel is a hypocrite. We must not forget that Intel is lobbying for software patents even outside the US and the company has a huge number of patents it uses anti-competitively. Intel wishes to see R&D with no strings attached to it (so that Intel can take it) and at the same time it wants to harm rivals using its own patent monopolies. How is that reasonable or even commendable? █

Summary: Red flags in Microsoft’s DRM-encumbered hardware, this time with prospects of (mis)using DMCA laws

There is not so much to say about the Xbox family of products anymore. The founders have all left Microsoft (last one to leave did so recently) and the rivals are doing a lot better, even in the United States.

Last year Microsoft started attacking companies that essentially complemented Xbox360 [1, 2, 3]. It is always a bad sign when a company sues in an attempt to salvage some profit, not at all minding the impact on public opinion.

Ars Technica now asks,”[c]an Microsoft use the DMCA to kill competing Xbox 360 accessories?”

Can Microsoft remotely disable third-party accessories from working with the Xbox 360 and get away with it?

The Redmond, Washington software- and console-maker did just that, and claims copyright law gave it the right. At issue is Microsoft’s 2009 remote disabling of Datel memory cards, which prompted an antitrust lawsuit that lives on today—litigation that has morphed into the latest test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The 1998 DMCA makes it a crime or civil violation to offer a product or service that circumvents a technological measure designed to protect copyrighted material.

Consoles are essentially a single-purpose computer whose sole purpose is to run games (and there is DRM to enforce this restriction). Kill switches on such consoles is a subject we explored here before. This whole trend helps rationalise the need for software freedom. █

Summary: Convicted monopolist Intel joins the Microsoft-style lobby of advocating monopolies on mathematical ideas such as algorithms

ONE THING THAT INTEL and Microsoft have in common is that both are committing crimes to gain and to protect their monopolies and when legal action is brought against them they just pay a bribe to have the evidence destroyed and for the legal cases to go away. Both Microsoft and Intel were found guilty in multiple continents and they had colluded for many years (recent example [1, 2]) as they rubbed each others’ back and forced smaller competitors out of the market.

“Intel submits that if New Zealand chooses to provide restrictions on the patentability of software, those who will suffer the most include citizens of the country, and particularly those who develop software.”
      –David Simon, IntelIntel’s pretense (PR lies) is a subject we wrote about before. Do not believe what Intel says. It wants the world to perceive it as a GNU/Linux friend so that its hardware gets bought by people with a clue in computing. It’s a PR exercise. Intel paid SCO and attacked OLPC (which was Linux-based), then covered it up. Moreover, notes the FFII’s president upon this release of submissions regarding software patents in New Zealand, that “Intel says [PDF] you cannot distinguish hardware from software, very shocking from the number manufacturer of hardware” (does Intel ‘own’ the transistor yet?)

We have looked at the said submission and were appalled. There is also a very shameful lie there from David Simon (on behalf of Intel). He said that “Intel submits that if New Zealand chooses to provide restrictions on the patentability of software, those who will suffer the most include citizens of the country, and particularly those who develop software.” The very opposite is true, but don’t let facts gets in Intel’s way. Shame on Intel.

Glyn Moody notes that “#Microsoft fights desperately for #swpats” in there, but we already knew that. Microsoft and its front groups in New Zealand are a subject we explored quite thoroughly before (see this wiki page for details). The FFII’s president adds that the “European Commission DG Trade commenting on software patents guidelines in New Zealand, while EPC is not even EU law” (in New Zealand they try to legitimise software patents in the same way they do in Europe, by painting software as hardware or “device”). Mr Vassilis Koutsiouris from the intellectual property unit is deceiving New Zealand [PDF]. Is this what European taxpayers pay for? To harm themselves and empower monopolies whose billionaires have no qualm about lying? █

[Disclosure: Posted from an AMD box]

2. Microsoft steps in, sends mole/vulture fund/proxy battler into the company (Nokia, Novell, and Yahoo! respectively)

3. Company totally crushed, run by Microsoft proxies, Microsoft takes all the pieces of interest (patents, userbase, brand names, etc.)

4. Profit! (another competitor eliminated at no cost)

Summary: How Microsoft is abusing the market, this time by sending Nokia to the cleaners and ruining the Skype experience with bad service and disturbances

WHEN Microsoft quits the mobile market (at last, it might have to!) it will officially become somewhat of a patent troll, a non-practicing mobile entity making money out of other companies’ phones/platforms. Before Microsoft becomes a patent troll and not just a leech it will have to burn its boats and the process has just begun with the burial of the Windows Mobile shop. “MS discontinue [an]other product,” informed us a reader yesterday. To quote an article from a fairly Microsoft-sympathetic source:

Microsoft is sending notifications to Windows Mobile 6.x users this week that it is discontinuing My Phone service, and shutting down the Windows Marketplace for Mobile site for the legacy mobile OS family.

Beginning on July 15, http://marketplace.windowsphone.com will no longer be open for business, and apps for Windows Mobile 6.x will only be available in the Marketplace app or through third party app stores.

Microsoft is trying to gain userbase of phones in the same way it did so in search. It invades one of the market leaders (Nokia), puts in some moles while paying bribe for the company to approve, and before you know it, the CTO quits. What a cheap takeover, eh? The same thing happened in Yahoo! Before a Microsoft manager was appointed to become Yahoo’s CTO (who now diverts search traffic in Microsoft’s direction). We have a special wiki page on the subject and it is detailed enough to spare repetition.

Yahoo’s CTO from Microsoft makes us wonder who is going to become Nokia’s next CTO. Will it be another transfer from Microsoft, like Elop? It never seemed like Elop really left Microsoft. Either way, the net results is that Microsoft’s entryism leads to many layoffs and the reduction in the number of options that buyers will have. Microsoft is a highly efficient destructor, not creator. It also harmed Qt and MeeGo a great deal. Nokia need not be bought by Microsoft. It was already bought, as some had predicted. Microsoft essentially bought Nokia for a few billions of dollars. It installed its own people. We sometimes refer to it as entryism.

Those who speak about Samsung buying Nokia have no basis for their claim as “Elop re. rumors Microsoft or Samsung is acquiring Nokia: “Those rumors are baseless.”"

Probably true, but alas, our reader wrote: “Looks like Elop like Android and maybe it will be real that Samsung will buy NOKIA. Samsung will need QT too to save it?”

Watch Elop proceeding to belittlig of Android by saying that “Apple created Android, or at least created the conditions necessary for Android to come into being”

This is FUD. In fact, Apple imitated many others, as usual (it was new in the mobile arena at the time). Here is an article about Elop’s FUD:

Despite Elop’s comments about Android, he still didn’t choose the platform. Four months ago, Nokia announced that it was choosing Microsoft’s Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform. Two months ago, Nokia and Microsoft finally signed a definitive agreement regarding their global mobile ecosystem partnership.

It’s generally accepted, however, that Windows Phone is not selling well. AT&T Mobility CEO believes things will start to pick up with Windows Phone 7.1 (codenamed Mango) and as the Windows Phone Marketplace gains more apps.

“Windows Phone is not selling well” to say the very least. We heard it only sold a few millions after over half a year in the market.

Upon inspection of the stagnant/falling Microsoft stock, we discovered that Elop is still the eighth largest shareholder in MSFT. Yes, Mr. Elop still works for Microsoft and has vested interests in Microsoft’s success, not Nokia’s. He has done a fantastic job so far (for Microsoft, not for Nokia). How come no lawsuit has been filed by shareholders yet? It is extremely unlikely that Nokia can save itself the way IBM did because when put in Microsoft’s hands it usually ends in tears like Novell and Yahoo! (very bad stuff going on there at Yahoo!, but no sale to a Microsoft partner like Attachmate, at least not yet). As we argued repeatedly (with evidence), Microsoft is sabotaging Nokia like an abusive spouse, maybe with the intent of getting its patents for extortion purposes. Microsoft is just exploiting what’s left in Nokia. Microsoft remains a destructive parasite and the sooner people realise it, the fewer victims it is likely to find in the future. According to a new article or hypothesis, it is sabotaging the Skype status quo following the awkward buyout [1, 2, 3, 4] in order to spread its own products. Mr. Dvorak writes:

Skype went down again. Many people, like myself, who rely on Skype for podcasting connectivity, have recognized that the service has not been up to par in recent weeks. The problems began coincidentally when Microsoft announced it was buying the company.

This could all be coincidence, as some suggest, but to me, both sabotage and outside attacks have to be considered as possible causes as well. But why would anyone do this to Skype?

If you have to ask that question, then you do not follow the industry. To be blunt, Microsoft is an extremely disliked company in many quarters of the technology community. Or maybe I should put it even more bluntly; the company is hated to an extreme by many.

Skype, on the other hand, is this benign and beloved company that has provided a free service to its users and the world at large for years. It’s a contrast. It makes sense to me that attempts would be made by certain elements of the hacking community, as well as technicians within the company, to sabotage the product in hopes that it might queer the deal with Microsoft or give Microsoft pause for thought.

As things now stand nobody really knows why Microsoft bought Skype in the first place. There are vague comments about it being used with Microsoft’s Lync product or MSN Live or who knows what. EBay bought control of Skype with some hair-brained notions and didn’t do much with it. But eBay did not ruin or dismantle Skype and, in fact, it never bought the source code to the product.

Nobody has discussed who owns the source ever since.

Guess what happens to Skype just weeks after the takeover announcement? It gets sued for patent violations. From yesterday’s news:

Internet video phone company Skype Inc was sued in U.S. federal court Thursday for infringing the patents of a Luxembourg company, which has filed similar lawsuits against Skype in Europe.

It was hardly happening before Microsoft touched Skype. The company from Redmond has a tendency to ruin everything it touches. Well, let us hope this helps promote SIP at the end. █

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: Microsoft realiza un MS-DOS (Multi-Source Denegación de Servicio) ataque a Linux y a Android, utilizando los monopolios de patentes y a sus compadres los trolls de patentes.

ADEMÁS del post anterior[http://techrights.org/2011/06/07/fallacy-re-a-rise-in-patents_es/], hay abundante evidencia de que la USPTO (Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos) está quebrada, ya que no cumple con sus objetivos. No hay tal cosa como una “calidad” de patentes. Una patente es un monopolio y todos los que se aplican al software, impiden el uso de la lógica y las matemáticas. Aquí hay otra interpretación de la sentencia SCOTUS (Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos), de la que escribimos hace unos días (ENhttp://techrights.org/2011/06/02/scotus-vs-freedom-labour/[], ES[http://techrights.org/2011/06/03/scotus-vs-freedom-labour_es/]). El Register lo dice de la siguiente manera[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/01/us_supremes_update_patent_law/]:

En un caso con el apoyo de HP, eBay, Red Hat, Yahoo, y General Motors, la Corte Suprema de los EE.UU. emitió un fallo que puede hacer más difícil para una empresa sea demandada por induccir a otra empresa a infringir una patente.

Según la sentencia, un acusado de inducir a la infracción de patente, debe ser demostrado que tenía bien sabido que estaba infringiendo, o fue “voluntariamente ciego” a la infracción. El conocimiento real de la infracción puede presentar pruebas documentales o declaraciones juradas.

Esto de nuevo no se ocupa de las cuestiones principales con el sistema de patentes – Cuestiones que, incluso en el caso Bilski[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Bilski_Case] SCOTUS no pudo resolver. Echemos un vistazo a algunas de las últimas víctimas sobre la base de noticias de esta semana.

Twitter dejó en claro que está en contra de las patentes de software y ahora está siendo atacada por los trolls de patentes de nuevo[http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/twirpy-patent-troll-threatens-twitter/2011/06/03/AG9MwxHH_story.html]. Los trolls de patentes son, estadísticamente hablando, muy dependiente de las patentes de software.

Un troll de patentes llamado Kootol Software ha puesto en alerta a Twitter. La «sociedad», que luce un logotipo de empresa (y nombre) que es sospechosamente recuerdan a Google, esta mañana dijo que ha enviado un aviso de precaución a Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey y cooperación para expresar “preocupación” acerca de las posibles violaciónes de propiedad intelectual.

