| Snippet: | Apparently, the DOJ is not on holiday
just yet. They wish to re-interview Microsoft executive Jim Allchin
over his sworn testimony given in September 1998. In it, he claims that
he can make no representation as to whether Edward Felten's program
really does remove Internet Explorer 4 from Windows 98 because the
testing was incomplete. However, his testimony is dated after the date
given with Microsoft's test results. Story is here: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,30272,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh Predictably, Microsoft claims their tests show Felten's program does not completely remove Internet Explorer and does not work properly. But, the point of Felten's program is not to completely remove Internet Explorer, but only to show that Internet Explorer can be disabled or replaced by another Web browser with no adverse effect on the non-Web browsing portion of Windows 98. Felten's program started mal-functioning only after Microsoft got a copy of it. Microsoft's testimony about the functionality Felten's program is perhaps technically correct but incomplete and highly misleading. So why did Allchin decline to engage in this particular word game? Stay tuned ... |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1998-12-24 02:24:52 |
| Snippet: | The South-Carolina Republican party
received $20,000 - one of their largest contributions - from Microsoft,
a company located at the other side of the country. Sometime thereafter the South Carolinan Attorney General Charlie Condon dropped the case against Microsoft, giving as reason that the Netscape/AOL merger proves that competition exists for the Internet. Unfortunately for the credibility of Mr. Condon and the South Carolina Republican party, the antitrust lawsuit is about abusing monopoly power to enter a new market. Showing that there are (large) competitors in this new market can not possibly show that no monopoly in another market is abused to gain marketshare in the new one. Not only is Mr. Condon wrong for the mentioned reason, also he is quite literally rehashing Microsoft's press-releases on the AOL/Netscape matter, which - given Microsoft's large campaign contribution - makes the integrity of his decision suspect. An article on the matter: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/technology/story.html?s=v/ap/19981224/tc/_microsoft_lobbying_1.html You can track individual campaign contributions at: http://www.crp.org/indivs/name.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1998-12-29 03:49:49 |
| Snippet: | A Red Herring magazine article entitled "Standing Up to Microsoft" has an interesting interview with Harvard Business School professor . This is one of the authors of the book "Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and Its Battle with Microsoft" who went to court to protect their confidential sources at Netscape from being used for Microsoft's anti-trust defence. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1998-12-30 01:36:01 |
| Snippet: | as "Vaporware of the Year". See: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/16974.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1998-12-30 12:08:01 |
| Snippet: | I can't make much of this news item at http://www.theregister.co.uk/ but consider it weird enough to be of interest. Here's how Gates is alleged to use actors to polish his public image: http://www.theregister.co.uk/981230-000004.html Update: The above article was written on the basis of an article in The Guardian. You can find a transcript here: http://lists.essential.org/am-info/msg07493.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1998-12-30 14:24:01 |
| Snippet: | Ridiculing their own criteria for
factuality, Microsoft claims in their response to William Harris'
testimony that the only "fact" in 50 pages is that "Intuit wishes to
use its testimony as an attempt to circumvent competition in the
marketplace by using the government and the courts against Microsoft".
No doubt this "wish" is not made explicit, so by their own admission,
Microsoft must have concluded the factuality of the wish from 50 pages
that contain no facts. Remember that these are the criteria by which Microsoft makes its statements the next time you read anything from them about "cold hard facts" or "setting the record straight". Of course, for anyone who attempts to interpret Microsoft's statement about Intuit's "wish", it will be hard to imagine *how* Intuit can "circumvent competition in the marketplace" by seeking to achieve "operating system neutrality". Those who have been around for some time will remember Microsoft's ancient claim of having a "Chinese Wall" between the OS and application divisions. Microsoft dropped the claim when it became too obvious that it wasn't true. Now that Mr. Harris seeks to revive something along this line, Microsoft rewrites history by analysing part of the testimony as containing an "entirely new and irrelevant concept Mr. Harris cooked up on his own - "operating system neutrality." Surely, they are giving too much credit to Mr. Harris. As is customary in Microsoft's responses you will also find the usual self-congratulatory remarks and the ad hominem attacks. When you read the response you will note that Microsoft does not state what is is reacting against, only that it is "vague", "rampant speculation", "not focused on facts", and given by a witness who really shouldn't be heard as he is "neither an attorney, a software developer, nor an economist". As with "factuality", Microsoft's criteria of "clarity" are very loose. When reading the following citation, you should ask yourself the question HOW? "It's clear from this testimony that Intuit wants the government to repeal the laws of competition for Intuit. As the dominant manufacturer for personal finance, tax and small business accounting software, Intuit apparently wants the government to guarantee it a permanent lead in the marketplace without actually competing." You can find the response at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/dec98/12-29harris.htm Update: William Harris' testimony is now available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2000/2055.pdf  |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1998-12-30 21:00:24 |
| Snippet: | Isn't (Norwegian) Opera the victim of
dumping of both Microsoft and Netscape? And what has trans-Atlantic
politics got to do with it? See: http://www.g21.net/news7.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1998-12-31 00:21:36 |
| Snippet: | Once in a while, less often than I wish, I take up a book with culture criticism. This month I read Neil Postman's "Technopoly". I won't treat you to a review, but restrict myself to a few citations. Mr. Postman writes on "knowledge monopolies": "Those who have control over the workings of a particular technology accumulate power and inevitably form a kind of conspiracy against those who have no access to the specialized knowledge made available by the technology." This aptly describes Microsoft's control over Windows, something that is growing both horizontally and vertically. Today Microsoft cashes in some 55 percent of all revenues made by public companies in the software industry and this percentage is steadily growing. Mr. Postman emphasises the power of technology over our lives as something anonymous, something not unlike conventions. However, the "knowledge monopoly" in the software industry is radically different. Here we do not find uncontrollable conventions, but centrally given directives. Two more quotes: "Those who cultivate competence in the use of a new technology become an elite group that are granted undeserved authority and prestige by those who have no such competence." "As for change brought on by technology, this native optimism is exploited by entrepreneurs, who work hard to infuse the population with a unity of improbable hope, for they know that it is economically unwise to reveal the price to be paid for technological change." I am not against technology per se, but if the adoption of certain technology is to imply the replacement of what could be a competitive market with a centrally controlled system, I will resist it. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1998-12-31 20:25:27 |
| Snippet: | Both Bristol's request for a
preliminary injunction, and Microsoft's request to throw out the case
altogether were rejected in the 30 December 1998 ruling of federal
judge Janet C. Hall. Microsoft's press release emphasizes the rejection of the preliminary injunction and ignores that the judge also ruled on Microsoft's Motion to Dismiss the Complaint or, in the alternative, for Summary Judgment, with a judgment that "The court DENIES the defendant's Motion in its entirety." Of course, ignoring this element of the case makes it simpler for Microsoft to refer to their press release as: "Microsoft Wins Preliminary Decision in Bristol Lawsuit". Microsoft's press release does not even mention that their own motion was denied. This information would throw a different light on their claims that: "The Court found that Bristol had not shown a clear likelihood of success on the merits of any of its fourteen claims. In its court papers and after five days of testimony Bristol failed to establish any factual or legal grounds for its radical claims." and "Microsoft looks forward to presenting a powerful case in defending itself against Bristol's baseless allegations." Given that the ruling is known in Redmond, I conclude that Microsoft seeks to misrepresent the ruling to the public. By ignoring part of the information they reach conclusions that would be invalid when all the information were considered. We find thus that we can not trust Microsoft with regard to representing all relevant information and including it in the reasoning that leads to their conclusions. This is a dent in their credibility. Aside from ignoring part of the relevant information, Microsoft seeks to win acclaim by using strong language instead of arguing: "Throughout this case, it has been clear to Microsoft that this litigation was an effort by a company to use a lawsuit and a long-planned public relations campaign to try to gain better terms in its contract negotiations with Microsoft." - Steve Aeschbacher, senior corporate attorney, Microsoft. "Bristol elected to sue, not do business. We have offered Bristol contract terms like those agreed to by Bristol's principal competitor, Mainsoft." Note that Mainsoft is the Microsoft partner that created the tools for porting MSIE to Solaris. Perhaps I missed it, but I have seen no support for Microsoft's claim that Bristol was "offered contract terms like those agreed to by Mainsoft". Given the combination of Microsoft's low credibility and the fact that Mainsoft is a Microsoft partner, I see no reason to believe this claim before I have seen the evidence. You can find Bristol's press release here: http://www.bristol.com/legal/12-31-98pr_release.htm You can find Microsoft's press release here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/dec98/bristolfinpr.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-04 15:12:05 |
| Snippet: | During the last couple of days I have
been thinking about making Billwatch more effective. Given that I work
some 55 hours a week, I have limited time left for the site so I have
to make choices. The previous item on the ruling and the press releases in the Microsoft-Bristol case represents my idea of what this site is all about. I'd rather present only one such item in three days, than refer to "hot" news in the media three times a day. Expect my postings on billwatch to become less frequent but not less fierce. But then, here's a link to a Mary Jo Foley article at ZDNet about which I have little to say, but which may interest you: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2181525,00.html Of course, Roy has his own agenda wrt his postings here. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-05 01:34:44 |
| Snippet: | You can find Franklin M. Fisher's 111 page testimony at: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2000/2057.htm Microsoft's response is at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/jan99/01-04fisher.htm This reply is introduced as: "Economist's testimony ignores the economic realities of the marketplace, contradicts his previous writings on antitrust, and relies on out-of-context information and hearsay." From the contents I'd say that Mr. Fisher's testimony pretty much sums up the other testimony that was presented so far and places it in the economical framework in which antitrust matters are to be discussed. I will comment on the testimony and the reply as soon as I have read those voluminous pieces. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-05 19:43:38 |
