06.15.09
Posted in Asia, Google, Microsoft, Search at 5:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
• Microsoft’s Porn Search Blocked in Islamic Countries
Most of the world — especially Islamic and Chinese countries — isn’t getting the real Bing.
As reported last week, searching for “sex” or “porn” in Microsoft’s new search engine returned dozens of explicit images and videos, as long as the user turns “safe search” off.
Thanks to Bing’s autoplay feature, dragging the mouse over a video thumbnail starts playing it immediately — meaning that you can watch hours of hardcore sex without even leaving the Bing Web site (or paying for porn).
• Microsoft Launches Search Engine for China — But Don’t Call It Bing
But industry analysts say this new move by Microsoft is unlikely to alter the competitive landscape in China, since Microsoft’s share of the search market has been negligible. The market is currently dominated by Baidu and Google, with respective market shares of 59% and 30.6%, according to Internet research firm Analysis International.
• Microsoft’s Bing Uses Adobe’s Flash for Video [no Silverlight?]
Bing can play a video preview from right within the thumbnails on video search result pages, but to implement this, Microsoft has chosen to use Flash.
• Bing: A Threat to Google or Just Another Zune?
We would caution, however, that given the heavy promotion of Bing by Microsoft, it is only natural to see some curiousity on the part of internet users regarding their new service.
• Microsoft And Dell: Tech’s Biggest Sore Losers
Microsoft, in the meantime, is investing close to a hundred million dollars in a market, search, where it doesn’t have a hope in hell of making any headway. And Dell can’t seem to figure out how to spend its money and has tried to hire an acquisitions chief who can’t get free of his former employer. Those don’t seem like economic issues to me; they seem more like management issues.
• Bartz: Yahoo Is Fine, Thank You, Without Microsoft
Yahoo will do perfectly fine even if it doesn’t strike any type of deal with Microsoft, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said Wednesday.
• Bartz, Bing tamp down Yahoo-Microsoft talk
Bartz says search engine Bing unlikely to make significant mark
“It’s not the first entry for Microsoft, They do this about once a year. From Bing’s perspective, they have a bunch of new ideas and there are some things that are missing. We think search is about comprehensiveness, freshness, scale and size for what we do. It’s difficult for them to copy that.”
–Google CEO, regarding Bing
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Posted in Boycott Novell, Finance, FUD, Google, Microsoft, OpenDocument at 5:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft proceeds to smearing Google behind the scenes if allegations are correct
IT HAS ONLY been a few days since we last wrote about Microsoft’s anti-ODF whisper campaign [1, 2]. In the news we now find another, very similar accusation where Google is the victim.
What An Anti-Google Whisper Campaign Looks Like
[...]
For example, over the weekend we got an email from Will Rodger of LMG Inc, a Washington-based public affairs firm that is known to work with Microsoft and specializes in “next-generation services such as viral and online campaigns.”
The email pointed out a total of three Googlers have been poached by the Obama administration. It read:
“This looks like a full embrace of Google by the White House. We do not remember a time when one company had so many executives leave to serve a single administration. Others may have a better handle on the history.”
How familiar a pattern this has become. See for example:
Anti-GNU/Linux whisper campaigns may often involve the unsubstantiated accusations that Red Hat customers owe Microsoft money for software patents.
“Linux is a cult that captures the best-and-brightest kids.”
–Jim Gray (Microsoft Research)
When it comes to the attack on ODF, we at Boycott Novell have been quite effective at showing was Microsoft was doing in Wikipedia. See for example:
Here you can find some of the culprits chatting with Microsoft employees about us. Alex Brown takes some cheap shots too. Glyn Moody meanwhile explains that all those recent events show that “Microsoft Hates – No, *Really* Hates – ODF.”
What this means is that Microsoft is only making big money on its Office suite, for whose luxurious margins it must therefore fight tooth and nail. Which, judging by its behaviour at the ISO, and some more recent stories, is exactly what it is doing in the face of growing pressure from open ODF-based alternatives like OpenOffice.org.