Citando la fuente original (“Twirpy Patentes Troll amenaza Twitter”), TechCrunch/AOL ha dicho[http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/03/twirpy-patent-troll-threatens-twitter/]:

La solicitud de patente en cuestión (un número de patente no se ha asignado aún) se titula “Un método y sistema para la Comunicación, Publicidad, buscar, compartir y dinámicamente proporcionar un diario de alimentación.”

Ellos están haciendo que sea muy complicado para los desarrolladores de software a desarrollar en paz y sólo empeora cuando la gente hace dinero de este sistema enfermo[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110531006845/en/Patent-Research-Software-Tools-Disrupt-Market-Patent]. Esto incentividad la mantiene quebrada. Jan Wildeboer, que es uno de los más prominentes entre los opositores de las patentes de software en Europa[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Software_Patents_in_Europe], señala que algunas personas construyeron sus empresas basados en la explotación del sistema de patentes. Él pregunta: “¿Está Myhrvolds de Intellectual Ventures con patentes de estilo CDO perturbando el mercado? Lodsys como ejemplo? ”

También se pregunta[http://twitter.com/jwildeboer/status/76581369601470464]: “¿Es señal de Lodsys del nuevo tiempo? 1. Licencia patentes 2. Venta de patentes 3. Nuevo comprador trata de licenciarlas de nuevo? Patentes == negocio CDB?”

Recuerde que el mayor troll del mundo (que vino de Microsoft), dijo antes de dar esta patente a Lodsys[http://techrights.org/2011/06/02/lodsys-and-intellectual-ventures/]. “La propiedad intelectual es el futuro software”, argumentó[http://www.newsweek.com/id/55777/page/2]. Microsoft y él están juntos en esto. Bill Gates es un afiliado cercano de este shakedown y Matt Asay reta esto yendo atrás en el tiempo[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/03/microsoft_ip_technology_battle/] (volver a los días en que Gates denunció las patentes, como una pequeña empresa):

Microsoft, alguna vez el gobernante del universo del software, ni siquiera hace de el presidente ejecutivo de Google, Eric Schmidt, Pandilla de cuatro compañías de tecnología influyentes. No es que Microsoft haya perdido su ambición. Pero puede ser que la ambición de Microsoft ha cambiado, y para peor.

Microsoft alguna que vez se enorgullecía de acuñación de las ganancias de copias de licencias de Windows y Office. Ahora parece más contento con lograr $ 5 por unidad de HTC y otros, matonea con patentes. Así es: en lugar de vender productos, está tráficando la propiedad intelectual (IP).

Escribimos acerca de esta extorsión antes. No sólo Microsoft está extorsionando HTC[http://techrights.org/2011/05/27/linux-swpats-own-cash/], parece como si Intelectual Ventures[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Intellectual_Ventures] también lo hace. Otra persona de Microsoft, Paul Allen, de Interval[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Interval] el troll de patentes, sigue atacando a muchas partes[http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2011060220384836], incluido Android/Google por la mera aplicación de algunas ideas. “Las personas preocupadas por Ridículo reclamaciones de patentes de Paul Allen Hace que la USPTO comienze de nuevo a exáminar sus patentes”, dice Techdirt[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110601/02413214504/people-concerned-about-paul-allens-ridiculous-patent-claims-gets-uspto-to-begin-re-exams-his-patents.shtml]. Para citar a:

El año pasado, hemos cubierto demanda de patentes ridículas Paul Allen en contra de un montón de empresas de tecnología. Afirmó que todas estas compañías violaron cuatro patentes increíblemente amplio que declaró lo siguiente:

* 6263507: “Navegador para su uso en la navegación de un cuerpo de información, con aplicación especial a la información de navegación representada por los datos de audio.”
* 6034652 y 6788314 (en realidad la misma patente, con la participación continuaciones): “Atención gerente para ocupar la atención periférica de una persona en las proximidades de un dispositivo de pantalla”
* 6757682: “Alerta a los usuarios temas de interés actual”

Groklaw sigue este caso muy de cerca, o al menos solía hacerlo. Lo que la gente de Microsoft hace (incluso los que se fueron de la compañía) es lo que Microsoft siempre ha hecho, Ellos quieren que todo el mundo pague un impuesto en lugar de realmente hacer cualquier cosa de valor. Ellos están librando guerras legales y acumular patentes que ejercer presión para, con el fin de aumentar su valor.

En este momento parece que Microsoft está a la caza de las patentes de Nokia para que pueda agravar a todos los teléfonos móviles. Nokia tiene un valor para Microsoft por su software y sus patentes de hardware, hemos escritó tanto sobre éllo que no es necesario repetir las pruebas de ello. Este es un tema que hemos hablado en el IRC el otro día[http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/irc-log-techrights-02062011.html#tJun%2002%2020:22:39]. Suponiendo que Microsoft quiere “tirar de un CPTN ‘de Nokia, será más sobre el uso de las patentes de Nokia ofensivamente y la explotación de la marca Nokia (como lo hizo con Yahoo y Novell). Mediante el envío de topos Microsoft sólo mejora sus posibilidades de convertirse en el receptor de patentes. Vea cómo Microsoft puso su mole en[http://www.businessinsider.com/ballmer-wanted-nokia-deal-so-bad-he-sent-a-huge-limo-to-pick-up-stephen-elop-2011-6]: [a través de F. Cassia]

Steve Ballmer estaba tan decidido a conseguir a Nokia a bordo del teléfono de Windows 7, que envió una limusina super-extendida de baile de estilo para recoger Stephen Elop de Nokia y otros ejecutivos de cuando visitaron el área de Seattle.

Esa es una de las revelaciones de perfil largo de BusinessWeek en los primeras seis meses de Elop en la empresa.

Microsoft está aplastando Nokia con tal de que esto pueda ayudar a Microsoft a recoger un buen precio junto con sus patentes. Teniendo en cuenta lo que ha sucedido hasta ahora, Elop ha hecho un trabajo maravilloso (para Microsoft, de la que es accionista mayoritario). El acuerdo no tenía sentido y que fue firmado en una carrera por la Stephens dos que son antiguos compañeros. Miren el Booke de Elop[http://www.techeye.net/business/ye-booke-of-elop] de un sesgo divertido. Es evidente lo que está pasando allí, pero no hay nada divertido en ello. Nokia representa la última víctima en la línea de los cadáveres dejados por el comportamiento abusivo-agresivo de Microsoft -otra compañía en el remolino del inodoro de la historia-. Nokia se estaba convirtiendo en una empresa de Linux antes de que Microsoft acabe de poner un topo dentro de ella. “Elop” es “Polo” hacia atrás y Microsoft puso su polo interior de Nokia, a pedir prestado broma de Brandon. En lugar de tener Meego y LSB en Nokia, ahora tenemos otro aliado de Microsoft por ahí, amenazando con el uso de sus patentes y la promesa de ofrecer un “nuevo” sistema operativo algún momento a finales de este año (momento en el que Nokia va a estar maduro para la cosecha por otra empresa). La cabeza de la Fundación Linux estaba muy decepcionado por esto y es fácil ver por qué. Nokia fue un contribuyente valioso para la Fundation Linux y su sitio tiene un nuevo cómic sobre las patentes de software. Se puede encontrar aquí[http://www.linux.com/news/biz-os/legal/453668-friday-funnies-bringing-a-little-levity-to-the-patent-system]. De alguna manera Microsoft se volvió varias empresas de Linux de usar como Nokia, Yahoo, Novell y Microsoft en refuerzos (antiguo socio de Microsoft Bartz no hizo nada de valor excepto estrechar la mano de Ballmer, al igual que Elop). Alguna gente todavía pregunta tonta lo que hace Microsoft mucho más dañino que otras compañías de una escala similar. Microsoft es muy, muy destructivo. Simplemente le importa un comino. █

Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the esteemed administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.

Summary: Microsoft performs an MSDOS (Multi-Source Denial of Service) attack on Linux and on Android, using patent monopolies and patent trolls

FURTHER to the previous post, there is abundant evidence that the USPTO is broken as it fails to meet its goals. There is no such thing as a “quality” patent. A patent is a monopoly and all those applying to software impede the use of logic and mathematics. Here is another interpretation of the SCOTUS ruling, which we wrote about a few days ago (EN, ES). The Register reads that as follows:

In a case supported by HP, eBay, Red Hat, Yahoo!, and General Motors, the US Supreme Court has issued a ruling that may make it more difficult for a company to be sued for inducing another company to infringe a patent.

According to the ruling, a defendent accused of inducing patent infringement must be proven to have either known that it was infringing, or was “willfully blind” to that infringement. Actual knowledge of infringement can be proven through documentary evidence or sworn testimony.

That again does not address the main issues with the patent system — issues that even the Bilski case in SCOTUS failed to resolve. Let us look at some of the latest casualties based on this week’s news.

Twitter made it clear that it is against software patents and now it is being attacked by patent trolls again. Patent trolls are, statistically speaking, greatly dependent on software patents.

A patent troll called Kootol Software has put Twitter on alert. The ‘company’, which sports a corporate logo (and name) that is suspiciously reminiscent of Google’s, this morning said it has sent a caution notice to Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey and co to express “concerns” about possible intellectual property violations.

Quoting the original source (“Twirpy Patent Troll Threatens Twitter”), TechCrunch/AOL says:

The patent application in question (a patent number hasn’t been assigned yet) is titled “A Method and System for Communication, Advertising, Searching, Sharing and Dynamically Providing a Journal Feed.”

They are making it extremely complicated for software developers to develop in peace and it is only getting worse when people make money from the illness of this system. This incentivises keeping it broken. Jan Wildeboer, who is one of the most prominent among opposers of software patents in Europe, notes that some people built entire enterprises based on exploitation of the patent system’s loophole. He asks: “Is Myhrvolds Intellectual Ventures using patents CDO style to disrupt the market? Lodsys as example?”

He also asks: “Is Lodsys sign of new time? 1. License patents 2. Sell patent 3. New buyer tries licensing again? Patents == CDB business?”

Remember what the world's biggest troll (who came from Microsoft) said before he gave this patent to Lodsys. “Intellectual property is the next software,” he argued. Microsoft and him are in this together. Bill Gates is a close affiliate of this shakedown and Matt Asay challenges this by going back in time (back to the days when Gates denounced patents, as a small player):

Microsoft, once the ruler of the software universe, doesn’t even make Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s Gang of Four influential tech companies. It’s not that Microsoft has lost its ambition. But it may be that Microsoft’s ambition has changed, and for the worse.

Microsoft once prided itself on minting profits from licensing copies of Windows and Office. Now it seems more content with eking out $5 per unit from HTC and others it bullies over patents. That’s right: instead of selling product, it’s peddling intellectual property (IP).

We wrote about this extortion before. Not only Microsoft is extorting HTC; it seems as though Intellectual Ventures does too. Another person from Microsoft, Paul Allen of Interval the patent troll, is still attacking many parties including Android/Google for merely implementing some ideas. “People Concerned About Paul Allen’s Ridiculous Patent Claims Gets USPTO To Begin Re-Exams Of His Patents,” says TechDirt. To quote:

Last year, we covered Paul Allen’s ridiculous patent lawsuit against a ton of tech companies. He claimed that all of these companies violated four incredibly broad patents he held:

* 6,263,507: “Browser for use in navigating a body of information, with particular application to browsing information represented by audio data.”
* 6,034,652 & 6,788,314 (really the same patent, involving continuations): “Attention manager for occupying the peripheral attention of a person in the vicinity of a display device”
* 6,757,682: “Alerting users to items of current interest”

Groklaw follows this case quite closely, or at least it used to. What the Microsoft people do (even those who left the company) is what Microsoft has always done, They want to tax everything sold rather than really make anything of value. They are waging legal wars and amassing patents that they lobby for, in order to increase their value.