| Snippet: | All in all, Billwatch has been down for
some six days during the last two weeks. I do not know what causes the
problem, but if the advice of my local UNIX guru is correct, the
machine on which the site resides should now at least reboot when it
has a problem, instead of merely hanging until I get access to the
cellar. I apologise to all readers for this inconvenience. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-05 20:28:51 |
| Snippet: | After a call by the Chairman
personally, guaranteeing not having to speak the party line, director
of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Laboratory for Computer
Science, agreed to appear in court as a technical expert giving
testimony for Microsoft. However, two weeks after his deposit, he was quietly dropped from the witness list. Microsoft claims that the reason is that the government altered its focus. Businessweek suggests that it might have to do with Mr. Kertouzos' nasty tendency to call a browser an "application" and generally an "independent" stance. http://www.businessweek.com/1998/52/b3610089.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-06 01:17:16 |
| Snippet: | In this story at http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,30560,00.html Intuit CEO William Harris admits that Intuit probably would have chosen Ineternet Explorer over Netscape on the merits. Predictably, Microsoft overgeneralises and says this proves the DOJ's case has no merit. The implication is that every Indepedent Software Vendor would have concluded that IE is the superior browser. If this were true, then no restrictions on dealing with Netscape would have been necessary and Microsoft could truly show the world that they put no obstacles to a consumer or ISV who happens to choose "inferior technology." Or do they perhaps have a bit too much experience with the success of the technically inferior Windows operating system? |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-06 07:40:08 |
| Snippet: | Sorry folks, but the machine on which
Billwatch runs seems to be beset with problems. I had hoped to have a
solution, but as such things go, I should have waited to see it work
before postings that things were probably solved. It now seems that there is a persistent hardware problem. Fortunately, I will have a couple of days off from work, so I will have time to find a solution. Most likely, I will once more maintain a static site on another machine. Keep the faith. -cjr |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-06 16:03:52 |
| Snippet: | It is about time for my yearly hardware
update so I looked around for bargains. My eyes fell on a computer with
the following specifications: AMD K6-II cpu 333 Mhz, 2.5 Gb ultra-ATA
HDD 5.4 rpm, 32 MB SRAM, S3 ViRGE 4 MB PCI, Intel 430 TX chipset,
Miditower ATX chassis, MS Windows 98, and a 14'' monitor. The list price is Dfl 1375.- (where $1 is about Dfl 2). My dealer would take off Dfl 189.- if I would take the system without Windows98. Thus Windows makes up over 13% of the cost of the PC. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-07 02:47:13 |
| Snippet: | After most of the media and one general
attorney uncritically accepted Microsoft's claims on the relevance of
the AOL/Netscape merger for the trial, it is refreshing see a sign of
critical thinking. This article "explains" Judge Jackson's moment of weakness in accepting Microsoft's account. (I don't like such attributions, not from Microsoft and not from the Washington Post.) What is interesting is that the Judge seemed to have referred to the article in court and suggested that the lawyers of both parties take it to heart. See: http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-01/06/029l-010699-idx.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-07 13:32:17 |
| Snippet: | You can find the latest transcript fragment of the Chairman's testimony at: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2000/gates7.pdf Even though he was shown to have been informed on the status of affairs, the man presently knows nothing about any controversial action of Microsoft. What's he doing in that chair? You can get a sample of Mr. Gates' testimony at The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990107-000008.html PS. I am not generally interested in US politics, but I find it noteworthy, to say the least, that American Republican politicians find so much fault with Mr. Clinton's testimony while being so eager to defend the Chairman and his cronies. Given the similarities in the relation between statement and fact in both cases, it seems to me that Republican politicians apply different standards to different persons. My conclusion is that their "standards" don't amount to much. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-07 23:41:05 |
| Snippet: | MIT economist Franklin Fisher is
winding up his testimony, with closed-door testimony with confidential
OEM pricing to be given on Monday. Story is here: http://chicagotribune.com/business/businessnews/article/0,1051,SAV-9901080309,00.html I note at the end of the article, there is reference to a survey given which indicates most consumers feel that Microsoft is good for consumers and the anti-trust suit was brought only to help some of Microsoft's competitors. At least the latter is true, since by helping some competitors, the principle of marketplace competition is upheld and consumers are better served. In any case, the spin of this survey is suspicious and it is interesting to note the Microsoft spokesperson displays confusion about whether the survey received funding from Microsoft. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-08 16:21:13 |
| Snippet: | To evaluate the value of their poll, it
isn't relevant that the CSEF appears to be a Microsoft partner, given
the links to MSIE and MS Frontpage on their home page. Also, it doesn't matter that they seem to be quite biased, as is indicated by the fact that their research director, Wayne T. Brough wrote an article "Microsoft and Monopoly" that seems to be more closely related with Microsoft's press releases than with Microsoft's actions. See: http://www.cse.org/cse/cc217-csef-telecom.htm What does matter is what they tell us about the preferences of those that are polled. I won't comment on CSEF's press release extensively, but here are some things to watch out for.
By replacing the actual poll results by their own interpretations and comments, the CSEF people display very little respect for the opinions of those they have polled. You can find the press release about the poll here: http://www.cse.org/cse/nr-telecom990107csef.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-08 20:53:30 |
| Snippet: | The following article: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2184567,00.html dexcribes some negotiations between AT&T and Microsoft for the purchase of, among other things, Microsoft Network. AT&T apparently is not interested in the purchase at this time, but Microsoft claims talks are ongoing. And what if this deal does go through? You can bet that Microsoft will loudly cry that this changes everything and the DOJ should drop the anti-trust case. But, even more than the AOL-Netscape-Sun deal, an AT&T acquisition of Microsoft Network has no bearing on either Microsoft's operating system monopoly or on the predatory conduct Microsoft uses to maintain and extend that monopoly. In fact, the divesture would strengthen Microsoft since MSN is not yet profitable. It appears to be another desperate attempt by Microsoft to create a distraction in hopes of diminishing the DOJ's strong anti-trust case. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-08 21:08:53 |
| Snippet: | Mostly based on Joachim's Kempin's famous memo to Bill Gates - trial deposit 365: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/365.pdf
- several consumers organizations wrote a report on Microsoft's pricing
and relate this to its monopoly position. The report, "THE CONSUMER
COST OF THE MICROSOFT MONOPOLY: $10 BILLION OF OVERCHARGES AND
COUNTING", is pretty much a heavily annotated version of Joachim
Kempin's memo to the Chairman. Kempin is Microsoft's senior
vice-president of OEM sales, which makes him the highest authority on
this subject. The organizations are: Consumer Federation of America, Media Access Project, US Public Interest Research Group. The report can be found at the website of Consumer Project Technology, at: http://www.essential.org/antitrust/ms/cfa/cfa-jan99.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-09 02:53:11 |
| Snippet: | Nowadays Microsoft spokespersons are
eager to tell the public that the "economics of network effects" is at
best misguided. Another popular item with them is that market dominance
is transient as a result of fast moving technology. Things were different in Redmond when the Chairman wrote his auto-hagiography "The Road Ahead". In that book the successes of Microsoft are explained by "positive-feedback effects", while IBM's loss of market power is claimed to be caused by the egalitarian effect of other companies being able to adhere to the same standards by buying the crucial components from Microsoft and Intel. Interestingly, companies that sought to compete with IBM on technological merits are chastised as they didn't adhere to the all-important standard. The difference between IBM then and Microsoft today is that IBM had "compatible" competition, whereas Microsoft hasn't. The fast movement of technology wasn't what broke IBM's monopoly power. What broke it was that IBM adhered to standards that were open to other companies. The Chairman understands this, and that explains why he forbids his crews to adhere to any standards that are open to other parties. Here are some quotes from "The Road Ahead" with my annotation: http://main.billwatch.net/annotated/compatibility_or_technology.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-09 22:45:06 |
| Snippet: | Perhaps Microsoft employees can tell
their superiors of irregularities, but doing so by a means that is
traceable by the government is not appreciated. This is what chief of
internal audits Charlie Pancerzewski did by e-mailing to his superiors
CFO Mike Brown and chief operating officer Bob Herbold. Mike Brown wrote to Pancerzewski: "[I]f you disclose any confidential issues in a non privileged context, you will be doing the Company a great disservice. All of the audit reports you have created so far would generally be discoverable in the US . . . and could be fertile ground for an astute litigator." Well, Pancerzewski got thrown out shortly afterwards and filed a lawsuit. As we see in every case, Microsoft tried to have it thrown out completely with a summary judgment, won on several items where evidence was lacking to support Pancerzewski's claims, but lost on the item of moving its reserves to "income", which leads to an illegal representation of its performance. Microsoft settled, allegedly paying its former employee $4 million. In customary fashion, part of the settlement included a condition of secrecy (think e.g. of the AT&T settlement over NT source code that nobody ever heard of again). See: http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/romano0107/index.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-10 12:21:31 |
| Snippet: | Dan Gillmor wrote a column that pretty
much reflects how I see Microsoft today. What matters is not so much
Gillmor's prediction about the outcome of the case, but rather his
frank evaluation of the "Microsoft culture". "[T]he [Microsoft] culture [of hard work and talent] also radiates contempt. It rejects the norms of behavior that most of us take for granted. This part of the culture is ugly and paranoid, like a dictatorship that can survive only as long as it crushes all dissent." See: http://www1.sjmercury.com/columnists/gillmor/docs/dg011099.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-11 10:21:48 |
| Snippet: | At the end of each week Microsoft briefs their pick of Wall Street analysts. Just the folks they like and no press. Of course, the exclusive character of the meetings isn't popular with those not allowed to be present. Microsoft spokesperson Tom Pilla commented: "The information we provide to analysts is no different than what we provide to the press and public throughout the week." Are we then to believe that the invited Wall Street analysts hear only what they have already read in the papers earlier during the week? If we are to believe Microsoft, the analysts have time to waste. Of course, the press is not allowed to be present either. See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,30731,00.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-11 20:38:08 |
