No lessons taken from the founding fathers
ACCORDING to the press, Windows Mobile contains back doors, just like other versions of Microsoft Windows. Surveillance is a feature to the NSA and Microsoft, but more of an antifeature to the respective user. Having witnessed Bill Gates speaking to Obama and putting money in his pot, it's somewhat unnerving to see that Microsoft just can't let the president [s]elect a phone of his choice. It's lobbying for him to choose Windows Mobile by citing "security" as a reason, probably 'forgetting' the back doors in its own software. How convenient.
Microsoft, however, has questioned the wisdom of the president relying on a device whose maker is based in Canada. "You would be sending your data outside the country," says Randy Siegel, a Microsoft enterprise mobile strategist who works on federal government projects. "We wouldn't want the casual musings or official communications of the most important person in the world being intercepted by others."
The story casts Google as the green (as in naive) political victim of more experienced and cunning adversaries who saw Google disrupting or undermining their respective franchises and markets. The now-tarnished myth of American capitalism is that markets are transparent, fair and operate largely on their own. In fact, as this case shows in microcosm, success in the “free” or “open” market is as much about politics and political influence as it is almost any other factor.
The Wired piece even implies the killing of the Google-Yahoo search deal is partly a Republican political vendetta for Google’s historical support of Democrats. However U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee and Google critic, is a Democrat.
"The official, Thomas O. Barnett, an assistant attorney general, had until 2004 been a top antitrust partner at the law firm that has represented Microsoft in several antitrust disputes. At the firm, Justice Department officials said, he never worked on Microsoft matters. Still, for more than a year after arriving at the department, he removed himself from the case because of conflict of interest issues. Ethics lawyers ultimately cleared his involvement."
State officials said they were angered by Mr. Barnett's letter in large part because before he joined the Justice Department, he had been the vice chairman of the antitrust department at Covington & Burling, a law firm that represented Microsoft and played a central role in settling the antitrust case. While at Covington, Mr. Barnett did not work on the antitrust case, although he did represent Microsoft in other matters.
Online real estate site operator Move said on Wednesday that it is tapping former Microsoft executive Steve Berkowitz to serve as its next chief executive.
One of Yahoo’s top marketing execs, Eric Hadley, who came to the company with a lot of acclaim in only November, is set to leave for a new job working in branding and global marketing for Microsoft’s MSN online service, several sources said.
Ballmer met last week with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock. And he says Microsoft will keep challenging market leader Google in search even as it continues to cede ground.