Right now it seems like Microsoft is hunting for Nokia’s patent so that it can tax all mobile phones. Nokia is of value to Microsoft because of its software and hardware patents; we wrote so much about it that we need not repeat the evidence of this. This is a subject that we talked about in IRC the other day. Assuming Microsoft wants to ‘pull a CPTN’ on Nokia, it will be more about use of Nokia’s patents offensively and exploitation of Nokia’s brand (like Yahoo! and Novell). By sending out moles Microsoft just improves its chances of becoming the patent receiver. Watch how Microsoft put its mole in: [via F. Cassia]

Steve Ballmer was so determined to get Nokia on board with Windows Phone 7, he sent a super-extended prom-style limo to pick up Nokia’s Stephen Elop and other execs when they visited the Seattle area.

That’s one of the revelations in Businessweek’s long profile of Elop’s first six months at the company.

Microsoft is crushing Nokia as this may help Microsoft pick it up cheaply along with its patents. Considering what has happened so far, Elop did a wonderful job (for Microsoft, of which he is a top shareholder). The deal made no sense and it was signed in a rush by the two Stephens who are former colleagues. Watch Ye Booke of Elop for a funny slant. It is clear what’s going on there, but there is nothing amusing about it. Nokia represents the latest victim in the line of corpses left by Microsoft’s abusive-aggressive behaviour. Nokia was becoming a Linux company just before Microsoft put a mole inside it. “Elop” is “Pole” backwards and Microsoft put its Pole inside Nokia, to borrow Brandon’s joke. Rather than have MeeGo and LSB in Nokia, we now have another Microsoft ally out there, threatening to use its patents and promising to deliver a ‘new’ OS some time later this year (at which point Nokia will be ripe for picking by another company). The Linux Foundation’s head was very disappointed by this and it is easy to see why. Nokia was a valuable contributor to the Linux Foundation and its site has a new comic regarding software patents. It can be found here. Somehow Microsoft turned several Linux-friendly companies like Nokia, Yahoo!, and Novell into Microsoft boosters (former Microsoft partner Bartz did nothing of value except shake Ballmer’s hand, just like Elop). Some people still foolishly question what makes Microsoft so much more malicious than other companies of a similar scale. Microsoft is very, very destructive. It just doesn’t give a damn. █

Summary: Analysis of the changing face of the computers market as mobile devices grow ever more powerful

THE market is changing quickly. All those who predicted Linux “world domination” are becoming rather proud while those who discouraged them probably eat humble pie. The revolution may not be known as “Linux” because the trademarks issue means that each supplier of Linux (HP, Google, IBM, etc.) wants brand control. This is fine. What remains to be challenged right now is the subject and existence of software patents. Except for the “desktops” we now have the fast-growing market of tablets and phones, though patents are ruining this market. It is very easy to see that in the news, which we will address later.

Cringely is one among the many pundits who comment on Microsoft’s demise amid all these transitions between form factors and operating systems. He notes:

Look at the downward price erosion of Microsoft Office caused by a combination of Open Office and iWork, which is down to $30 on the iPad. How long will it be until Apple is giving iWork away to sell hardware — an option Microsoft doesn’t have? Not long. By then a bit more of Redmond’s goose will have been cooked.

Indeed. One of our longtime readers has done some analysis and surveyed the news on this matter, arriving at the conclusion that “Skipping the problems with Apple’s stance on Software Freedom for a moment, it is now worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined.[1] I hope that can change (back) to better architectures. The link Masters Tournament[2] has this quote from Mr “The Internet is just a passing fad”:

“What I can’t figure out is why he (Steve Jobs) is even trying (to be the CEO of Apple)? ” wondered Bill. “He knows he can’t win.”

“What a visionary,” adds our reader.

His links are as follows:

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/04/apple_passes_microsoft_and_intel_in_market_cap/
[2] http://www.cringely.com/2010/04/masters-tournament/

“An aside,” he adds, “I notice that TheReg uses the MS talking point of calling all non-MS gain ‘schadenfreude’ to spin the gain as other than gain for Apple.

“This article caused a ‘Softer to get his knickers in a twist and attack:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/04/apple_passes_microsoft_and_intel_in_market_cap/

“So I’d say, despite the DRM and other shortcomings of Apple, it’s worth pursuing a little.”

“Apple now worth more than Wintel (Microsoft and Intel combined)”

http://macdailynews.com/2011/06/03/apple-now-worth-more-than-wintel-microsoft-and-intel-combined/

“The numbers speak for themselves:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL

vs

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=INTC

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MSFT

“MS @ $201.59bn + Intel @ $115.21bn = $316.8bn.
“Apple =$317.6bn.

“Unfortunately, Intel also gets a piece of Apple since it (unwisely)
dropped PPC in favor of Intel Core.

“So, Apple @ 317.6bn + Intel @115.21bn = 432.81bn

“432.81bn > 316.8bn

Regarding what he mnemonically abeled the “Wintel vs Macintellintosh” battle, he concludes:

“The other way to do it is to compare the two without Intel, since it cancels out anyway. That gives an even sharper difference:

“Apple @ 313.6bn > MS @ 201.6bn

On another note, adds this reader: “PXE 5462 is probably not worth a post in and of itself. It does contain a tidbit where MS staff try to negotiate a deal with Stac to exclude IBM.

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/5000/PX05462.pdf

As we showed last week on several occasions, Microsoft is now trying to sabotage Linux and Apple business at the hardware level, but it is not quite working and the hardware makers are snitching, complaining about Microsoft. █

DEVICES which run Linux (sometimes Android) are likely to be hobbled by Microsoft’s dirty schemes in which it pays hardware companies to impose artificial limitations. It helps show just to what degree Microsoft is against innovation; its dogmatic approach makes the products which everyone uses a lot worse and a lot more expensive. We coverred this throughout the week, but there is newer information now. According to this report, having failed in the hardware market itself, Microsoft is trying to gain influence over hardware makers (although it mostly fails because now they have other options to go to, notably Linux). To quote part of this report:

Microsoft wants to influence PC manufacturers over such details as the aspect ratio they choose for displays, where buttons and radio antennas are located, and even the width of the bezel, or rim, around the edge of the screen.

As we pointed out before, we are seeing Microsoft do just what it did a couple of years back when GNU/Linux was growing on sub-notebooks. Microsoft’s Windows profits declined after that. Be prepared Microsoft to spin and lie about it — pretending that the problem was GNU/Linux or Android itself and that Microsoft is doing this to offer “better experience” or something along those lines. Who is that a “better experience” for? Microsoft shareholders?

Summary: Microsoft is blocking Linux/Android by giving “incentives [...] in exchange for accepting the restrictions”

From Dina Bass (Microsoft sympathiser) and her colleagues we now learn more about an issue we covered last night. From the new article: [thanks to Will for the link]

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has asked chipmakers that want to use the next version of Windows for tablets to work with no more than one computer manufacturer, three people with knowledge of the plan said.

Chipmakers and computer makers that agree to the terms will get incentives from Microsoft in exchange for accepting the restrictions, which tie a single chipmaker to one tablet design, said the people, who declined to be identified because the new program hasn’t been made public.

[...]

Under the plan being proposed by Microsoft, a given chipmaker would have to ally itself with a single PC manufacturer in order to qualify for certain incentives. Those may include features that ensure the device runs better or lower prices for the software, one of the people said.

Acer Inc. (2353) Chief Executive Officer and Chairman J.T. Wang, in an interview yesterday at the Computex trade show in Taipei, said Microsoft was trying to set limits on other companies. He didn’t specify the restrictions.

“They’re really controlling the whole thing, the whole process,” Wang said of Microsoft. “They try to set the game rules,” he said, and chip suppliers and PC makers “all feel it’s very troublesome,” he said.

Are the regulators paying attention? Microsoft seems to be breaking the law again, not just with blackmail. Microsoft used the same anti-competitive and consumer-hostile strategy when GNU/Linux was thriving on sub-notebooks. If this is not a violation of the law, it should be. It corrupts the free market, it is a form of collusion. Intel got brutally nailed for such crimes (before it paid AMD to keep silent on this matter).

The above restrictions are not intended to prevent tablets from cannibalising Windows sales on the desktop because almost no tablets run Windows (and Acer does not preinstall Mac OS X). That’s just spin on Microsoft trying to assassinate competitors, notably Linux. █

Summary: The Xbox exodus continues and Microsoft cannot get it right in hardware

While Microsoft has many obviously problematic areas, it is notably hardware that has consistently been trouble for this software monopolist. Some of the most glaring examples of Microsoft’s hardware ineptness have been the Xbox, Zune, and KIN. All of these treasures have brought failures, both in sales as well as in build quality. We have written many posts on this subject and have elaborated on the resulting losses to Microsoft (we had mentioned Microsoft's debt earlier today too) and its customers. Microsoft is currently leaning on Nokia to help make up for this enormous deficit. Ultimately, it is a strategic error for a very glaring reason; Vista Phony 7 is an unappealing and mediocre platform, one that sources claim has been adopted by a mere 1.6 million users. Plus, this unproductive manoeuvrer by Microsoft will also likely result in the mutual crippling, if not killing, of Nokia as well; this possibility has also been covered by Techrights.

Speaking of crippling, yet another major Microsoft employee is quitting. This time, it is a key member of the Xbox team, the last of the of original founders of the project in fact:

Otto Berkes, one of the primary founders of the original Xbox, has left Microsoft after 18 years at the company.

His departure marks the end of an era at Microsoft. The company continues to struggle to create new businesses that were as successful as the Xbox, which is now generating billions of dollars in revenue for Microsoft.

Berkes resigned yesterday. He started in 1993 at Microsoft as the lead programmer on the Windows graphics team. In 1998, he teamed up with Microsoft tech evangelist Ted Hase to create a Windows gaming machine. They were joined by Seamus Blackley and Kevin Bachus. All have since departed, as have other early advocates of the Xbox such as Ed Fries, Cameron Ferroni, J Allard and Robbie Bach. Berkes’ story was one of many I wrote about in my first book, Opening the Xbox.

We have been closely documenting the Xbox staff exodus. This latest departure provides yet one more sign that the Xbox has failed, contrary to all the hype. This is consistent when the real sales figures are examined; the losses worldwide eclipse any sales "success" in North America. █

Summary: Usage trends, notably mobility and compactness, drive hardware changes, which in turn leave Microsoft Windows in the innovator’s dilemma, inevitably resulting in its demise

ARM has been causing Intel a lot of trouble. AMD too cannot be enjoying it. A lot of the devices sold today (largely Linux-based) no longer run on this aging architecture of theirs. Vista 8 has been hailed as the mythical operating system that would run on ARM, but just to explain how much of a vapourware/hype it really is, consider the fact that Vista 8 has no useful plans for third-party developers. The monocultural and binary culture of Microsoft is killing its business and this one news article says: “You won’t see the desktop version of Photoshop or Firefox or Chrome or World of Warcraft on your Windows 8 ARM device, either — not unless there’s enough adoption to justify the expense of compiling an entirely new build; and who knows whether ARM chips are powerful enough to run applications that are usually found on x86 computers?”

To clarify, it’s a proprietary software issue, as the source code is not available. Debian, by contrast, does not have such a problem.

Will from our IRC channels wrote that “Windows on ARM will not run legacy software: Microsoft has promised their Office suite on ARM, but nothing more. Ok, so explain to me why anyone would chose Windows on ARM, which will NOT have any of the legacy software that keeps Windows on life support these days, over some version of Linux on ARM, in which you have a wealth of free software only a recompile away?”

Here is another article about this:

Microsoft may be porting Windows 8 to the ARM architecture, but the general manager of Intel’s software and services group insists she’s not losing any sleep over a bruising battle in a more-competitive arena. At least when it comes to PCs.

Speaking on Tuesday at Intel’s Investor Meeting 2011 in Santa Clara, California, Renée James pointed out that the next version of Windows – popularly known as Windows 8 – will be available in versions for both x86 and ARM. There will be a “Windows 8 traditional”, she said, that will run on x86 chips and handle “legacy applications”, meaning existing x86-based Windows apps, and there will be a separate version of the OS that runs on ARM. Windows 8 traditional, she explained, will include a “Windows 7 mode”.

Mr. Pogson says that Microsoft is dying because the lock-in is dying. People can now buy Android devices.