| Snippet: | It seems that Mr. Fisher is doing
better when writing about economical phenomena than when being asked
about esotoric software technology or about specific numerical data. Of course, Microsoft's emphasis on the latter doesn't make the former less relevant and the latter more so. Anyway, you can get an impression of the court session from Graham Lea's article here:http://www.theregister.co.uk/990111-000015.html (Generally, http://www.theregister.co.uk/ gives frequent and regularly good counterweight to the major media.) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-12 01:26:24 |
| Snippet: | The one thing that Microsoft doesn't
talk about when trying to show that its operating system prices are
"fair and competitive" is the prices of competing products. Given Microsoft's eagerness to present Linux as an alternative, and their accusations of incompetence to economists that speak of Microsoft's market position while not being aware of Linux, one would expect Microsoft to give a price comparison of Windows and Linux. But no, in Redmond a "competitive price" seems to be an absolute. Take notice of the last section where Microsoft claims that "Nearly all economists agree that the ability to charge different customers different prices is not indicative of monopoly power." It seems to me that any economist that doesn't consider "setting a high price and insisting that anyone pay it" - the situation of the monopolist - as a sufficient condition for an "ability to charge different customers different prices" should be kicked out of the profession. Things would, of course, be different if the "ability" to settle at differnt prices were partly up to the customers, but that is not what Microsoft claims. See: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/jan99/01-11pricing.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-12 10:36:17 |
| Snippet: | From the quality and extensive
character of the testimony it is clear that the testimony is a
well-funded team-effort. That is a good things, as it is more rewarding
to find fault in the best possible defense of one position, than in a
couple of loose slogans. Given that the testimony happily offers newspaper clippings (isn't that "hearsay") to show the success of Linux, refers to the linux.org list of "OEM's" shipping Linux. (Question: name five major OEM's and guess for each whether they are in the list.) It is interesting to see how Mr. Schmalensee comes up with relevant testimony on the one hand, such as the price of Intel's processors having risen from 3% of a complete system in 1990 to 13% of a system in 1996 - that is, the same rise that Microsoft's operating system made. Of course, this opens the way for critics that point at Cyrix and AMD processors that are plug-compatible with Intel's, while there are no plug-compatible products to point at to show that Windows is "competitively priced". To circumvent such criticism, Mr. Schmalensee hastily points out that the software market is different from the hardware market. Actually, the software market is quite unique in having a "sequence of category leaders" and that competition consists in others waiting for a chance to take over. Next thing you know is that junta rule with regular coups is a democracy. Anyway. Mr. Schmalensee makes many remarks that are to the point. However, he ignores certain data, includes controversial data as fact, and comes up with a new theory of sequential competition that we should be happy with. Saying that: "Eminent economist Professor Richard Schmalensee PROVES that government witnesses relied on defective data and flawed economic analysis of the software industry." is preposterous. Testimony: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/schmal/schmal.htm Microsoft's introduction: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/jan99/01-11schmal.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-12 10:55:29 |
| Snippet: | Once in while I refer to the Microsoft
special of the Law Journal Extra. I may not always agree with the
articles, but at least they are produced by the application of the mind
instead of copy-and-paste. I really should look there more often, it's worth the effort. http://www.ljx.com/LJXfiles/dojvms.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-12 12:29:24 |
| Snippet: | An outline of what Microsoft's defence is likely to be is here: http://chicagotribune.com/business/businessnews/ws/item/0,1267,8297-8298-21466,00.html The main point Microsoft will present is that its position is vulnerable because software is a rapidly changing market with low entry barriers, unlike capital intensive markets like steel and oil. The claim is that, due to the nature of software, it is impossible for any company to have a monopoly in this industry. Without a monopoly, it is legal to be nasty and brutish in business. For anyone tempted to agree with this position, may I recommend reading "Information Rules", by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian? The barriers to competing with Microsoft are not so low as they might seem due to "network effects" and "positive feedback." A good summary of this is that, for any software to provide effective competition in the markets where Microsoft is entrenched (whether it is application or operating system software), the software must be either revolutionary, very compatible or somewhere in between (i.e. perhaps significantly better with good compatibility would be sufficient.) Competition would be hard even without Microsoft's interference in the form of exclusionary OEM contracts and dumping of programs with similar functionality with their dominant software platform. This is a high-risk business where large up-front investments are required and the winner tends to take all. As things stand, the playing field is not a level one. With these characteristics, it certainly does seem that anti-trust laws have a role to play in the software industry. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-13 04:06:29 |
| Snippet: | The following press release indicates
that not only the US DOJ was overly happy with the Consent Decree. The
EC was just as please with the settlement. Well, since my first two
machines, with respectively DOS 3.3 and DR-DOS 6 pre-installed, I've
always been able to circumvent the tax and install Linux on a virgin
computer. Has Microsoft lived by the agreement? Anyway, one need only walk into a computer store to see that the agreement was without the desired effect. For the press release, see a message by CPT's James Love to the on-living "appraising-Microsoft" mailinglist: http://lists.essential.org/am-info/msg00278.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-13 21:55:22 |
| Snippet: | In a follow-up on his earlier message on the 1994 EC agreement with Microsoft, James Love points out that: "A review of these types of issues appears to be anticipated in the 1994 agreement, and EU consumers have a right to ask the EC to explain what if anything has been done to monitor the success of the agreement." See: http://lists.essential.org/am-info/msg00285.html Being more of a programmer than a legal expert or a consumer activist I am pretty much at a loss when dealing with the EC bureaucracy seems to be in order. Some personal stimulation might help to motivate me to give more attention to possibilities in this area :-). |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-14 14:00:48 |
| Snippet: | Microsoft's first witness started out
by testifying contrary to his earlier "expert" testimony in the Bristol
case. A nasty result of Microsoft's overwhelming vertical and
horizontal presence in the software industry is that they pretty simply
become a competitor. Whereas Mr. Schmalensee was earlier convinced that Bristol could not be a competitor of Microsoft, his conviction today is that with java Sun competes with Windows. Perhaps Mr. Schmalensee should follow an elementary course in logic and learn to draw Venn diagrams. Just as Mr. Schmalensee attempts to escape the term "monopolist" by coining "category leader", meaning just the same, he attempts to get rid of the monopolistic Windows market by pointing to a "paradigm shift" in the software industry. Perhaps, Mr. Schmalensee should take a look at Microft's revenues in the OS market, because claiming that the industry has "shifted" away from it. See: http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/microsoft/trial/breaking/docs/mstrial011399.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-14 20:20:39 |
| Snippet: | I don't know if I quote John Maynard Keynes correctly, but Mr. Schmalensee reminds me of the quote. Mr. Schmalensee has an interesting conception of monopolies. In effect, he claims that they don't exist. Actually, his claim is to apply only to the software industry, but it applies equally to any other industry. Mr. Schmalensee claims that the concept of monopoly is irrelevant because the situation is apt to change in the long run. For quite some time economical theorists have claimed that a monopolist may have the power and the inclination to use the economical power over buyers that is derived from this position to enforce contracts or behavior to help deny entry to new parties. This is bad as it denies choice to consumers. Mr. Schmalensee's theory is that a monopolist cannot possibly deny entrance to potential competitors. If there are no competitors, it cannot deny entrance, and if there are competitors attempting entry in the market, their very existence shows that there is no monopoly. Another theory of Mr. Schmalensee is that there are only markets where there are competitors. It doesn't matter that Microsoft is has a monopoly, oops, is "category leader", in desktop operating systems, because in other markets there are competitors. Although the competition is still in need for a desktop operating system - note for instance that Sun is more supportive of their JDK for Windows than for their own Solaris server operating system - this is supposed to be irrelevant as the focus of competition has shifted. Whereas it is part of Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science that the result of a "paradigm shift" is that the old framework is wholly dropped in favor of the new one, we don't see something like that here: there is no indication that the situation in which every computer will need an operating system is about to change. The last theory of Mr. Schmalensee is a supposed generalization. Mr. Schmalensee thinks that the software industry has a history of niche players becoming major players at some time and that it follows from this that Microsoft is continously threatened by small players that may grow big any moment. To indicate the danger, he points to the Linux and Be operating systems. However, Mr. Schmalensee's claims are based on less than scientific rigor. So far, small players have only become big in new markets, which the old operating system market is most certainly not. Another facts that Mr. Schmalensee ignores in his eagerness to plead for his party, is that after growing somewhat just about every former niche player is driven back into the niche to make place for Microsoft. The result, in every single case, is that Microsoft is then entering the market and driving the former niche player back into the niche. Microsoft's market share grows towards one hundred percent, and it has in no single instance grown decreased. Mr. Schmalensee doesn't even observe this, so how can he start to explain it? Incidentally, Mr. Schmalensee let himself be coached during his testimony, just a week after a Microsoft executive used a lunchbreak to coach the testimony of Intuit's witness. These are violations of court proceedings. My respect for MIT has just received a serieus dent. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-15 00:16:41 |
| Snippet: | After finishing its part of the
testimony, the DOJ has published some 500 additional documents. Among
these the complete testimony of the Chairman. Reading Gates' words is not such a waste of time as one may think on the basis of the evasive testimony made public so far. On the basis of my recent reading of part of Gates autohagiography, "The Road Ahead", I have come to believe that Gates merely says whatever suits the major majority's taste of the moment and that truth is not among his intentions. Thus I found that Gates is a major popularizer of the ideas behind the economics of "network effects" that is today ridiculed by his lawyers and PR departments. You can look for some more skeleton's in Gates' testimony at: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_gates2.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-15 00:28:14 |