The monopoly has relied on retail lock-in for decades. It’s gone. It’s dead. These small, not-so-cheap computers are flying off retail shelves as fast as they can be stocked and there is increasing growth rate…

Suffice to say, Microsoft has resorted to patent litigation against Linux because it cannot conceive or imagine any other ways to win (which it won’t). █

“Gates’s refusal to adopt Adobe’s technology had something to do with money—Gates was not feeling cash rich in 1984—but it had even more to do with Gates’s persistent delusion that Windows be like the Mac.”

–Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul

Summary: Rumours that Nokia is selling its mobile unit to Microsoft begin to surface

A senior figure at Nokia was quoted as saying that the Microsoft/Nokia deal “isn’t a deal between Nokia and Microsoft, this is a Microsoft take over.”

Well, with this “takeover” in mind, how about this rumour?

Straight out of the rumor mill, comes news on the possibility that Nokia would be considering selling its mobile unit to Microsoft, and that the meeting to discuss the deal might go down as soon as next week.

While this might turn out to be nothing more than just a big rumor, there is also the possibility that it would pan out, and that Microsoft and Nokia would announce the largest acquisition of all times in the near future.

The news comes from Eldar Murtazin, who has a record of being right about various aspects regarding Nokia’s business, and who claims that Nokia and Microsoft are getting ready to sit at the table and discuss the potential merger during the week of May 23rd.

That would mean patents too. Microsoft already has Skype patents that can help it impede VoIP competitors.

Has Ballmer just 'pulled a Belluzzo? █

–Paul Flessner, Microsoft

Summary: Microsoft Windows is not selling well, so hardware companies ought to start looking for alternatives

Sales of Windows continue to decline as we noted earlier this week. The “operating revenue down 10%, Windows revenue 4%,” quotes a reader of ours from here, noting “that’s worse than the decline in PC market share” (an elusive market due to its general decline). He added that “tablets and smart phones are the main reasons” (many run Linux) and “Windows 7 is a failure” (which is also true as the numbers suggest, contradicting fake hype). So why aren’t more OEMs moving away from Windows just yet? Microsoft has just admitted yet again that Windows sales are declining, but we are still not seeing many OEMs that sell GNU/Linux on desktops and laptops. The FFII and AFUL try to address this issue while in the mean time, a UK-based journalist complains about Dell:

• Dell Does it Again

  One of the first PCs that I bought was a Dell. It came with 8 Mbyte of memory, 230 Mbyte hard disc, and cost a mere £1479 (the HP Laserjet IV cost an extra £1030) – all excluding VAT. Sadly, it was running Windows 3.1, not least because at this time – 1993 – I had yet to discover free software (and GNU/Linux was, in any case, still pretty rudimentary at this point.)

  Since then, I’ve bought more Dell PCs from time to time, but always with an eye on whether the machine would run GNU/Linux well. In particular, I’ve always checked whether Dell itself was offering such systems. My view was that if it did, I should buy from them in an attempt to (a) reward them for supporting open source and (b) encourage them to offer more machines.

• Report: Don’t Look to Dell These Days for Linux-based Systems

  I followed Moody’s tracks through the Ubuntu-focused link above, and sure enough, he’s right that at first glance it’s nearly impossible to find anything on Dell’s site that would seem to make it easy to order a Linux-based system. Moody’s further investigation led him to this more helpful page, but if you follow the “Shop Now” button on that page, you find a woefully incomplete landing page.

  These findings are more significant than they may seem at first. It’s extremely important for the major PC manufacturers to offer Linux as an option, and make it easy for people interested in Linux to learn about its advantages. If this doesn’t seem important, just consider the success that Microsoft had in the late 1980s and early 1990s in getting PC manufacturers to adopt Windows. Its sway with them helped Microsoft put Windows on the vast majority of business desktops, and–at the time–helped squash Apple’s personal computing efforts.

There are more reasons to move away from Windows and they include security and the cost to the economy. This was talked about in IRC yesterday. Groklaw responded to this report about citizens paying for Microsoft's mistakes by writing: “Just a suggestion. If everyone used GNU/Linux, fixing a problem is so much more simple. You can delete everything except your home partition, keeping all your documents and data while reinstalling the system. Or vice versa, if it’s the home partition that is affected. You can save all your materials, then wipe out the home partition without having to reinstall everything. Of course, this kind of virus doesn’t affect GNU/Linux systems anyway, but I wonder why the government doesn’t help people to understand the security advantages they could benefit from. And users would benefit too, because they wouldn’t need to let the FBI access their computers to clean it up, a rather disturbing concept.”

More OEMs can offer dual-boot systems as standard. The GNU/Linux part (not merely fast-boot Linux) does not cost a thing and Microsoft will get the competition it deserves. It will give the OEMs a sound business model and an advantage over the competition, an added value of sorts. █

Summary: Bill Gates’ sticker games and many other antitrust exhibits that show Microsoft’s approach towards competition

SOME MORE NEW EXHIBITS are coming out of Comes vs. Microsoft, thanks in part to the work of Groklaw contributors (special thanks to Pogson with a pointer to the work of “Superbowl”). The following new batch helps show some of the hardware market distortion we’ve been covering in the context of Comes vs. Microsoft, e.g. in:

• Bill Gates: “Where Are We on This Jihad?” (Against Linux at Intel)
• Microsoft on Intel’s Anti-Linux: “Please Keep Confidential. This is a Nightmare”
• Bill Gates on Linux@Intel: “This Huge Driver Group Scares Me.”
• Steve Ballmer: “We cannot let intel do chip design on Linux ever”

More exhibits are useful to have in textual form because people just won’t bother reading an unsorted archive of scans in PDF form. The posts above cover parts of a stash of Intel-related E-mails, but we missed so many more. “We could use MDA incentive to convince Oems to refere to the PCs they license Windows on as WindowsPC’s rather than IBM compatible,” Bill Gates states on in of the exhibits below. “We could incent them to use this designation sort of like we do the logo. If we were successful the world would change the way it talks about PCs to WindowsPCs.”

Nowadays Microsoft tries to mix the terms “Windows” and “PC”, making them increasingly synonymous. Let us handle one exhibit at a time and summarise the key points presented therein

PXE 7578

Gist: Message to Steve Ballmer about OS/2 and spitfire

MS-PCAIA2 000001006
CONFIDENTIAL

To: steveb
Cc: darrenr jeffr jimall
Subject: Spitfire

Date: Mon May 6 15:45:07 1991

Logically spitfire should be managed out of our group in vancouver
from a development point of view. Since they will connect our
file sharing message store with everything thru gateways and they
will also connect spitfire to everything thru gateways it makes
non sense for them not to have spitfire. Spitfire cant be released
without testing all the gateways and it has to track any changes
in the fie sharing message store.

>From a marketing point of view our gateways and spitfire should be
sold
the same way – same channels same support. I think it makes sense
for WGA to do this. However I think its too bad to take things away
from dwayne. WGA has no clear policy about whether gateways/spitfire
have special distribution.

If we agree on this then we need to come up with some kind of
transition plan.
I present it for discussion at this point.

This is separate from the question of whether spitfire should be
based on 1.3, 2.0 or NT in its first release.

From markwo Tue May 7 11:51:29 1991
To: mikemap
Subject: BofA Update 5/6/91
Cc: barbr dianek joef joes markw martat michelg meilf pamelab richmac
tamibro
Date: Tue May 7 11:50:03 1991

The U.S. Division had a fairly arduous implementation of LAN Manager. The
configuration with SQL, Lotus Notes, Windows Workstation from ADS along with
the applications was aggressive to start with. We had on-site assistance
from PSS for two weeks, and in the eleventh hour we discovered a “bug”
in
LAN Man which was causing all these problems. PSS and NEU are cognizant of
all the installation issues with this site. Currently the site is running
fairly smooth, but the start up experience has left BofA senior management
with some dubious thoughts about our solutions.

The next site, is scheduled for N.Y. at the end of this month. Management is
concenred whether this platform is “bullet proof” enough to roll out
to 20
other sites. The visibility of this project has reached to Peter Hill and
Martin Stein. There is a feeling that this project should be turned over
to IBM and use LAN Server.

On another note, IBM is now aggressively marketing OS/2 2.0 on the desktop.
They are starting with the line of business areas within BofA. Theyu have
a fairly large poject started with IBM building a custom front-end for OS/2
2.0 for their branch automation. IBM is astutely positiioning OS/2 for their

MS 504703
CONFIDENTIAL

Plaintiff’s Exhibit
7578
Comes v Microsoft

PXE 3800 is illegible (says “Superbowl”)

PXE 39242 – NT5.1 is a glorified SP

Gist: Bill Veghte (now in HP) responds to a message which reveals how the equivalent of a Service Pack is something Microsoft charges a lot of money for. “One alternative is to acknowledge the reality that NT5.1 release is simply a
glorified service pack and turn our development/release cycles to the more aggressive release in Q2 2000 that can be a real substitute for Win98,” says the message.

PLAINTIFF’S
EXHIBIT 3924
Comes v. Microsoft

GOVERNMENT
EXHIBIT
426

From: Bill Veghte
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 4:55 PM
To: Carl Stork (Exchange), Jim Allchin (Exchange); Moshe Dunie; S. Somasegar;
Jawad Khaki;
Deborah Black; Lou Perazzoli; Tom Phillips; Ed Stubbs
Subject: RE: 1999 Release Plans

Carl brings up excellent points here. The challenge we now have with the 5.x
release is that it is serving multiple masters.
With discipline, we can release product in Q2 that will accomplish the
following: (a) 5.x that the marketing folks can
trumpet to push fols that haven’t upgraded yet, (b) fix some serious holes that
have become obvious as we go thru shipping
NT5. (c) refresh vehicle for OEMs. It will not accomplish our goal of
preventing a Win98 SP nor will it significantly richen
the NT mix in the OEM channel beyond what we accomplish with NT5.

Original Message
From: Carl Stork (Exchange)
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 4:39 PM
To: Jimm Allchin (Exchange); Moshe Dunie; S. Somasegar; Bill Veghte; Jawad
Khaki; Deborah Black; Lou
Perazzoli; Tom Phillips
Subject: 1999 Pelease Plans

There have been several developments this week that change the assumptions
behind the 1999 product
releasae plans in the 3-Year plan. Our original plan was as follows (taken from
one of our slide sets)
* Focus new development efforts exclusively on NT code base to avoid Win98 OSR
* No new hardware support for Win98, and minimal SP release. (e.g. IE5 only)
* Create NT5.1 schedule-driven to meet OEM fall ’99 product lines
* Add hardware support & features to NT focused on getting OEM runrate at
the high end consumer market.

Here is new information that we have learned this week:
* If NT5.1 is priced at $100, and Win98 is priced at $50, OEMS will ship Win98.
They will acquire any new
hardware support components from third parties (IHVs, Phoenix, Systemsoft,
Intel, etc) or not ship the
hardware. NT5.1 is not compelling in the consumer market segment – it does not
have sufficient appeal to
support a $50 price increase (and bear risk the compatibility, driver
coverage).
* NT5.1 will not be a “consumer” release that pushes OEMs to pick up
for their customer lines – it is a “service
pack” to NTW5.0. More time is needed to accomplish this feature set for
OEMS (and end-users).
* There are some hardware features that will become mainstream in Fall’99 that
require some OS changes,
notably those in the 440BX, PIIX6 and Camino chipset. At a minimum these
include a chipset minipoort, and
1394 OHCI support, possibly with 1394 storage. If Microsoft does not supply
these in an OSR,k then other
distribution mechanisms need to be established. This becomes messy as there are
components which are
not on the distribution media available from our authorized replicators.
* There will be a vibrant third party markert in futher advancing hardware
support in Win98 – ranging from Intel
to IHVs to companies like Pheonix and Systemsoft. At a minimum, we will have
all sorts of
upgrade/compatibility challenges as we try and upgrad the installed base to NT6.
the design, quality &
interoperability of third party hardware support will be lowe4r, and over time
this will lead to increased support
problems (for example, we are shipping IA-SPOX in Win98 in order to support
installed base of software
modems).
* There are a number of componentsd that will most likely need to be shipped on
Win98, including IE5, COM+
and DirectX. There are others like DeviceBay, xDSL, or Intel’s video phone work
that are important for
partners.
* Feedback from OEM partners is the level of integratrion that we did for IE4 in
OSR 2.5 was bad both from
customer experience and manufacturing perspective. The OEM group will push very
hard to have a fully
inte4grated OPK for IE5.