| Snippet: | The protagonist of Dostoievski's "Crime
and Punishment" believes that special persons need not adhere to the
law, nay, they *should* not adhere to the law. Similarly, Microsoft will happily sing praises of standards and "compatibility" - witness many fragments in Gates' "The Road Ahead" - but as soon as "standard" is something that they can't change unilaterally, they are dead against it and plead that it restricts their oh so necessary freedom. Well, they have appealed the injunction requiring it to modify Windows and Internet Explorer to adhere to the java standard. You can find their press release here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/jan99/appbriefpr.htm The motion for appeal is here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/doj/01-14appealmotion.htm (The folks in Redmond seem to confuse the different cases, as they put it in the "doj" directory.) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-15 00:40:14 |
| Snippet: | Just as Microsoft makes using Internet
Explorer and therewith Microsoft's polluted version of java a
pre-condition for using its monopoly Windows product, it forces
developers to make a similar move. For developers on the Windows platform it is essential to have access to beta versions of Windows in order to be ready to ship when the final version comes out. Microsoft used access to beta versions to force such developers to become a distribution channel for Microsoft's polluted java. See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2187669,00.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-15 10:39:48 |
| Snippet: | Microsoft has been and will be claiming
in court that their internal emails of employees - up to the highest
level - give no insight in the actual motives for the actions of the
company. Remember how they originally tried to get rid of the "Special master" Lawrence Lessig in the consent decree trial last year? He wrote a personal letter to a personal friend in which he complained about Microsoft's browser. Microsoft argued that this indicated that he was pre-disposed, which would make him unfit for the job. Today Microsoft is claiming that emails are irrelevant in finding out about the motives of persons making up company policy. The emails at stake are not personal emails to personal friends, but emails during working hours to colleagues discussing company policy. Consistency is a rare virtue, at least in Redmond. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-15 10:50:05 |
| Snippet: | Graham Lea exposed some of Microsoft's pricing practices. Why would Microsoft sell DOS for $6 to certain OEMs when the US retail price is $199? Because these OEMs used equivalent (or better) DR-DOS and predatory pricing could be used to "cut off the air supply" of OS competitor Digital Research. Why would the price of the older product Windows95 go up today? To force OEMs to sell Windows98 with the welded in Internet Explorer. See: http://62.232.8.250/990113-000002.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-15 11:00:55 |
| Snippet: | Some time ago, I hypothesized about the
ways in which the results of a poll can be influenced by specific
phrasing of questions and introductory texts. Gates commissioned a poll and specified results to be targeted. Regarding another poll, I read in The Register (they have a DNS problem, but you can find their IP number below): "A memo from a Microsoft researcher at the time (February 1998) said that the survey was "not entirely unbiased," and shouldn't be referred to as an opinion poll. The text of the question, she said, should also be kept out of the hands of the press." If poll results can't stand up to scrutiny of the poll texts, keeping the poll text out of the hands of those who are made to believe the results is a deceitful act. Microsoft has been guilty of such an act. Aside from the resulting dent in Microsofts general credibility, the result of their past behavior is that people valueing their own opinions now have good reason not to accept poll results coming from Microsoft (possibly through political subsidiaries like the "Consumers for a Sound Economy Foundation") without a specification of the used methods and text. Incidentally, Microsoft regularly employs the firm Hart and Teeter to conduct their polls. Beware when that name is mentioned! For the article by John Lettice in The Register: http://62.232.8.250/990115-000002.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-16 11:43:48 |
| Snippet: | Both at home and at work my systems are
Microsoft free. However, while I could have obtained the machine
without any operating system at all, I chose to buy my desktop machine
with an OEM version of Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. This weekend I bought myself a new desktop machine that is nearly twice as fast as the previous one, and has twice as much video- and working memory RAM. I went for cheap and bought the system without a keyboard, monitor, mouse, CD-ROM drive, and OS. I have all those and they work fine, and my old machine is going to be used as a Linux webserver to host billwatch, so it won't need these components. It seemed like a good idea to be broadminded and install software on the new system to turn it into a dual boot machine. I paid some Dfl 480.- (about $240.-) for Windows NT, so why not install it on my spacey new harddrive just in case I want to test something that only runs on Windows. During the installation, however, I was confronted with the text of Microsoft's EULLA which tells that the OEM OS may not be used on another system as the one with which it came. Whereas I can insert any component in a machine I buy to into other computers when it suits me - be innovative, help yourself, make the most of a buck - Microsoft's license doesn't allow me to do this with Windows. I chose to use a different OS with the machine Windows came with and thereby I forfeited my use of this copy of Windows altogether. If my new computer had come pre-installed with a Windows NT Workstation it also would be been version 4, as Microsoft has trouble to come out with a new version of Windows for years now. Effectively this means that people who upgrade their hardware are prohibited from re-using old software: they have to buy the same version again. Incidentally, I decided not to violate the law and consider the Dfl 480.- to be lost due to the overly restrictive licensing of a greedy company. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-19 00:41:45 |
| Snippet: | In my previous postings I described
restrictions in Microsoft's licensing for an OEM version of Windows. I
actually used the OS to play around a bit (but got bored quickly kept
to Linux from then on). Therefore I have no right to the refund
mentioned in the EULA: "If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, PC Manufacturer and Microsoft are unwilling to license the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to you. In such event, you may not use or copy the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, and you should promptly contact PC Manufacturer for instructions on return of the unused products(s) for a refund." People who use a non-Windows system exclusively on systems that came with Windows pre-installed are clearly encouraged to ask their money back. I very much hope that they do so. This can be quite a hassle, but it makes a good story: http://www.netcraft.com.au/geoffrey/toshiba.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-19 01:30:18 |
| Snippet: | I was fairly amused to read this article: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2188593,00.html where Charles Cooper (Coop) of ZDNN apologises to the Redmondians for the way the press is covering the anti-trust trial. An unnamed Microsoft executive laments that he wishes the press owuld cover the trial in excruciating, boring detail. Instead, the press covers it like a boxing match or a baseball game (hey, Coop does that!) and focussing on the racey details like Bill Gates' sullen, resentful and evasive deposition or the fact that the only part of the price of a PC that has risen in recent years is that of the Windows operating system. All of these details, which according to Coop are somehow less relevant because of their newsworthiness, tend to support the government's case. I suppose his idea of more balanced coverage would be for the press to write up all the exhibits Microsoft's Sullivan and Cromwell lawyers put into the record. Ah, but then the press would also have to cover all the evidence Microsoft wants excluded from the case. In truth, the coverage is fairly balanced. We even see the Mark Murray quotes such as "the government's argument would imply that the Chicago Bulls should have been disbanded after winning their 2nd NBA championship because they are just too good." With grandstanding such as this, it is no wonder we don't hear more from Microsoft's point of view these days.* * - Microsoft is not prevented from distributing this drivel, for the reader can easily download it directly from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial . |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-19 21:55:27 |
| Snippet: | For $6.7 billion, about one-and-a-half
times the price AOL is to pay for Netscape (or rather, its portal, as
AOL is getting rid of its software as fast as possible), cable company
@Home, a Microsoft partner, bought portal Excite! In the context of this news, it is nice to read Microsoft's press release on the "overnight change in the software industry" that allegedly resulted from AOL's buying Netscape. For Microsoft's comments on AOL's buying of Netscape for two-thirds of the price that @Home pays for Excite! see my ancient annotation: http://main.billwatch.net:81/annotated/ms_onaolns.html For an article on the transaction, see: http://cnnfn.com/hotstories/deals/9901/19/excite_a/ I find it interesting that CNN doesn't mention the consternation surrounding Netscape in its prsent newscasting. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-20 05:05:55 |
| Snippet: | As mentioned earlier, Microsoft's "End
User License Agreement" includes a statement that those who do not
agree with it and decide not to use the software before using it, are
entitled to a refund from the OEM that bundled Windows with the
hardware. Those running Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2, Netware or perhaps Be after wiping Windows off their harddisks will be interested to obtain what they are entitled to. They should be able to chose what operating system is to be delivered with their hardware or at least to buy their hardware without any operating system. Second best is to get their money back. Obtaining a refund is a long and tortuous road as Geoffrey Bennett's story indicates. However, it is worth it. In the short run those entitled to it will get their money back. In the long run they might stimulate OEM's to stop tying Windows to every hardware system. To help people organize in their efforts to obtain what they are entitled to, a "Windows Refund Center" has been set up. Aside from creating a central repository with information and success stories, the refund center hopes to stimulate people to massively ask for a refund on February 15th. You can find the Windows Refund Center here: http://www.thenoodle.com/refund/ |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-20 12:44:19 |
| Snippet: | I consider it quite funny that Dell
moved to keep Microsoft's agreements with OEMs secret. There is no open
market for computer operating systems as Microsoft is the only vendor
seriously considered. It is a public secret that Microsoft uses price
discrimination to obtain some degree of control over OEMs marketing and
hardware decisions. Apparently, Dell managed to get a bargain and
intends to keep its competitors from learning about it. The trial sessions on OEM agreements has been secret, but from the remaining testimony some things can be gleaned. Check out Graham Lea's article "What is it Microsoft wants the court to keep secret?": http://www.theregister.co.uk/990118-000003.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-21 01:52:31 |
| Snippet: | One of the arguments, perhaps from
OEMs, perhaps from Microsoft itself, for *having to pre-install*
Windows is to fight piracy. The idea is that people who don't pay for
Windows will steal it and hence all buyers of computer hardware must
pay for Windows also. There is nothing new about the problem of a "free ride" in economical theory. It means that if most of the users pay for a service, some - too many! - may benefit from it without paying for it. "No thank you, I don't want to have the street swept and I won't pay for it." For Microsoft there is a dire implication to the argument: claiming that not buying Windows for a new computer will in all, or most, cases be followed by stealing it, is an admission of Windows' monopoly. Aside from that there is of course an issue such as my having a paid for copy of Windows NT 4.0 that I can't use on my new machine, while my old machine is getting a Linux server function. Indeed, Microsoft's OEM license tells me that I can't install it on new hardware and I agreed to it. Remains the fact that Windows is tied to computer hardware as no other component in the computer is. Claiming that this is a necessity contradicts Microsoft's claims that they operate in a competitive market. My request: does anyone know where to find, or have actual citations from OEMs or Microsoft itself containing the "piracy argument"? I'd like to have it. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-21 10:51:49 |
| Snippet: | Starting with Richard Schmalensee's
"testimony" Microsoft has discovered the word "paradigm shift". To be
very brief, the concept means in Kuhn's philosophy of science that one
conceptual framework is completely replaced by another - no stone is
left unturned, so to say. This greatly appeals to Microsoft: if such a shift away from Microsoft's position since the early eighties would be possible, it's monopoly would look more innocuous. The great example is the shift away from IBM's mainframes to personal computers. Nowaydays, but not in earlier accounts, Microsoft spokespersons conveniently ignore that IBM's position in PC's was dominant as it was in its core market, but that it allowed the PC to be "commoditized". It was far more important for the loosing of control by IBM that others could create "compatible" products than that the PC represented something entirely new that could in time replace the old. Once more Microsoft - and its MIT representative - are evading the terms of economy in which an antitrust discussion should take place. "Monopoly" becomes "category leader" and the $260+ B company is continuously on the verge of being completely destroyed by every computer science student in the world. I can't help wondering what happened to empirical science. The shift from mainframes to PCs may have been a "paradigm shift", but the main influence on the role of IBM was not the shift in technology, but commoditizing its product and thereby opening the road for relatively small competitors. What are the other "paradigm shifts" and did they indeed influence the organizational dynamics of the computer industry? Mr. Nielsen, Microsoft manager for developer relations, takes the rather extreme position that "paradigm shifts" take place every six months. Given Microsoft's lone position during the last 12 years, we can conclude that it lived through some 24 of these paradigms shifts and does so with more ease every time. If the "paradigm shift" were a one-time danger - like a meteor driving dinosaurs to extinction - it would be difficult to discredit Mr. Nielsen's remark. However, given that he implicitly claims that Microsoft has a very long record of growing bigger through all these shifts, it is difficult not to learn the lesson from this that history is pretty predictable in the computer industry. When seeing Microsoft's index at Wall Street, I believe that I am not the only one. Given the above remarks and Mr. Nielsen's answer to Redhat's Mr. Young's claims, I believe that Mr. Nielsen uses forceful words without being able to support them. Mr. Nielsen is not an honest man. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-22 01:40:39 |
| Snippet: | In this story, read about Microsoft's reaction to the Windows refund campaign: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2191274,00.html Note the statement by Microsoft spokesman Sohn that OEM's are free to load any operating system on new PC's. While it may be true that "nothing in the OEM contracts says the OEM can't ship anything else", it certainly is misleading. After all, if the OEM has tried to get the best price for Windows and pre-paid for a copy of Windows for each of a particular model of PC, that OEM certainly has an economic disincentive to load any other operating system on that model. Generally, the PC models in question are the lower-end consumer oriented models where price competition is intense. Also, spokesman Sohn says that Microsoft plans no counter-campaign and that OEM's need no hand-holding or instruction from Microsoft on dealing with the campaign. But the campaign for refund of the Microsoft Windows tax exists solely because of Microsoft-directed discriminatory Windows pricing. This is a problem created by Microsoft, but they say it can only be resolved by the consumer and the OEM. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-22 17:41:48 |
| Snippet: | After initially claiming that Linux was
essentially by a single person - a mere student - to show how simple
entrance in the OS market was (read John Warden's early interrogations,
Microsoft's "Setting the record straight paper that introduced their
position in the trial, and Microsoft's general manager in France who
claimed that development of Linux has just about stopped since the
student-originator moved to the US to work on a real job), the latest
claim from Redmond - by way of the testimony of senior vice president
Paul Maritz - is that more developers are working on Linux than on
Windows NT. Another funny aspect of Mr. Maritz testimony is his listing of "formidable competitors" (none of which sells or supports this Linux thing). The reason why they are "formidable" is that they are big and do something that might cut into Microsoft's markets. Given that they are big, they are supposed to be big as competitors. However, that doesn't necessarily follow. Perhaps Mr. Maritz should learn to draw Venn diagrams in order to restrict his points to relevant markets. Sun is primarily in hardware and does java on the site (given that java is a commodity language - many vendors can produce it - sun won't ever make money from it in the way that Microsoft makes money from Windows on which it has a monopoly); Oracle is primarily in services and software (that order!); and IBM is in hardware, services, and software (that order!). Paul Maritz's testimony is quite, er, bloated, and I restricted myself to the testimony here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/jan99/01-22maritz.htm |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-23 01:52:43 |
| Snippet: | Graham Lea wrote a very readworthy article on Richard Schmalensee's testimony. You can find it here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990122-000024.html After reading in the news that most of Microsoft's profits were made in its OS division in the latest record-setting quarter, it is a bit hard to swallow that Mr. Schmalensee has now idea what Microsoft makes its money on. He claims that Microsoft does its accounting with pen and paper. I guess they must wonder why people buy their software. Update: Here's another one: Schmalensee trips on DoJ banana skins. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-23 01:57:59 |
| Snippet: | Readers will no doubt know about
Microsoft's original licensing of "Internet Explorer" from Spyglass. By
giving the browser away, Microsoft evaded having to pay royalties to
Spyglass and thus made the company change its line of business as the
other licensees (some 182 from the top of my head) stopped licensing
the product in a market where Microsoft was dumping. (A Robin Hood
variation: the big one takes from the small one and gives to everybody.) Naturally, Spyglass attempted to get something back from their investments and development efforts and they got a sum of money from Microsoft after settling out of court. I can't help wondering if Microsoft represented the position of the browser in its case versus Spyglass in the same way as it does vs the DOJ today. Did Microsoft tell Spyglass that the licensed browser was an integrated part of the Windows operating system? If so, the Spyglas settlement is usually incorrectly represented by the account that the browser is an individual product that was given away for free by Microsoft. However, if the browser was indeed an "integrated" part of Windows, revenues should be allocated to it from the revenues of Windows in the same way as happens with bugfixes. Spyglass should have received royalties on the basis of an appropriate percentage of the price of Windows. If Microsoft did not represent the case like this to Spyglass, it has committed fraud. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-23 02:49:38 |
| Snippet: | Senior vice president Paul Maritz is
Microsoft's group manager of software and platforms. He is the highest
ranking Microsoft executive climbing on the witness stand. I annotated some fragments from his lengthy testimony. You can find the result here. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-24 17:35:05 |
| Snippet: | Microsoft has long used its position to
force exclusive contracts upon OEMs and later ISPs in order to raise
barriers to competition. The emerging networking markets, however, that might open opportunities for new software companies to rise and therefore at sometime even to build desktop systems and office tools to challenge Microsoft's own markets, are less likely than the OEMs to enter exlusive deals with Microsoft. The solution is to apply the traditional way of denying entrance to the competition: you buy up the channels. Today it was announced that Microsoft has taken a $500 million dollar share in NTL, the U.K.'s No. 3 cable company, to speed delivery of high-speed voice, video and Internet services in Britain and Ireland (See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31351,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh). Earlier, Microsoft has bought into ComCast, the 4th largest cable company in the US for $1 billion which gave them a 11.5% share (1997); started for $50 million a joint venture with QualComm to form a new wireless communications company (1998); bought 10% of Roadrunner, which does highspeed cable and internet access (1998); has some cross-agreements with TCI - TCI gets 20% in MSN and will use Windows CE (1998); bought UUNet and WebTV; and bought for $1 billion into US West which is into cable operations (1997). Conclusion: don't expect a level market for the Internet appliances that Microsoft is so loudly afraid of when in court. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-25 20:28:39 |
| Snippet: | At a time when it is alleged in court
that AOL might at some undefined time in the future start distribution
and should henceforth be considered a formidable opponent of Microsoft,
AOL itself is about to start a massive distribution by *snailmail* of
its own version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Earlier, Microsoft lawyers intimated that the DoJ might have prodded AOL to extent its MSIE contract. I wonder who they think is behind this scene. See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990125-000027.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-25 22:15:32 |
| Snippet: | Whereas a normal procedure for a cable
company would be to support whatever software its clients have, UPC,
Europe's largest privately held cable television and television
company, has decided it needed a particular software partner. Guess what: "There simply is no more qualified player for us in this effort than Microsoft." Apparently, UPC is not interested in supporting different platforms, but rather in an exclusive deal. Barriers to entry are rapidly mounting in the software industry. http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31429,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-26 18:33:37 |
| Snippet: | In this John Dodge column: This large profit margin might also be due to the situation of PC OEM's who are economically compelled to force a sale of Windows with each new system they ship. It is difficult to get a refund on the possibly unwanted Windows software and, despite the fact that Microsoft wrote the contract, Microsoft denies responsibility for this situation. I thus bring your attention to this excellent post by David Cardinal and this link to the Microsoft Boycott Campaign Web site. It is up to the educated comsumer to make the market work for them, but this certainly would be easier if companies such as Microsoft would act ethically and responsibly. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-26 21:27:44 |
| Snippet: | Procompetition did some research on Mr.