Overall the proposed plan does not (a) meet the requirements of ourt OEM
customers to provide a release that
they would ship into the high end consumer systems, (b) meet their needs for new
hardware support, and (c)
eliminate the need to develo Win98 OSRs.

Given these realities, I believe we need to either reset our priorities for the
SP2 and/or consider alternatives.

One alternative is to acknowledge the reality that NT5.1 release is simply a
glorified service pack and turn our
development/release cycles to the more aggressive release in Q2 2000 that can be
a real substitute for Win98
with a $50+ price point. Given that we’ll need to provide a Win98 SP/OSR with
IE5/DX6/COM+, let’s target it for
Fall ’99 pre-install needs with the minimum new hardware support needed for
platform quality and a smooth
upgrade opportunity for NT6.

MS7 005950
CONFIDENTIAL

MS-PCA 1093506

PXE 6928_L

Gist: Highly confidential Office XP + Windows XP + SharePoint thoughts (bundling and lock-in)

Plaintiff’s Exhibit
6928_L
Comes v. Microsoft

From: Anders Brown
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 9:59 PM
To: Steven Sinofsky; Charles Stevens; Joseph Krawaczak
Cc: John Vail
Subject: FW: Office in the Solution Clusters

Fyi – just keeping you in the loop wrt to Office and Sable thoughts…

Original Message
From: Anders Brown
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 9:55 PM
To: Dan Neault; Valerie Olague; Jay Jamison
Cc: Sable Solution Cluster Leads
Subject: Office in the Solution Clusters

Based on Orlando’s comment that desktop pull-through was one of the core metrics
we should score the
rankings on, I’ve taken a look at where Office is today in the scenarios, and
added it to a few others where it
should make sense. I’ve updated the attached ppt (text in red) to reflect my
comments… below is a bit
more description of areas that need attention/discussion.

Corporate Intra/Internet Solution [Office is currently in this scenario]
This one is great — Office shuold just be the front end to this scenarios.
Value-add the XP provides is (1) the addition
of Share Point Team services to an enterprise, and (2) a front end add-on for
Share Point Portal Server (Tahoe). Tahoe
actually provides the add-on, but it integrates into Office. It’s a much better
story here with Office XP than with Office
2000.

Only thing we need to add is the revenue assocaited with upgrades: about $150
per enterprise customer. I
assume we have some CAL number floating out there and we should just add this to
it…

Business Performance Analysis [Office is currently in this scenario]
Office is in this scenario — and should be — but to be clear, we need to
understand what Office needs to do a bit more to
be the front end. In a perfect world, we’d have Ofgfice be the sole front end,
but at this point I don’t believe Office can’t
stand up and say it “does BI” like Knosys’ and Cognos’ of the world
(i.e. hard core OLAP support, “walking the
edge of the cube”, “drill through”, etc). That said, Office
should be part of this scenario, and again we should add the
CALs @ $150/desktop. It just might take a bit more work to really nail the
value-add of Office over the
partner solution.

Media Services [Office is not currently in this scenario]
Office should be placed in this solution cluster. It just makes sens that if we
go out with a broader collaboration story,
that this includes Office. This is actually probably better names something
like “Next-Generation Collaboration”
solution, or something that moves the name from what a simple technology (media
services) to what it really is: the
next wave of collaboration and communication services with Office and Windows.

Accelerated Deployment for the XP Desktop [this scenario does not exist]
This was a great suggestion earlier by sshay… we should move forward on this
one, and of course the market
opportuniity for Office is at $150/desktop. Think I’d change the name to
include something around
Productivbity: “Advanced Desktiop Productivity and Accelerated
Deployment” or something… it would be
simply Office XP + Windows XP + SharePoint Teamn Services plus deploymenty
services. I believe this one
is in process already…

Note the updated comments in the attached PPT – these should be merged into the
most recent deck. I’ll give Valerie
and Jay a call tomorrow AM.

-anders

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

MS/CR 002842
CONFIDENTIAL

PXE 4434

Gist: Microsoft and Zeos licence

PLAINTIFF’S
EXHIBIT
4434
Comes v. Microsoft

Carl Sittig – OEM Sales
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399

Tel 206 936 6348
Fax 206 93MSFAX

Microsoft(r)

October 12, 1993

Mr. Jum Ticknor
Zeos International, LTD
1301 Industrial Blvd.
Minneapolis, MN 55413

RE: Side Letter to the Zeos International, LTD and Microsoft Corporation License
Agreement,
dated June 1, 1990, Contract No. 4934-0130 (“Agreement”).

Dear Jim:

I received your signed copies of Ammendment #7 to the Agreement, along with your
requested changes to
Exhibit X, NAMES AND LOCATIONS OF COMPANY SUBSIDIARIES. These changes have
been
made and the new Exhibit X has replaced the Exhibit X in the Ammendment you
signed. Attached is a copy
of the new Exhibit XX for your review. Please file this letter with Ammendment
#7 when you receive your
executed copy from Microsoft.

Please call if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

[signature]

Carl Sittig
OEM Account Manager

Microsoft Corporation is an equal opportunity employer.

MS 0039898
CONFIDENTIAL

PXE 4430

Gist: Amendment to the above

PLAINTIFF’S
EXHIBIT
4430
Comes v. Microsoft

AMMENDMENT

AMMENDMENT NUMBER 8
to the MICROSOFT OEM LICENSE AGREEMENT
between MICROSOFT CORPORATION, a Washington U.S.A. Corporation
and ZEOS INTERNATIONAL, LTD, a Corporation of Minnesota
MICROSOFT LICENSE # 4934-0130, dated June 1, 1990

This Ammendment to the License Agreement between MICROSOFT CORPORATION
(“MS”) and
(“COMPANY”) dated (“Agreement”), is made and entered into
this 31st Day of January, 1995.

The parties agree to ammend the Agreement as follows:

1. The Agreement mentioned shall be extended for a period of three (3) months
starting January 31,
1995 and ending April 30, 1995.

2. In the event of inconsistencies between the Agreement and this Amendment, the
terms and
conditions of the Amendment shall be controlling.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have executed this Amendment to the License
Agreement as of the
date set forth above. All signed copies of this Amendment to the License
Agreement shall be deemed
originals. This Amendment does not constitute an offer by MS. This Amendment
shall be effective upon
execution on behalf of COMPANY and MS by their duly authorized representatives.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION
[signature]
By

Kathleen P. Graves
Name (Print)

OEM Group Manager
Title

0-1-95
Date

ZEOS INTERNATIONAL LTD

[signature]
by

Judi Larkin
Name (Printed)

VP Administration
Title

1/31/95
Date

Signed Original

Microsoft License No.
4934-0130

MSC 5007875
Highly Confidential

PLAINTIFF’S
Exhibit 1309
C.A. No. 2:96CV645B

MS-PCA 1194018
CONFIDENTIAL

PXE 4490

Gist: Joachim Kempin pressures along with Gates for labelling computers “Windows”

PLAINTIFF’S
EXHIBIT
4490
Comes v Microsoft

From: Joachim Kempin
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 11:34 AM
To: Marshall Brumer
Subject: RE: Intel payments for logo usage

they continue to play hardball.

From: Marshal Brumer
Sent: Monday, August 26, 1996 9:03 AM
To: Joachim Kempin
Subject: FW: Intel paymentsd for logo usage

do you know the status of this? it is coming up in the press now.

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 1996 10:11 PM
To: Joachim Kempin
Cc: Paul Maritz; Marshall Brumer; Rich Tong; Jonathan Roberts; David Heiner
Subject: Intel payments for logo usage

I decided to send this issue to a small group

Intel pays out about $500M per year in advertising incentive money for people to
use their logo. It is serious money.
When Compaq decided to join the program it cost them a lot. They sort of hope
IBM doesn’t join since that would also
cost them a lot.

They have adopted a policy that if there is more than one logo then they pay a
lot less. I told Andy that they should just
reduce payments after 2 logos (theirsd and one others). He tried to say the
lawyers though that was a problem and I
told him that was real nonsense since they wouldn’t be saying anything about the
second logo and whose it is. He said
he is the decision maker on this issue. He said he will talk to the lawyers
again. I told him I didn’t want him to hide
behind the lawyers since dropping payments after 2 is certainly as open as
dropping payments after 1. We may have
to get our lawyers to talk to their lawyers at some point. Joachim – go ahead
and talk to Ottelini. If we can’t get it
structurte this way I will want the lawyers to give their opinion and I will
make one more appeal to Andy.

If it turns out we can’t get this solved I have another idea. Itsd an idea that
might make sense even if the logo thing
stays intact. We could use MDA incentive to convince Oems to refere to the PCs
they license Windows on as
WindowsPC’s rather than IBM compatible. We could incent them to use this
designation sort of like we do the logo. If
we were successful the world would change the way it talks about PCs to
WindowsPCs.

MS-PCA 2618927

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

PXE 5045

Gist: Pricing of Windows debated internally

Message 27:
From russw Thu Jun 8 13:20:21 1989
To: richab
Subject: price increase for retail
Date: Thu Jun 8 13:17:56 1989

I haven’t done anything with this. I had sent you some mail suggesting
that we add on an explanation of our run-time policies and
how they may relate to the pricing decision i.e. when do we
drop it if ever? before proceeding.

we should wrap this up soon since it was important for the oem
pricing justification to our oem customers

thx

From richab Fri May 26 19:02:15 1989
To: russw
Subject: Windows /286: Recommended SRP change
Date: Fri May 26 19:00:11 1989

Russ: I’d like to propose that we raise the SRP of Windows /286 from $99
to
$129 at version 3.0. There are several reasons behind my proposal:

1. I do not believe that consumers are sensitive tto pricing differences
in the $50 to $99 range (demaind is inelastic in this range). A #$129
SRP ensures that Windows /286 will typically appear on the street un
der
$99

2. At ~$99 on the stree, Windows /286 3.0 is an incredible value. The
applications alone are worth a great deal more. All of the great
applets PLUS a great shell PLUS breaking the 640K barrier…need I
say more.

3. The extra $15 in revenue we’ll receive as a result of this price cha
nge
will really help us in the cogfs as a % of revenue area. This is
particularly important when you consider the effect that the probable
Asymetrix OpenBook bundle (est. cogfs impact +$1.50 for 5.25″, +$2.75
for 3.5″) on these skus profit margin. In additional, the promotional
bundle gives us an additional rationale (in the buyers mind) for the
increase.

4. Finally, without this increase, it will be much more difficult to get
oem customers to sign deals for Win 286 at our new pricing levels
during the interim period before DOS+Win becomes a reality.

In summary, I don’t thing it will be a big deal to the consumer and it
will makea positive difference in our profitability as well as the prices
we settle with our oems on.

rich

10127914

RESTRICTED
CONFIDENTIAL
Plaintiff’s Exhibit
5045
Comes V. Microsoft

Exh 5 Date
Witness
Zusan Zielie

MS-PCA 2433829

HIGHLY
CONFIDENTIAL

PXE 5055

Gist: Discussion about competitors who can be broken apart by Microsoft. “Do you really want to penalize users for using Microsoft software?”

From philba Wed Sep 13 08:40:37 1989
To: celestb danbo greglo jodys marcw mikedr richab
Subject: Re: Limulator technology: spread it around?
Date: Wed Sep 13 07:31:42 1989

’cause we’re big bad microsoft and we LIKE to stomp the
daylights out of the little guys.

seriously — we shouln’t try to crush these guys — let them
upgrade their products to be compatibly with ours. Give them
the info they need. Even say nice things aboubt the good ones.
However, I don’t want to put any development effort into
making it easier for them.