Maritz' relevant utterances in the past that seem to contradict what he
tells the court in his testimony. See: http://www.procompetition.org/xp/p-headlines/i-current/a-917374293/p_article.view |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-26 23:25:44 |
| Snippet: | You can find some numbers on Microsoft in the following ProComp article: http://www.procompetition.org/xp/p-headlines/i-current/a-917374894/p_article.view An additional number is that Bill Gates is now at $85B, so extrapolating the past and having no reason not to we can expect him to hit the $100B sometime this summer and most surely before the new millenium starts. Gates personal wealth suffices to buy AOL/Netscape, Sun and more than half of Oracle. So much for the "formidable competition". |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-26 23:32:58 |
| Snippet: | With its market value recently climbing
above $400B, Microsoft is now worth 100 times more than Netscape. Such
numbers put Microsoft's claim of Netscape being a "formidable
competitor" in some perspective. See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31494,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-27 08:45:49 |
| Snippet: | Microsoft has played a video in court on which Vinod Valloppil, the author of the infamous Halloween memos, presents the ease of use of the "Caldera operating system". What Mr. Valloppil fails to mention (and the DoJ most surely didn't notice) is that we are looking at a branded version of Linux with the KDE desktop. Apparently, the folks at Microsoft feel that something can have the "integrated feel" even if both parts are separately available and functional. Could it be that the advantages of integration can be accomplished without having one component fail whenever another component of the same vendor is not present?The text of the video is included in the trial transcript. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-27 09:55:53 |
| Snippet: | In yesterday's anti-trust trial
proceedings, Microsoft executive Maritz admitted under questioning by
Judge Jackson that Microsoft's goal in welding Internet Explorer to
Windows was to increase its browser market share. As late as July 1997,
consideration was given to selling an "Internet Explorer upgrade" to
Windows '98. The arguments that integration of Web browsing
functionality into Windows '98 was technologically motivated and "for
the good of the consumer" are looking shakier by the day. Full story is at: http://chicagotribune.com/business/businessnews/article/0,1051,SAV-9901270364,00.html |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-27 17:40:31 |
| Snippet: | Microsoft's next witness on the stand
is Jim Allchin, you know, the one from "leveraging the operating
system" to get browser market share. You can find it at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/mswitness/allchin/allchin.htm First comments are available now by the vitriolic hand of John Lettice (pity that the HTML italics didn't match): http://www.theregister.co.uk/990127-000026.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-27 23:43:59 |
| Snippet: | The "International Alliance for Compatible Technology" (http://pages.cthome.net/iact/) released an "action letter" concerning Compaq's limitation of Altavista's Discovery section to Microsoft software. It is laudable to experiment with new technology, even when that restricts readership to a specific platform, but Compaq fails to mention - aside from a little "requirements" item that says WindowsXX or NT - that the site does not conform to Internet standards. I know nothing about IACT, but this makes good sense to me. You can find the letter at: http://pages.cthome.net/iact/iact-3.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-28 00:18:37 |
| Snippet: | As mentioned a few days ago, Microsoft
has taken a $500 million interest in British cable company NTL. What
wasn't mentioned then is that NTL had announced a week before that it
would launch NTL TV-Internet, its new interactive television service,
using NCI's (Network Computer) software. Given Microsoft's history of
exclusive contracts, be they with OEM's, with educational institutions,
with Apple, and with just anybody that ever enters into a business
agreement with them, we can safely presume that NTL has now dropped
from the software market as a potential buyer. In this context one is
also urged to remember that WebTV was an early adopter of java, but
they shedded support for the language after having been bought by
Microsoft. Another cable company mentioned a few days ago was UPC. Then the news was that they entered into a technology agreement with Microsoft. The news now is that Microsoft will take a $300 million part in the company. It looks like Microsoft is closing the markets for software as AT&T closed the market for telephones. See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31580,00.html?st.ne.lh..ni |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-28 19:59:16 |
| Snippet: | Australian biologist Shane Brooks found a solution to give consumers options that Microsoft denies them: "98lite is a unique application I developed that breaks the tight integration between Windows98 and Internet Explorer, opening up a range of new possibilities for configuring Windows98. These possibilities are realised by implanting the leaner and faster Explorer shell from Windows95 onto the improved core of Windows98. You keep all the great Windows98 improvements to the hardware support, drivers, memory management, Fat32 and improved networking, but the Explorer95 interface is considerably faster and consumes fewer computer resources." See: http://www.98lite.net/ If you're in the mood, check out the Sm@rt Reseller article about it, that concludes: "Windows 98 without Internet Explorer 4 is a working operation system and Internet Explorer 4.0 is not an vital part of Windows 98." (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2196350,00.html) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-29 01:14:29 |
| Snippet: | "[O]n 13 February 1998, Imatec filed a
suit against Apple alleging the company had infringed three patents it
holds for device-independent colour management software. Imatec claimed
Apple's ColorSync software contained its technology. Imatec is seeking
$1.1 billion in damages." See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990128-000012.html I find it somewhat interesting that Apple is hit with a patent suit with a damage claim of about the same size that Microsoft alleges Apple claimed of them ($1.2 billion). If I am not mistaken, Apple is worth a couple of billions of dollars altogether, and Microsoft about a hundred times as much and it has $18 billion in the bank. Given their sketchy accounting, Microsoft wouldn't even notice a billion more or less. And yet, senior vice president Paul Maritz testified the following (sorry for the uppercase, I lifted it straight from the transcript): "UNLESS WE COULD SOLVE THIS BASIC ISSUE, WHICH WAS THEIR THREAT TO OUR BUSINESS, BASED UPON WHAT WE THOUGHT WAS UNJUSTIFIED PATENT ISSUES, BUT WE WERE SUPERSENSITIVE TO YOU BECAUSE, AS YOU KNOW, IN THE LATE EIGHTIES, APPLE HAD BROUGHT A SEVERAL BILLION DOLLAR LAWSUIT AGAINST MICROSOFT, A LAWSUIT THAT COULD HAVE LITERALLY PUT US OUT OF BUSINESS. SO, WE WERE HYPERSENSITIVE TO THE FACT THAT AN APPLE, PARTICULARLY AN APPLE IN TROUBLE, COULD COME BACK AND ADOPT A STRATEGY OF LITIGATION AGAIN. SO, THROUGH EVERY CONVERSATION, EVERY THREAT OF DISCUSSION, YOU FIND THIS BASIC UNDERLYING THEME, WHICH IS YOU GOT TO GET THE PATENT ISSUES SETTLED." Strange, isn't it? $1.1 billion may be a fortune to Apple, but doesn't mean much to Microsoft (the profit of a month or so). And yet, Mr. Maritz claims that Microsoft was utterly fearsome of a patent lawsuit by Apple, even though they thought they were right (no skirmishing with principles in Redmond this time). (News agencies don't seem to have caught on, but Maritz' testimony is really worth reading. His basic claim with regard to Apple is that the agreement specifying that MacOffice will be shipped if and only if Apple will make MSIE its default browser was just an irrelevant afterthought that got bundled with an agreement that was overwhelmingly about settling the patent matter. The transcript from which I quoted is: http://transcripts.procompetition.org/0125pm_b.html) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-29 01:53:31 |
| Snippet: | I enjoyed an article by Karen Donovan of the "American Lawyer Media News Service" that was published by "Law Journal Extra". Apparently, I read the transcripts of the session with Paul Maritz too fast (read: I skipped parts), because it was new to me that David Boies subtly asked Maritz if Microsoft represented WebTV as a competitor when it bought that company of which Microsoft today calls its products competitors to Windows. Aiks, rewriting history becomes more complicated when people are allowed to ask you nasty questions. See: http://www.ljx.com/LJXfiles/dojvms.html (I have no permament location for the file.) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-29 02:48:36 |
| Snippet: | To get in the mood for Microsoft's next
witness on the stand ProComp has listed some of the already familiar
quotes, such as: "We need to smile with Novell when we pull the
trigger" and "[Windows98] must be a simple upgrade, but most
importantly it must be a killer on OEM shipments so that Netscape never
gets a chance on these systems." Nice reading to get in the mood: http://www.procompetition.org/xp/p-headlines/i-current/a-917630416/p_article.view |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-29 20:43:21 |
| Snippet: | At the DoJ's side one can find the transcripts of all of Gates' deposit testimony since the end of the first part of the trial. Microsoft managed to keep the public uninformed about the deposits, even though the law allowed it access. Although Microsoft sought to keep the public from getting all information, they regularly complained bitterly about out of context "snippets" of deposits being presented. Now that a federal Appeals Court has ruled that the public is to be allowed to know what the law grants them, all parties can be satisfied. I'll patiently wait until Bill Gates' testimony will appear on the shelves of the local video-store. See: http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/tech/docs/001048.htm (By the way, Gates spoke to Associated Press about the deposit and said the following: "I answered every question, completely, truthfully through many, many, many long days. The fact that they're taking snippets out of that and holding them up without having me there because they chose not to call me as a witness, I think, is quite novel." -- Huh, "novel"? If so, has Gates any objections to "innovation"?) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-29 22:27:41 |
| Snippet: | Earlier I mentioned that Microsoft
presented KDE in court and called it the "Caldera operating system".
Now they go further and introduce software as competition of which the
makers - the list of developers now says there are ten in all - say: "All KOffice components are still in alpha stage. This does not mean, that the applications crash every minute, but it means that not all features are already implemented. So, some of the components are more useable than others, but the developement happens very fast, so all KOffice applications will reach an useable state soon. If you already want to test the KOffice, you can download daily source and binary snapshots. It's also mentionable, that some KOffice parts were already used very successfully." Okay, so we have software in alpha stage here. When looking at the site we find that ten developers are working on the package. Let's have a fragment from John Warden questioning Paul Maritz in court: Q. WILL YOU TELL THE COURT WHAT IS IN 2318, MR. MARITZ? 18 A. WHAT THE EXHIBIT DESCRIBES IS THE EFFORTS OF A GROUP 19 THAT GOES BY THE NAME "KOFFICE." THIS IS AN OPEN-SOURCE 20 MOVEMENT EFFORT TO DEVELOP AN INTEGRATED SUITE OF OFFICE 21 PRODUCTIVITY APPLICATIONS, INCLUDING A WORD PROCESSOR, A 22 PRESENTATION PACKAGE, A SPREADSHEET PACKAGE, A DRAWING 23 PACKAGE, AND SEVERAL OTHER COMPONENTS. Q. OKAY. RATHER THAN GOING THROUGH EACH OF THESE, CAN WE 25 JUST TURN TO THE FIRST SCREEN SHOT, PLEASE. AND CAN YOU 16 1 TELL THE COURT WHAT THAT SCREEN SHOT IS? 2 A. THIS IS A SCREEN SHOT OF THEIR SPREADSHEET PROGRAM 3 DEMONSTRATING THE VARIOUS CAPABILITIES OF THIS SPREADSHEET 4 PROGRAM, AND WHAT THEY ARE POINTING OUT HERE IS THAT, IN 5 ADDITION TO THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTIONS LIKE BEING ABLE TO 6 ENTER FORMULAS INTO THE SPREADSHEET AND DO ADDITIONS OF ROWS 7 AND COLUMNS AND THINGS LIKE THAT, THEY ALSO HAVE MORE 8 ADVANCED FUNCTIONS, LIKE BEING ABLE TO AUTOMATICALLY 9 GENERATE CHARTS. 10 SO THIS IS QUITE A SOPHISTICATED SPREADSHEET. 11 THE COURT: WHAT IS THIS RUN ON? 12 THE WITNESS: THIS RUNS ON THE LINUX OPERATING 13 SYSTEM, YOUR HONOR. 14 BY MR. WARDEN: 15 Q. IS THIS KOFFICE UNIQUE? 16 A. NO, MR. WARDEN. TO MY KNOWLEDGE, THIS IS ONE OF A 17 COUPLE OF EFFORTS TO DEVELOP OFFICE-PRODUCTIVITY 18 APPLICATIONS FOR THE LINUX ENVIRONMENT. 19 I AM AWARE OF ANOTHER EFFORT CALLED "ABI SOURCE." 20 AND THEY ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO MUCH THE SAME THING. THEY'VE 21 STARTED DEVELOPING, IN PARTICULAR, A VERY HIGH-QUALITY WORD 22 PROCESSOR FOR THE LINUX ENVIRONMENT. Somebody ought to inform Microsoft's senior vice-president of platforms and applications about the value of a screenshot. You can find the relevant websites at the following locations: http://koffice.kde.org/ and http://www.abisource.com/ |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-30 23:26:22 |
| Snippet: | I just re-read Dean Schmalensee's prepared testimony. I find the following quote interesting: "All successful software packages have high profit margins. The fact that Microsoft, as a company, has a high margin reflects the fact that it has many successful software packages. It has created what the public wants and regards as valuable." (emphasis in the original) I wonder how Mr. Schmalensee and Mr. Maritz think to combine the categorical statement that "All successful software packages have high profit margins." with their claims that free software has a very real chance to be successful. "The knowledge that serious competitors for the operating system category can emerge from nowhere places substantial pressure on Microsoft and other software companies to innovate and price low. Microsoft does not act competitively because Linux is there now. Microsoft acts competitively because threats like Linux are always out there." To be more explicit: If it is a necessary condition for a "successful software package" to have a "high profit margin", then Linux, nor KOffice, nor AbiWord, nor Wine, can ever by successful. If they cannot be successful, then they do not constitute a threat to Microsoft. By the way, WordPerfect8 (for Linux at least) can't convert the Word file containing Schmalensee's testimony. Apparently, there is more to conversion than Microsoft's videos in court show. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-31 15:18:29 |
| Snippet: | Apparently forgetting that Microsoft is
today buying into cable companies in a big way, Paul Maritz explained
in court that cable companies can provide an important channel for
competition and that whoever controls them has a "strong influence on
what software you choose to download onto your computer". Maritz said: "Clearly we are very concerned about what could happen here. It puts the people that are providing you with that access to the network - the high-speed network - in a relatively strong position to have quite a strong influence over what software you choose to download on your computer. So we believe that the cable network providers and other companies, like AOL, who have provided Internet access to large numbers of users could have a much greater say over the software that people run in the future." As reported earlier, Microsoft has sunk billions of dollars into several cable companies: $500 million in British NTL, $300 million agreed to sink into UPC, $1 billion in ComCast, $1 billion USWest, 10% of RoadRunner, $50 million joint vendture with QualComm - that is now rumored to be about to drop its e-mail client, cross-agreement with TCI to have this cable company push Windows CE. Mr. Maritz' statement makes clear that Microsoft's buying into cable companies is relevant with regard to its monopoly position. The fragment came from the transcript of the 28 Jan 1999 am session of the antitrust trial. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-01-31 16:56:04 |
| Snippet: | As seen in Chairman Gates' book "The Road Ahead", the Microsoft vision is a PC in every home. Of course, with the introduction of technologies unforseen by Gates such as the Internet and cable TV network connections, this is subject to revision as seen in the 2nd edition of his book. The unstated assumption is that all of these technologies will use Microsoft's software. We see this vision with the current anti-trust case against Microsoft. Not long into the cross-examination of the government's first witness, Netscape's Jim Barksdale, the Microsoft attorney attacked him for causing the Department of Justice to bring this case to enforce Netscape's "God-given right to 80% market share." This theme comes up again when MIcrosoft's Allchin says in his written testimony that "Netscape does not have the right to dominate the Internet." On the same token, one would think that Microsoft or any other company has no "God-given right to 80% market share" and no right to dominate the Internet. However, it is clear through Microsoft's actions in themarketplace and their claims in the trial that this is an issue of keen importance to them and that Microsoft believes it is somehow different in that it does have the right to a dominant market share. This hypocritical attitude speaks volumes about why government regulation is necessary in Microsoft's case. |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-01-31 18:49:22 |
| Snippet: | Always the first to trumpet about the
protecting of their own copyrights, Microsoft turns out to have no
qualms to stamp their own copyright notice on the trial transcripts as
published at their site. For an example you can just pick the latest transcript published at their site as of writing this item: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/transcripts/jan99/01-28-am.htm At the bottom of the transcript you'll find: �1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-01 11:40:46 |
| Snippet: | Graham Lea seems to have spent the weekend with the transcripts of the trial sessions with Paul Maritz. The prolific result is spread all over the front page of The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/ |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-01 16:01:58 |
| Snippet: | The testimony of Microsoft's Dr.
James Allchin is supposed to demonstrate that there are real benefits
to consumers and developers in the integration of Internet Explorer
with Windows. But, as Boies uncovers in cross-examination, those
benefits are also present if Internet Explorer is sold separately.
Fuller coverage is here: If Microsoft chose to sell Internet Explorer separately from Windows, it would preserve competition in the browser market and they would be competing on merits since tighter integration with the operating system is a feature that some consumers might prefer. Making Internet Explorer a mandatory part of Windows is anti-competitive and actually results in a less efficient, less stable operating system. A leaner and more stable package like Windows '98 Lite could also be a benefit consumers would want. Finally, I can assure Dr. Allchin that it is entirely possible to completely remove the Web browser from any Linux installation with no adverse effect on efficiency or stability. I suspect the same is true of BeOS. Has Dr. Allchin not done his homework or is he reluctant to admit to yet more facts that don't support Microsoft's position? |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-02-02 05:23:09 |
| Snippet: | Always a good showman, Sun's CEO makes
for good quotes during the "World Economic Forum"'s annual meeting
where Chairman Gates also spoke to the public (World *executives*
forum?). "Microsoft is a planned economy. Left unfettered, unscrutinized, unchecked--monopoly power can be leveraged into other businesses." "If they are allowed to use that leverage before the world moves to this new network economy, they can establish dominant and stifling positions in these new architectures." "What they are trying to do is leverage their Windows monopoly through acquisitions, bundling time, predatory pricing, illegal, anticompetitive behavior left and right." It seems to me that McNealy is quite right, but he could and should have built a stronger case (it could be that he did, but that the journalists missed it). Microsoft tells Apple, Intel, Digital and Netscape who is to produce what and it tells OEM's what to sell and what not to sell. That sure sounds like "central planning" to me. (I'll leave the quotes on the importance of not-breaking up Microsoft as an exercise to the reader.) See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31716,00.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-02 08:18:58 |
| Snippet: | To emphasize how much Dr. Felten's
modifications harmed its performance, Microsoft presented a video to
the court. Unfortunately, the opposition there noticed an irregular cut
in the tape. Apparently, Microsoft's supposed proof was forged. David
Boies aptly remarked: "How in the world could your people have run this
program? ... You do understand you came in here and swore this was
accurate?" See: http://www.boston.com/news/packages/microsoft/ Related: the government still doesn't seem to have caught on the existence of 98Lite or still hasn't managed to sufficiently evaluate it. It is great fun to compare Dr. Allchin's testimony with the reality of 98Lite. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-02 21:48:29 |
| Snippet: | While one group of Microsoft lawyers is
telling the court the the browser is part of Windows, another group has
been telling the patent office that: "It should be understood by those
skilled in the art that a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or
Internet Explorer, ... is separate from the operating system." The first group - that has the most executive clout - is now telling that the second group was speaking of non-Windows operating systems only. See: http://www.statesman.com/FEATURES/technology/microsoft/ms_bundling.html (Courtesy of Richard Fane.) |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-02 21:56:54 |
| Snippet: | The article contains no acquisitions
not mentioned earlier here, but I'm glad to have my list confirmed by
another party (Hmm, there is one numerical difference.) See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31777,00.html?st.ne.lh..ni |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-03 00:27:17 |
| Snippet: | William Neukom, senior vice-president
of corporate affairs and law: "This is a tiny, tiny part of a very long
tape and it doesn't stand for anything more than things can happen with
software." (This compares with "a tiny, tiny" bit pregnant. "Things can
happen with software" - This has nothing whatsoever to do with software
as technology, but solely with filming something that was set in scene.