Sender: mikedr Tue Sep 12 20:29:17 1989
To: celesteb danbo greglo jodys marcw philba richab
Subject: Re: Limulator technology: spread it around?
Date: Tue Sep 12 20:26:54 1989

I disagree with Greg. Our goal is not to drive limulator vendors
out of business. If someone besides Microsoft is able to deliver
great functionality to our users, why should we stand in the way
of them using it? Do you really want to penalize users for
using Microsoft software?

Sender: greglo Tue Sep 12 20:22:19 1989
To: celestb danbo jodys marcw mikedr philba richab
Subject: Limulator technology: spread it around?
Date: Tue Sep 12 20:20:43 1989

Need a policy on whether we want to allow other
people to modify their limulators so that they
will work with Win386 just as well as our own
EMM386.SYS (i.e. let win386 take over their open
emm handles while we aere running, to support ems
using memory resident programs). Do we document
our interface in the DDK?

One could say that there is no reason that various
OEM limulators or 386MAX shouold not work with us.
On the other hand, maybe we want to kill them.

My opinion right now is that there will be no
reason for a person not to use EMM386 with Win386 3.0.
Sure 386MAX has additional nifty keeno features, like
mapping upper memory blocks, but they can’t use those
features with Win386,. All the features they could use
with Win386 are already provided by EMM386. So maybe
we want to keep things simple and tell themn always
use EMM386, and throw away the competitors?

X 567486
CONFIDENTIAL

EXH 6
DATE
WITNESS
SUSAN ZIELIE

Plaintiff’s Exhibit
5055
Comes v. Microsoft

PXE 5176

Gist: “So, rest assured, MS Apps isn’t going to boast of how it’s monopolizing all the Win Computing resources, but will aslo probably point the way to the Windows group for a supporting quote.”

From richab Mon Oct 15 12:34:35 1990
To: w-clairl w-connib
Subject: apps office product
Cc: kathrynh
Date: Mon Oct 15 12:34:35 1990

I continually take heat, some of it deserved, most not for the church vs.
state issues. Win computing is viewed negatively by most isvs since
there is not (in their opinion) a significant isv component. We do
not (yet) have a strong win isv program to counter this either.

It is very important in all isv issues that you consider that the very best
we can do with isvs is to have them feeling neutral about us. they will
never love us.

rich
(****
>From w-connib Mon Oct 15 08:10:25 1990
To: richab w-clairl
Subject: apps office product
Cc: kathyrnh
Date: Mon Oct 15 08:00:42 1990

Sorry, I’ve been out for awhile, but wanted to respond to your earlier mail
about the MS Office for Windows and whether we’d get heat for giving
preferential treatment to MS Windows aps. I haven’t heard much more from the
press but I know that various people at MS have asked me if this is an issue.
So I’ve been meaning to ask you, Rich, if other ISVs are complaining about
Windows Computing promo or the Win Office.

We should have a consistent response from the Apps group and Windows group but
I would rely heavily on the Windows group to show that other ISV’s are still
happy and that they are helping all ISV’s. Can we point to any new programns
being offered to other ISV’s as a result of Windows Computing push?

So, rest assured, MS Apps isn’t going to boast of how it’s monopolizing all
the Win Computing resources, but will aslo probably point the way to the
Windows group for a supporting quote.

X 566829
CONFIDENTIAL

Plaintiff’s Exhibit
5176
Comes V. Microsoft

PXE 6871

Gist: Mike Moskowitz on Windows Media Player

EXHIBIT
87a
LANE

burst.com

Board of Directors Meeting: 11/1/00
Product Marketing & Business Development Report

Product Marketing Status

* Live Status – The Alpha release has been successfully deployed at InterZest in
Korea as of the
first week of October – the Beta release has been pushed out to mid-January – a
2 month slip
from engineering – the slip is due in part to a poor development job by one of
their contractors.
* Product Roadmap : Based upon the new Business plan delivered last week by
doig, a first draft
of Product Roadmap has been laid out (attached).
* New Windows Media Player Bridge was released October 19 – this is the product
I described at
the end of August to the Board — it successfully combines WMP6, WMP7, with full
support for ASF, WMA, MPEG, inlcuding seek forward/backwards. We are now
totally up-to-date for WMP
on our current product release.
* Promo CD – A promo CD has been released for use at tradeshows.
* ROI/TCO Research work finishes this week – this work is near completion and
shows Burst in
a very positive light (performance over the internet, and network efficiency)
vs. the current
server from Microsoft

Business Development

Apple – Based upon positive discussions held at QuickTime Live, we will be
meeting with Apple to
disucss, amongst other items, embedding Burst into their player. This will
likeley accelerate our plans
around the Burst plug-in for the Mac QuickTime Player.

Real Networks – Real has rejected our 2 proposals:
* to be a VAR for their server, which would allow our server to talk to their
server, and
* to creat a Burst Caching server, wherein we cache streams from a central Real
server and burst
it from the edge.

Note that it is my belief there are 2 reasons for this rejection:
* Our positioning – we still have “Why Stream When You Can Burst” on
our main web page. We
have positioned ourselves as direct competitors to them – and to Microsoft, as
well – so it isw hard
for them to see us as partners.
* Our sales – or lack thereof. It is extremely difficult to put together a
convincing story of how
much added revenue they would receive by partnering with us, since we are not
currently
recording any significant revenues from our product.

AOL/Winamp – We have declined the AOL offer due to lack ofa compelling
pay-performance
guarantee for client downloads.

Mike Moskowitz
Vice President, Business Development and Product Marketing

Confidential Page 1 10/23/00

Confidential

Plaintiff’s Exhibit
6871
Comes V. Microsoft

BUR5147894

3p-DEPEX 005523

PXE 7582

Gist: DR DOS 5.0 correspondence

#1

EGGHEAD Discount SOFTWARE

Mr. Jonathan Freeman
Digital Research
660 South Glassell
#106
Orange, CA 92666

May 16, 1991

Dear Jonathan:

I appreciate your continued interest in Egghead Discount Software as a
distribution source for DR DOS 5.0. The summary that you provided
was informative and beneficial. Thanks for your input.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to further evaluate the addition of DR
DOS 5.0 to the Egghead mix for several months. Our internal
promotional priorities have been established and I have concluded that it
would not be in Egghead’s best interest to move forward on this issue at
the current time.

I would like to leave the door open for further consideration and I would
be happy to re-open the discussion in late July or August. I look forward
to meeting you personally.

Best regards,

[signature]
Rod W. Brooks
Senior Vice President
Marketing/Merchandising

CC: Bill Pickard

22011 S.E. 51st Street. P.O. Box 7004. Issaquah, WA 98027
(206) 391-0800. FAX (206) 391-0880

WS113511
Plaintiff’s Exhibit
7582
Comes V. Microsoft

PXE 7739

Gist: Bill Gates and Joachim Kempin planning price hikes

Bill Gates

From: Joachim Kempin
To: Bill Gates
Cc: Bob Herbold; Steve Ballmer
Subject: RE: Oem price guidelines
Date: Friday, January 06, 1996 7:06 AM

The goal You set was 20% average above current prices. Iam very confident we
will achieve this. Let’s
take a global look of what has changed:
1. we will get reports monthly and pad monthly. this will improve our cashflow.
2. we will gain some more by having progressive pricing.
3. we modelled the new PGL based on effective prices which are below the current
PGL – as I showed You
in our price discussion. these icreases leave should yield 25% increases on
average thus leaving some room for negociaton.
4. I do not expect all companies to fullfill their MDA targets giving us better
prices.
5. The current plan call for volume pricing of the WIN 95 units only, without
combining total volume. This again leads to higher prices.
All in all we have enough room to achieve the 20% higher target.

—–

From: Bill Gates
To: Joachim Kempin
Cc: Bob Herbold; Steve Ballmer
Subject: Oem price guidelines
Date: Tuesday, Jamuary 03, 1995 9:12 PM

I have been studying this thing a little bit.

I am sure you understand how it relates to you goal of raising our revenue per
PC.

On the surface I see the following: (I am excluding here international markup
$6.50 => $6 and hard disk
install discount ($1.50)=>($1)

Volume level: Lowest 400-600 Highest
Dos6.22+tools 27 20.25 18.25
Windows+Wfw 50 34 28.50
All 4 old prdcts 77 54.25 46.75

W95 w/o MDA 75 58 53.25
W95 w/full MDA 55 45.65 41.80

Without knowing whether we will be charging closer to list price than we have in
the past and expecting
that a lot of people will get the full MDA it looks on the surface like not only
will we not get our goal of
20% or so per unit increase with the incredible innovation of Win95 but we will
acxtually get less. For a
customer who didn’t buy Wfw this would be true but a high percentage did buy
it.

Are we going to achieve our goal of increasing revenue as we hope? Of course
Compaq will not have to pay anything new but I think they are the only ones who
get a carry over.

On the surface it looks like prices are going down!

MSC 00698196

MX 5067173
CONFIDENTIAL

Page 1272

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

Plaintiff’s Exhibit
7739
Comes V. Microsoft

MS-CCPMDL 000000291593
CONFIDENTIAL

Thanks to “Superbowl” for extracting the above text from the PDFs. █

Summary: Microsoft resorts to dirty tactics and aggression as more of its products fall flat on their faces

INTERESTING things are happening for Microsoft, which means that my week (or two) off was badly timed. In order to prevent this site from being too quiet while I’m on dodgy cellular networks (leading people to baseless theories), it is probably better to provide some quick updates, such as the headsup from OpenBytes about the failing of Xbox 360:

It is reported that Sony’s PS3 shipped 2.2m more units than the 360 in 2010. The reasons for this could be numerous, disaffection with Microsoft, no BluRay on the 360 or the RROD. The approximate numbers being reported as sold are: WII – 17million, PS3 – 14.4million and 360 on 12.2million. Oh dear. Maybe the Kinect (like I said at the time) wasn’t the major draw to the console that some claimed and maybe only set to appease existing 360 users and people who wanted to use the Kinect on a different platform altogether.

There is more here and OpenBytes speaks about Vista 7 possibly bricking computers:

A brace of “fatal errors” is hampering Windows 7-based computers that have been updated with Microsoft’s first service pack for its current operating system.

In fact, since Windows 7 SP1 was released late last month, many users have been grumbling on forums about problems with the install of the update package.

Here is what OpenBytes says:

Now whilst some Microsoft advocates are always quick to allege that Windows “just works” and is “easy to use” (whilst claiming Linux is a a complex hobbyist system) it appears that Windows SP1 installs are not going very smoothly

Read the full details at the original sources (hard to verify while on a throttled connection). Last but not least, Zune is officially dead, but we already said that, did we not?

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ALSO-RAN Microsoft has finally put its Zune music player out of its misery, with reports that the company will no longer develop products for the Zune.

Microsoft launched its Zune music player back in 2006 to compete with Apple’s Ipod. At the time CEO Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft could beat Apple at its own game, a statement that seemed fanciful at the time and has now proven to have been simply laughably wrong. Bloomberg reports that Microsoft will stop updating its Zune player, concentrating on putting the software onto other devices.

Why worry about Microsoft? It just enters any market which might smell like money; currently it tries becoming a patents parasite feeding on other companies, not with much success though (it’s more of a distraction than a promising direction). For many years now (since the 1990s) Microsoft has been planning market distortion using government-granted monopolies such as patents. We have already provided many details about Elliot’s (Paul Singer) role in distorting markets and planning to tear Novell to pieces long before making the bid, which ultimately resulted in Microsoft taking over everything it needs from Novell. Groklaw looks at the mysterious and probably corrupt unXis case. It finds connections to Microsoft, Canopy, Carlyle, Elliott Associates, and Koch Industries:

On January 5th, it was announced that Koch Industries had sued a Utah web host, Bluehost, seeking names of pranksters who had put out a spoof press release and then posted it on a website made to look like Koch’s. Koch is asserting trademark infringement, unfair competition, breach of contract, and cyberpiracy under state and federal law, including a claim using the incredibly popular and oppressively flexible Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It’s the dernier cri in litigation, ya know. The New York Times provides some background on the case, which involved Koch Industries unmasking some anonymous defendants and trying to make them pay for making fun of them. Bluehost totally caved, by the way.