Now that it turns out to have been tampered with, it is very hard to
conclude that the tampering was not intentional too.) Microsoft spokesperson Mark Murray called the affair of "essentially nit-picking an issue like video production." (What does he mean "nit-picking" - Microsoft tells that it displays one thing, but it shows something else. If they call saying one thing while showing something else "nitpicking", they clearly give no value to the notion of evidence.) The video-affair was bad for Microsoft's credibility. What is far worse, however, is that several spokespersons, including their senior-vice president of law, have bagatellised the very idea of giving truthful evidence. The quotes are from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31808,00.html?st.ne.lh..ni |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-03 10:00:05 |
| Snippet: | Shortly after filing with the SEC that
he wants to divert himself of 3.5 million Microsoft shares, Bill Gates
today enters talks with Holland's prime minister. Could this be purely coincidental? No kidding. Gates is going to advise the government on the introduction of computers in education. Thus, instead of seeking neutral advise, the Dutch government is embracing as adviser a party that is here to sell its own products and nothing more. I can't help being reminded of the local "Lockheed Affair" when the husband of the former Dutch queen - accepted money from the company to plug their planes. What is Gates' doing in the prime minister's office if not bypassing normal buying procedures? |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-03 11:44:14 |
| Snippet: | You can find the testimony of Michael T. Devlin, president of Rational Software Corporation at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/mswitness/devlin/devlin.htm In his testimony Michael Devlin touts the importance of the presence of Microsoft's Internet Explorer on their customers computers:
What is interesting about Mr. Devlin's arguments is that they all apply if the browser was not tied to the operating system. As for Internet Explorer's "open architecture", that is not related to grafting it on the operating system. Aside from this "open architecture" argument, all of Mr. Devlin's arguments would be equally fulfilled when Netscape would obtain a monopoly on browsers and be bundled by every OEM as Microsoft's Internet Explorer is today. For those interested, Mr. Devlin has provided a list of those libraries categorized as browser functionality that are used by software products of Rational. Again, this is really irrelevant, as they could have been unbundled and provided by a third party. Coincidentally, I visited the "Rational '99 Worldwide Software Symposium" yesterday. What really struck me is that Rational is very much a Microsoft-only platform - when they say: "This product supports all platforms", they mean: "This product supports Windows95, Windows98 and Windows NT". Another thing that struck me is that no demonstration computer had an icon to Netscape's browser. When I saw the icon on one computer, it turned out that the browser was indeed used to demonstrate how slow it was with a certain java applet. So, what is Microsoft to Rational? Although Mr. Devlin states in his testimony: "The resulting IE APIs are publicly available (including being available to Rational's competitors), like all of the Windows APIs.", I found in the document "Alliance between Microsoft and Rational expands market for visual modeling tools" (http://www.rational.com/uml/press/dynamic.jtmpl?doc_key=173) the following fragment: Our relationship with Microsoft hasnot only helped increase product sales for Rational, but alsoprovided us with the access to Microsoft technologies weneed to best meet the demands of Microsoft developers.Apparently, having an "alliance" with Microsoft gives "access" to sources not open as "IE APIs are publicly available". If you have now reached the understanding that it is Mr. Devlin's claim that anything that is to be used by all of his customers is to be included in Windows, you will find the following fragments from http://www.rational.com/sitewide/support/whitepapers/dynamic.jtmpl?doc_key=389 puzzling: On the tool side, Rational and Microsoft have worked together to provide powerful integration between the tools from both companies. One example of this is Microsoft Visual Modeler developed jointly by Rational and Microsoft. Further, Rational Rose is the leading tool for visual modeling and component-based development and it is tightly integrated with Microsoft development environments for Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Visual J++. Clearly, Rational manages to "integrate" with many Microsoft applications, e.g. MS Word, Visual Studio, MS Project, and MS Excel. If you go back to the reasons Mr. Devlin mentioned for including the web browser in Windows, you might agree with me that these would be equally valid for including MS Project, Visual Studio, MS Word and MS Excel into Windows. Strangely, Mr. Devlin does not complain that such an inclusion of applications that his customers need to use Rational's applications, just as they need MSIE, has not been carried out. For this reason I consider Mr. Devlin to apply a double standard. This is also visible in his attitude towards java. Whereas standardization in Windows is considered of primary importance, he is actually against seeking such standardization in java. Mr. Devlin considers it better to have java develop as UNIX did: let is splinter over different platforms. Mr. Devlin explains to us why splintering UNIX had adverse results, but he lauds splintering java. About being asked by Microsoft to testify, Mr. Devlin states: "We [Rational] concluded that my agreeing to testify would be, on balance, neutral to our business interests, and I agreed to testify because I felt it was my duty to do so as a citizen."I hope to have shown above that Mr. Devlin's testimony is not internally consistent and that the reasons he gives for having MSIE being included in Windows are not backed up by demands to have other Microsoft applications for which the same arguments can be made be included in Windows as well. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-04 02:27:51 |
| Snippet: | By mouth of spokesperson Mark Murray:"One of the great things about the software business is that if there are some bugs in a first version of a product, you can go back and fix them. So Video 1.0 apparently had a few things that became confusing, so both sides agree we will be doing Video 2.0." In other words, if it is pointed out that Microsoft's evidence is not what it should be, Microsoft considers it normal procedure that they get the opportunity to come up with other evidence to produce intended effect. From this it follows that Microsoft does not consider itself bound to provide truthful evidence at all times. Quote from: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31913,00.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-04 09:53:08 |
| Snippet: | (Posted by Mitch Stone to am-info="appraising Microsoft" mailinglist.) http://www.zdnet.com/talkback/22_26562_108781.html Name: Michelle Bradley Location: null Occupation: X MS employee MS issues marching orders ... I can safely tell this now, since I 'retired' from Redmond last week. A verbal memo (no e-mail allowed) was passed around the MS campus encouraging MS employee's to post to Z-Net articles like this one. The theme is "MicroSoft is responsible for all good things in computerdom. The government has no right to prevent MS from doing anything. period. The 'memo' suggests we use fictional names and state, and to identify ourselves as students." It is interesting to count the postings that do exactly this. Most interesting, indeed. http://www.zdnet.com/talkback/22_26562_108905.html Name: Wm. Paris Location: Redmond Occupation: MS Employee Marching orders? I'd refute that. First, I'm a test manager for an Internet related feature and have heard nothing. Hear say is worth little. Secondly, this board is not carpeted with drek as suggested. MS employees are results driven. If they had orders, they'd execute and you'd know it. Honestly, the word from Management is focus on your work and deliver product. Disclaimer: My thoughts may or may not coincide with anyone else's including my boss, my boss' boss, etc. http://www.zdnet.com/talkback/22_26562_109065.html Name: Tom Thumb Email: null Location:Redmond Occupation: MS employee MS orders confirmed. I can confirm Michelle's statements above. I am still an MS employee. And, yes, the posted name is not my real one. I can't afford to get fired right now. And I have heard something very similar to what she talked about. But frankly, I did not interprete the thing as 'encouraging us to post'. It was more like 'Do it! And do it a lot!' And as Mr. Paris points out, "If they had orders, they'd execute. And you'd know it." As evidenced by Mr Paris's own post. A lot of people around here are very unhappy about this. And we are increasingly embarressed by what is going on. We employee's with any remaining shread of integrity and honor are getting as much BS piled on us as the outside world is. And very few of us any more are getting stock options to shut us up. Update: Wired tried to trace the author of the first posting. Interesting. See: http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/17745.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-04 10:01:03 |
| Snippet: | You can find Graham Lea's extensive account of the video-affair here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990204-000005.html and here:http://www.theregister.co.uk/990204-000004.html. |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-04 13:50:31 |
| Snippet: | Microsoft has now for some time claimed that every "modern operating system" contains an integrated browser. Jean-Louis Gass�e writes about the claim:
For the full article, see: http://www.be.com/aboutbe/benewsletter/volume_III/Issue5.html#Gassee |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-04 20:27:51 |
| Snippet: | In this story: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31986,00.html suspicions about the authenticity of Microsoft's video demonstration of degraded Windows '98 performance caused by Felten's Internet Explorer removal program are confirmed. Microsoft admits the video was a simulation. Do they know the difference between marketing hype for public consumption and sworn court evidence? Interestingly, here http://www.theregister.co.uk/990204-000016.html we learn that Dr. Allchin at one time wanted Internet Explorer separated from Windows for quality and performance reasons. He was overruled in that decision and now Microsoft wants us to believe the Orwellian-sounding proposition that a more complex operating environment (Windows with integrated Web browser) gives better quality and performance than a simpler one. That is highly improbable but, even if we grant this, it certainly gives consumers less choice in their Windows "Web browser experience." |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-02-05 06:17:50 |
| Snippet: | More of Microsoft's strategy for the
World Wide Web comes into focus with the news that Microsoft has a
patent on the idea of Cascading Style Sheets. This is an element of the
newer versions of the standards for the Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) under the auspices of the W3 Consortium. Microsoft is a member
of the W3 Consortium and took an active role in promoting the idea of
making Cascading Style Sheets into a standard. Curiously, they did not
mention their patent on this idea. Yet the patent itself: http://www.patents.ibm.com/patlist?icnt=US&patent_number=5860073 explicitly refers to the W3 Consortium's standards document. Right now, Microsoft claims they will give a "free and reciprocal licence" to anyone who wants to use this element of HTML. There is nothing to stop them from charging for this license in the future. Unfortunately, there is nothing new in Microsoft trying to convert another organisation's standard (i.e. HTML, Java) into their own proprietary standard. Taken together with Microsoft's attempt to dominate the market for Web browsers, their plan to seize control of the Internet is clear. For more details and discussion of the Microsoft patent on Cascading Style Sheets, see the Slashdot story at http://slashdot.org/articles/99/02/04/169219.shtml |
| By: | Roy Bixler |
| Date: | 1999-02-05 06:54:41 |
| Snippet: | Who would ever have imagined that the
Internet doesn't transport data traffic at constant speed? Not
Microsoft's engineers at least. They proposed to do a performance test
directly over the Internet. This can be done to some degree by a
statistical analysis of the test data. But that was not Microsoft's
intention. Microsoft proposed to repeat a test that was to show that Windows98 with Felten's modification was under some circumstances up to seven times slower than Windows98 with Internet Explorer. This was their claim in court and they brought a video in as evidence. When it was discovered by the plaintiffs that the video was forged, Microsoft claimed after some confused detours that the presented video was a "simulation", merely meant to illustrate the test results. In other words, the video was a "docudrama", not a "documentary". Effectively, this means that Microsoft admitted that it misrepresented the nature of the video as "evidence", whereas it was not. To the public and to the judge, Microsoft sought to defend its blemished credibility to repeating the test when witnessed by observers for the plaintiff. But the test now failed. Says spokesperson Tod Nielsen: "Each time we connected we got a different performance. It would have been unfair to either side to compare one machine at one rate and another machine at a different rate."Giving up after four times? That doesn't sound like they were looking for statistical evidence. Why didn't they call directly into Microsoft's servers at Redmond instead of letting the connection run over the jammed Internet? And why didn't they just install a WindowsNT server with a copy of the Windows Update site locally? Microsoft hasn't been exactly forthcoming in looking for a reasonable test methodology. Was Microsoft sorry that it couldn't back up what it had brought into court as evidence? Not in the least. I quote from a C|Net article: Nielsen argued, though, that the Internet speed issue was not the primary part of the video demonstration, which showed that the government witness' browser-removal program "doesn't remove Internet Explorer and breaks Windows...The [Internet] performance was an additional thing that it did," he said.If the "Internet speed issue" wasn't important, Microsoft shouldn't have brought it in as evidence. Effectively, they are now claiming that some of their evidence is truthful and some is not. This attitude is not restricted to Microsoft's engineers. It goes up to their senior vice president of law and corporate affairs, William Neukom: Call me old fashioned, but I want to invite each of you to take just a minute today and think about my assertion that what you just witnessed this morning isthousands of times more material and substantive to this controversy and the PC software industry than this sideshow of melodrama about four minutes of tape. Could it be that Mr. Neukom refers to the fated attempt to repeat a test under conditions that are bound to fail as a "sideshow"? Could it be that Microsoft devised test conditions that were bound to fail, in the hope of being credited for the attempt, while being able to blame the failure to the circumstances?
Update: You can find pretty much the same point as made above in an article by John Lettice that additionally contains a chronology of the evolution of Microsoft's claims about the video: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990205-000005.html |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-05 11:27:53 |
| Snippet: | As noted earlier, the Dutch government
has been hanging on Bill Gates lips to learn how to introduce computers
in education. Meanwhile, the scene has repeated itself in Germany. What is the status of these visits? Is Gates acting as a neutral technology adviser? Or is his presence accepted as a Microsoft salesperson? In case of the former, the governments are deluded in believing that Gates has no interest in the outcome of his own advice. In case of the latter, I would like to learn what other salespersons have been received by the respective governments. If none, the politicians are walking the slippery slope of corruption. See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,32014,00.html?st.ne.lh..ni |
| By: | Case Roole |
| Date: | 1999-02-05 18:04:36 |