The case caught my eye originally because it was assigned to the Hon. Dale Kimball, the judge who originally presided over both SCO v. IBM and SCO v. Novell in US District Court in Utah. So it piqued my curiosity, and I took a look. And then the weirdest thing happened.

As I read the filings, particularly Public Citizens’ Memorandum in Support of Motion to Quash, Issue Protective Order, and Dismiss Complaint [here's the Motion it supports, both PDFs], I was struck by two things: 1) the allegations seemed over the top in the SCO-esque sense and 2) Koch Industries is represented by Parsons Behle, the same law firm that represented Canopy Group in its litigation against Ralph Yarro, ousting him from his position with the company in 2004 and totally in 2005. He remained with SCO Group as chairman of the board, until the company filed for bankruptcy in 2007. But looking at the subpoena [PDF] Yarro’s lawyers served on Parsons Behle in that litigation, I saw that the firm had represented Canopy Group from 1998 onward, meaning that for some time, they represented Canopy when Yarro was heading it up.

Woah. Is there a Yarro-Koch connection? A unXis connection? After all, unXis seems to have some connections to energy interests, and that’s Koch’s field. And always, over the years, in reporting on the SCO saga, who do we find peeking out from behind the curtain? Microsoft.

It is like some kind of mafia looking for the benefits of very few rich members of the public. They work together a lot of the time. It helps them at the expense of everybody outside that cabal. Incidentally, be sceptical of “CIA” figures about the Internet (that’s how it was described). IE9 is a case of too little, too late. The Microsoft-sponsored ‘Web statistics’ already produce warped numbers to give the illusion of an Internet Explorer comeback. Everything for hype, eh? █

Summary: Bits of recent news (from last week and beforehand) about mobile platforms and platform security

IN THE LAST post on this subject (before moving to a new house) it was clarified that Linux had more or less won the mobile wars. Android is unstoppable, but Microsoft and Apple resort to dirty tactics which include patent lawsuits. There’s that lack of a sense of ethics in the proprietary software camp and it really shows.

It may take several days to catch up with the past week’s news, but looking a week back, there are certain unmissable incidents that ought to be filed here. First of all, Microsoft continues to be utter rubbish at security (and at mobile too) not because some of its software is ubiquitous but because Microsoft’s patching habits are poor. As The Register put it, “March Patch Tuesday leaves IE unpatched for Pwn2Own hackers”:

Microsoft – unlike its browser rivals – will not be patching Internet Explorer before the upcoming Pwn2Own hacking contest next week.

A March Patch Tuesday pre-alert, published on Thursday, reveals that Redmond will be issuing three security bulletins next week, one of which affects a critical flaw in Windows and none of which relates to IE. The critical update affects Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 while the two lesser risk (“important”) bulletins cover a separate flaw in Windows and an update for the Office Groove 2007 software.

Here is some further commentary about it:

IE will not be fully patched in time for Pwn2Own next week. Let’s see. Hundreds of millions of PCs run IE and all the malware artists in the world will have IE’s downfall demonstrated in public… It boggles my mind that people run that software and M$ cares so little about the security of a necessarily-networked application.

Moving on to phones, nobody can get past the amazement at the NoWin deal (Nokia-Windows) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which made no sense for Nokia. None whatsoever. Someone whom I know at BT (a manager) called it “100% corrupt” and was surprised that it was allowed to get past regulators. Anyway, as one of our readers pointed out a couple of days ago:

Confirmation of Nokia’s role comes from PJ’s examination of Nokia’s SEC filing. She quotes the relevant parts in her news picks.

- Definitive agreements with Microsoft for the proposed partnership may not be entered into in a timely manner, or at all, or on terms beneficial to us.
- New sources of revenue expected to be generated from the Microsoft partnership, such as increased monetization opportunities for us in services and intellectual property rights, may not materialize as expected, or at all.
[PJ: So, they haven't signed on the dotted line yet, this is saying. And I gather they hope to sue people or threaten to do so to get royalties on patents. Blech. Can't Microsoft ever do anything *not* evil?] – Nokia’s Form 20F, SEC

I think she hit the nail on the head. We can conclude that all of the damage to Nokia is real but Microsoft’s promises are vapor. Perhaps there is resistance in the company beyond the thousands of engineers who walked off the job in protest.

It’s not entirely shocking because we predicated this and Elop has made comments which insinuated this right after signing the deal with Microsoft, in which he had a lot of his money invested at the time. Microsoft and its minions are also grooming Android (and MeeGo) for lawsuits/extortion, meaning that Microsoft will try to get a share of the profits, if not by extortion, then by lawsuits that speed up the act of surrendering. Microsoft is more like a racketeering operation and with Elop it got Nokia joining its mob army. Microsoft MVP de Icaza is promoting the MonoDroid poison pill [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15] while a fellow Mono/.NET booster from Seattle (near Microsoft) stirs the broth: “The signed Honeycomb update from Moto/Google contains libmono.so and libunity.so. @migueldeicaza @unity3d” [thanks to G. Forbes for the headsup]

Watch out, Android. Companies like Acer and Motorola are not paying Microsoft for Android and Microsoft would love to change that. Microsoft’s own mobile platform is a massive failure given the massive advertising budget and the bad patches which brick phones that run Vista Phony 7 are just a sign of this. Well, the spin came shortly afterwards (blaming the connection because, of course, Microsoft would love people to believe that updates should not necessarily be resilient in case of intermittent mobile connectivity, which is common by the way) and it didn’t take long before phones ‘blew’ or got bricked again. How typical:

“Microsoft blows Windows Phone update, again

[...]

Samsung users who held off updating after hearing about the problems last time are being told to hold off again as the fixed fix isn’t really fixed at all.

This time it seems that owners of the Samsung Omnia 7 are OK as long as they’ve got 4GB of memory free, but any less than that and the updating process chokes with an error numbered “800705B4″, but at least no one is reporting bricked handsets this time.

At OpenBytes, Tim opines: “Of course non of this comes as any surprise to me and what really beggars belief is that after WinMob, Kin, Zune and a whole host of luke warm products (and that’s being nice) there are a few people still parting with cash for “Windows” products. Take the time to look at the Windows Phone 7 twitter account and read the plethora of problems being reported to them. Issues with Windows Phone 7 don’t seem limited to Samsung phones and the latest update, there’s a multitude of other issues presented to them aswell.”

Security at Microsoft is pants.

Mobile at Microsoft is pants.

Put the two together and it’s wet socks.

Not to worry though. The MSBBC has come up with propaganda which daemonises Android security for no apparent reason. The BBC Android FUD was covered here just before I moved to the new house (and no, this site is not “dead” as some people who mailed me started thinking). Basically, after I wrote that post about MSBBC’s Android FUD Glyn Moody did an article about it and there was a long discussion in Twitter/Identi.ca, including stuff like this (with others agreeing by chiming in):

@schestowitz I fail to see how BBC is writing for Microsoft. The exploit shows !Android market needs polishing and better security measures.

That’s not quite it, but Microsoft’s shameless booster Peter Bright saw it as an opportunity to spread FUD, stepping outside his “Microsoft Contributor” role at Ars. Moody says that the “#BBC [is] quick to fault #android & #openness – http://bbc.in/dLjLUz yet practically never names #windows in years of malware (v @schestowitz)”

One response says: “@glynmoody @schestowitz A big exaggerated. Check http://bbc.in/dXfNky #BBC #android #security”

Moody replies as follows: “@bortzmeyer @schestowitz not at all exaggerated. check this: http://bbc.in/hKmJuT *far more* stories that don’t mention #Windows at all”

And then: “@glynmoody @bortzmeyer @schestowitz just a little more of this logic and you’ll be able to show that Windows is under 5% market share”

From Moody again: “@pbeyssac @bortzmeyer @schestowitz certainly seems to be what the BBC is suggesting…so small it’s not worth mentioning…”

Here is Moody’s original piece which started a lot of this powwow. It starts as follows:

In fact, I have several – including the fact that I really want it to be the best broadcasting organisation in the world, as it once was. But my other bee/Beeb is that its journalistic standards in the few areas where I can claim some knowledge are pretty woeful.

This is seen nowhere more clearly than in its coverage of malware.

To read the reports on the BBC website (I don’t watch UK television, so I’ve no idea what happens there, but suspect it’s just as bad), you’d think that malware were some universal affliction, an unavoidable ill like death and taxes. Rarely does the BBC trouble its readers’ pretty little heads with the tiresome fact that the overwhelming majority of viruses and trojans affect one operating system, and one operating system only: Microsoft Windows.

To see this, try the following experiment. Search on the BBC news site for “microsoft windows virus” or “microsoft windows trojan” or “microsoft windows malware”, and you’ll get a few dozen hits, not all of which refer to Microsoft malware.

But try the same searches without the words “microsoft windows”, and you will get many more hits every year (try “computer malware”, for example), very few of which mention that such malware is almost exclusively for Microsoft’s platform.

That sin of omission has now been matched by an equally telling sin of commission. For hot on the heels of the first serious Android viruses, we have a report on BBC news spelling out the terrible facts

And again we come to Microsoft apologism such as this one which says: “@schestowitz Android’s security model is about equal to Windows Vista. S60 has a better model. Why the double standard?”

To rebut this quickly, the Android FUD was about cases where the user installs — willingly — malicious software. In the case of Windows, intervention from the user is rarely required; in some case, just visiting a page is a problem and a risk; why? ActiveX for starters. It’s a Windows issue, not an “Internet issue”; the very serious omissions in the corporate press are partly to blame for it all “and still no mention of the taboo “W” word…” wrote Moody regarding this new example. It’s like calling Toyota’s brake issue just a “car braking issue”. Imagine the outcry that sort of talking point would cause. █

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: Los bits de las noticias recientes (desde la semana pasada y de antemano) sobre las plataformas móviles y de plataforma de seguridad.

En el post anterior sobre este tema (antes de mudarme a una nueva casa) se aclaró que Linux más o menos ha ganado la guerra móvil[http://techrights.org/2011/03/07/vapourware-mockups/]. Android esta imparable, pero Microsoft y Apple recurren a tácticas sucias que incluyen demandas de patentes. A leguas se nota que carecen de sentido de la ética en el campo del software propietario y se nota realmente.

Puede tomar varios días para ponernos al día con noticias de la semana pasada, pero mirando a la semana hacia atrás, hay ciertos hechos ineludibles que deben ser presentadas aquí. En primer lugar, Microsoft sigue siendo absolutamente basura en cuanto a seguridad (y en el móvil[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Windows_Mobile_Reality_Log] también) no porque algunos de su software está en todas partes, sino porque los hábitos de parches de Microsoft son pobres. Como lo expresó el Register: “Los parches de marzo del pasado Martes dejaron IE sin parches para los hackers Pwn2Own[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/04/ms_march_patch_tuesday_pre_alert/]“:

Microsoft – a diferencia de los rivales de su navegador – no parchará Internet Explorer antes de que el próximo concurso de hacking Pwn2Own la próxima semana.

Un martes de parches de marzo de pre-alerta, publicado el jueves, revela que Redmond emitirá tres boletines de seguridad la próxima semana, una de ellas afecta a una vulnerabilidad crítica en Windows y ninguno de los cuales se relaciona con el IE. La actualización crítica afecta a Windows XP, Vista y Windows 7, mientras que el riesgo de dos menores (“importante”) boletines de cubrir un defecto por separado en Windows y una actualización para el software de Office Groove 2007.

He aquí algunos comentarios adicionales al respecto[http://mrpogson.com/2011/03/04/m-going-to-a-gun-fight-with-a-knife/]:

“IE no estará con todos los parches que necesita a tiempo para la semana próxima Pwn2Own. Vamos a ver. Cientos de millones de PC usan Internet Explorer y todos los artistas de malware en el mundo demostrarán la caída de IE en público … Se turba mi mente que las personas que usan el software y a Microsoft le importa un comino acerca de la seguridad de una aplicación tan necesariamente en red.”

Pasando a los teléfonos, nadie puede superar el asombro ante el trato nowin (Nokia, Windows) [1[http://techrights.org/2011/02/13/microsoft-boosters-love-nokia-microsoft/], 2[http://techrights.org/2011/02/11/elop-pours-gasoline/], 3[http://techrights.org/2011/02/14/legal-action-and-nokia/], 4[http://techrights.org/2011/02/15/nokia-swpats-strategy/], 5[http://techrights.org/2011/02/25/elop-had-nokia-commit-suicide/]], que no tenía sentido para Nokia. Ninguno en absoluto. Alguien a quien conozco de BT (el entrenador) lo llamó “100% corrupto” y se sorprendió de que se le permitió obtener la aprobación de los reguladores. De todos modos, como uno de nuestros lectores lo señalaron hace un par de días[http://techrights.org/2011/03/03/rogue-ipr-games/#comments]:

La confirmación del papel de Nokia viene del examen de PJ de la presentación de Nokia al SEC[http://techrights.org/2011/03/03/rogue-ipr-games/#comments]. Ella cita a las partes pertinentes en la nota de prensa.

– Los acuerdos definitivos con Microsoft para la asociación propuesta no pueden ser adquiridos en forma oportuna, o en absoluto, o en condiciones beneficiosas para nosotros.
– Las nuevas fuentes de ingresos que se espera que se generen a partir de la asociación de Microsoft, tales como aumento de oportunidades de monetización para nosotros en los servicios y los derechos de propiedad intelectual, no se materialicen como se esperaba, o en absoluto.
[PJ: Así que, ellos no han firmado en la línea de puntos, sin embargo, se trata de decir. Y tengo entendido que la esperanza de demandar a las personas o amenazan con hacerlo para obtener regalías por las patentes. Blech. ¿Puede Microsoft nunca hacer nada *NO* malo?] – Formulario 20F de Nokia, SEC

Creo que ella ha puesto el dedo en la llaga. Podemos concluir que todos los daños a Nokia son reales, pero las promesas de Microsoft son vapor. Tal vez haya resistencia en la compañía más allá de los miles de ingenieros que abandonaron el trabajo en señal de protesta.

No es del todo sorprendente ya que predicimos esto y Elop ha hecho comentarios que insinúan este derecho después de firmar el acuerdo con Microsoft, en la que tenía mucho de su dinero invertido en el preciso momento. Microsoft y sus secuaces también se preparán para atacar Android (y Meego) por medio de pleitos/extorsión, lo que significa que Microsoft va a tratar de obtener una parte de los beneficios, si no por la extorsión, a continuación, por demandas que aceleran el acto de entrega. Microsoft se parece más a una operación de chantaje y consiguió con Elop que Nokia se unar a su ejército mafioso. Microsoft MVP de Icaza esta en la promoción de la píldora venenosa MonoDroid [1[http://techrights.org/2009/01/06/mono-android-intrusion/], 2[http://techrights.org/2009/02/16/android-mono-problem/], 3[http://techrights.org/2007/11/13/android-mono/], 4[http://techrights.org/2010/02/22/mono-pollution-revisited/], 5[http://techrights.org/2009/01/18/dot-net-mono-in-devices/], 6[http://techrights.org/2010/02/18/microsoft-mvps-cuddle-ms-api/], 7[http://techrights.org/2009/08/04/infiltrate-olpc-under-syncfusion-risk/], 8[http://techrights.org/2010/01/21/tivo-sued-by-microsoft/], 9[http://techrights.org/2010/03/17/android-mono-silverlight-danger/], 10[http://techrights.org/2010/04/30/android-htc-and-klausner/], 11[http://techrights.org/2010/05/22/monodroid-endeavours/], 12[http://techrights.org/2010/02/22/mono-pollution-revisited/], 13[http://techrights.org/2010/02/18/microsoft-mvps-cuddle-ms-api/], 14[http://techrights.org/2010/05/26/assisting-microsoft-and-swpats/], 15[http://techrights.org/2010/07/31/novell-as-microsoft-committer/]], mientras que un secuáz de Mono/.NET refuerzo en Seattle (cerca de Microsoft) mueve el caldo[http://twitter.com/koush/status/46299788655869952]: “El autenticado parche de Honey Comb de Motorola/Google contiene libmono.so y libunity.so. @ @ Migueldeicaza Unity3D “[gracias a G. Forbes por informarnos]

Cuidado, Android. Empresas como Acer y Motorola no está pagando Microsoft por Android y a Microsoft le gustaría cambiar eso. La propia plataforma móvil de Microsoft es un gran fracaso dado el presupuesto de publicidad masiva y los malos parches[http://techrights.org/2011/02/25/elop-had-nokia-commit-suicide/] que dejan sus teléfonos como ladrillos, Vista Phony 7 son sólo un signo de ello. Pues bien, el giro se produjo poco después (culpar a la conexión, ya que, por supuesto, Microsoft le encantaría que la gente crea que las actualizaciones no necesariamente deben ser resistente en caso de conectividad intermitente móvil, que es común por cierto) y no pasó mucho tiempo antes de que sus teléfonos se ‘jodan’ o terminen como ladrillos de nuevo. ¿Cúan típico[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/04/windows_update/]:

Microsoft Friega Windows Phone Actualización, una vez más

[...]

los usuarios de Samsung, que mantuvo a raya la actualización después de escuchar sobre el tipo de problemas de la última, se les dice a mantener a raya las actualizaciones de nuevo como el supuesto arreglo de actualización, no arregla nada en lo ábsoluto.

Esta vez parece que los dueños de la Samsung Omnia 7 están bien siempre que tengo 4 GB de memoria libre, pero algo menos que eso y se ahoga el proceso de actualización con un error de numeración “800705B4″, pero al menos nadie ha notificado que sus teléfonos terminaron como ladrillo esta vez.

Como OpenBytes, Tim opina[http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/fail-wp7-update-again-runs-into-problems/]: “Por supuesto que no de esto viene como una sorpresa para mí y lo que realmente mendiga creencia es que después de WinMob, Kin, Zune y una gran cantidad de tibios productos (y eso es ser agradable), hay unas pocas personas siendo despilfarrando dinero en efectivo por productos “Windows”. Tómese el tiempo para mirar a la cuenta twitter de teléfono de Windows 7 y leer la gran cantidad de problemas que se informa a los mismos. Problemas con el teléfono de Windows 7 no parecen limitarse a los teléfonos de Samsung y la actualización más reciente, hay una multitud de otras cuestiones que se les presenten, así. ”

La seguridad de Microsoft son los pantalones.

Móviles de Microsoft está en pantalones.

Ponga los dos juntos y son calcetines mojados.

Pero no se preocupe. El MSBBC ha llegado con la propaganda que daemonises seguridad Android sin razón aparente. La BBC Android FUD[http://techrights.org/2011/03/04/bbc-spreading-lies-again/] fue tratado aquí justo antes de que me mude a la casa nueva (y no, este sitio no está “muerto”, como algunas personas pensaron al escribierme por correo). Básicamente, después de escribir acerca del ataque de Android FUD por MSBBC, Glyn Moody’s hizo un artículo sobre el tema y hubo una larga discusión en Twitter/Identi.ca, incluyendo cosas como esta[http://identi.ca/notice/66088298] (con otros de acuerdo por el repique[http://identi.ca/notice/66090373]):

@Schestowitz no veo cómo la BBC está escribiendo para Microsoft. La explotación muestra que el Mercado Android necesita estar pulido y mejores medidas de seguridad.

Eso no es bastante, pero el sin vergüenza refuerzo de Microsoft Pedro Bright[http://techrights.org/2011/01/19/ars-technica-misdirection/] lo vió como una oportunidad para difundir FUD[http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/03/malware-in-android-market-highlights-googles-vulnerability.ars], dando un paso fuera de su papel de “Microsoft Contribuyente” en Ars. Moody dice[https://twitter.com/glynmoody/status/43689053501132800] que la “# BBC [es] rápida en señalar fallas de android # # apertura – http://bbc.in/dLjLUz nombres pero casi nunca # menciona Winodws en tantos años de malware (v @ Schestowitz)”

Una respuesta[https://twitter.com/bortzmeyer/status/43694556604153856] dice: “@ @ glynmoody Schestowitz hacen una gran exageración. Compruebe http://bbc.in/dXfNky # # BBC seguridad android # ”

Moody da su respuesta de la siguiente manera[https://twitter.com/glynmoody/status/43695793982541824]: “Bortzmeyer @ @ Schestowitz para nada han exagerado. comprobar esto: * http://bbc.in/hKmJuT y muchas más historias * que no mencionan # Windows en absoluto ”

Y luego[https://twitter.com/pbeyssac/status/43698134504841216]: “@ @ @ glynmoody Bortzmeyer Schestowitz un poco más de esta lógica y será capaz de demostrar que Windows está en cuota de mercado del 5%”

De Moody otra vez[https://twitter.com/glynmoody/status/43699504951738368]: “@ @ pbeyssac Bortzmeyer Schestowitz @ ciertamente parece ser lo que la BBC está sugiriendo … Windows Phony es tan pequeño que no vale la pena mencionarlo …”

Aquí es una pieza original de Moody’s, que comenzó mucho de esto powwow[http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2011/03/malware-at-heart-of-bbcs-decline.html]. Se inicia de la siguiente manera:

De hecho, tengo varios – incluido el hecho de que yo realmente quisiera que sea la mejor organización de radiodifusión en el mundo, como lo era antes. Pero mi abeja/BBC es que sus estándares periodísticos en las pocas áreas donde puede reclamar un poco de conocimiento son bastante lamentables.

Esto se ve en ninguna parte más claramente que en su cobertura de malware.

Para leer los informes sobre el sitio web de la BBC (no veo la televisión del Reino Unido, por lo que no tengo ni idea de lo que sucede allí, pero sospecho que es igual de mala), algunos podrían pensar que el malware es una aflicción universal, un mal inevitable, como muerte y los impuestos. Rara vez la BBC molesta la cabezas de sus lectores muy poco con el hecho de pensar que la inmensa mayoría de los virus y troyanos afectan a un sistema operativo, y un único sistema operativo: Microsoft Windows.

Para ver esto, pruebe el siguiente experimento. Buscar en el sitio de noticias de la BBC de “virus de Microsoft Windows” o “troyano microsoft windows” o “malware de Microsoft Windows”, y obtendrá una docena de éxitos algunos, no todos los que se refieren a software malicioso de Microsoft.

Pero trata de las mismas búsquedas sin las palabras “Microsoft Windows”, y usted conseguirá muchos éxitos más cada año (prueba “malware de la computadora”, por ejemplo), muy pocos de los cuales mencionan que los programas maliciosos, es casi exclusivamente de la plataforma de Microsoft.

Que el pecado de omisión se ha visto reflejado en un pecado igualmente ilustrativo de la comisión. Para el agua caliente en los talones de los primeros virus graves Android, tenemos un informe de noticias de la BBC se enumeran los hechos terribles

Y de nuevo llegamos al apologismo de Microsoft, como[http://identi.ca/notice/66089252] el que[https://twitter.com/skreech2/status/43707600998645760] dice: “@ Schestowitz el modelo de Android de seguridad es casi igual a Windows Vista. S60 tiene un modelo mejor. ¿Por qué la doble moral? ”

Para refutar esto rápidamente, el FUD Android esta en el punto de que el usuario instala – voluntariamente – software malicioso. En el caso de Windows, la intervención del usuario rara vez se requiere, en algunos casos, simplemente visitando una página es un problema y un riesgo, ¿por qué? ActiveX para empezar. Es un problema de Windows, no es una “cuestión de Internet”, la omisión muy grave en la prensa corporativa en parte la culpa de todo “y aún no se menciona el tabú…la palabra .” W “, escribió Moody respecto a este nuevo ejemplo[http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1651]. Es como llamar la cuestión del freno de Toyota sólo un “problema de frenado del coche”. Imagínese el clamor de que este tipo de hablar causaría. █

Many thanks to Eduardo Landaveri of the Spanish portal of Techrights.