The Wall Street Journal more or less confirms Microsoft’s fear for the future of Office.
Microsoft Exec: Cloud Computing Could Undermine Margins
Though it’s a “huge” revenue opportunity, cloud computing will likely put pressure on Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) margins, a senior company executive said Thursday.
The remarks by Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, appear to confirm fears that online software products, which Microsoft is rolling out, could undermine the company’s margins over the long term.
Reuters wrote about it too and the Business Mirror shows why Microsoft should be nervous.
MICROSOFT Corp.’s increased spending on its search engine and Web-based software may squeeze earnings in the next fiscal year, said Heather Bellini, a UBS AG analyst.
Microsoft apparently responds by sending its familiar pseudo-journalists (Shane O'Neill in this case) to falsely claim that Office is not at risk. Who does O’Neill cite? Forrester, which Microsoft has been paying to attack GNU/Linux.
New research from Forrester shows that while the poor economy has delayed some upgrades to Microsoft Office 2007, most enterprises are sticking with some version of Microsoft’s productivity suite over alternatives such as Google Apps.
Forrester has been attacking many Microsoft competitors recently (including Apple and Free software), so it’s important to remember all the times Microsoft paid them.
We have also just been warned that Microsoft’AstroTurfing in Twitter is rising. Microsoft pays Federated Media and Waggener Edstrom (where Steve Ballmer’s wife is from) to do this type of stuff in Twitter. █
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Posted in FUD, Hardware, Microsoft at 4:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s Xbox business suffers, so attention is shifted to competition-stomping
Microsoft’s modus operandi contains a healthy dose of FUD tactics. We have shown countless examples of this over the past few years and now comes another accusation which refers to the consoles business.
Microsoft Should Stop Taking Jabs At Gran Turismo
Microsoft has an irritating habit of attempting to tear down the competition while simultaneously promoting their own; a marketing tactic we don’t see as often from either Sony or Nintendo. …and people wonder why there are a growing number of gamers who simply don’t like Microsoft and how they handle their business.
Microsoft’s XBox business is a huge financial disaster and a few days ago we mentioned the fact that Microsoft stops repairing XBox360 quite so properly as budgets run tight
There is a lot more coverage of this, e.g.:
A week ago someone resubmitted this old bit of news:
JULY 6 | FROM VARIETY: Defective Xbox 360s will cost Microsoft more than $1 billion on its bottom line.
[...]
Submitted by: Chris Bartoshevich (ctblori@aol.com)
6/8/2009 3:11:00 PM PT
How much more will Microsoft be willing to lose in Xbox? Some people honestly said that Microsoft should just end this business line. It has already lost Microsoft around $7 billion. And that’s a conservative estimate; it could be much worse because Microsoft fires people who say the truth. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Xandros at 3:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Xandros plays ball for Microsoft by offering software patent ‘protection’ as a product
ONE IMPORTANT bit of information that we have not addressed yet is the way Xandros markets GNU/Linux. If one adds Xandros to the cart and proceeds to checkout, then there are two options: Xandros costs $99 without “Microsoft Patent Assurance” and $149.99 with it. Here is the page containing more details.
It says: “Now you have the option to acquire Xandros Desktop offerings together with Microsoft patent assurance. This assurance enables you to use Xandros Desktop software with confidence. This program is available for $50. Learn more by reading Microsoft’s covenant.”
“How much does the same thing cost for SLED?”This even links to Microsoft’s Web site. Nice, eh? What a pleasant experience purchasing GNU/Linux from Xandros. This also applies to Linspire, which Xandros bought. They sell Debian with a Microsoft licence for imaginary software patents.
How much does the same thing cost for SLED? And what happens if a customer does not buy this so-called “patent assurance”?
It is sad to see that Xandros still has some presence in sub-notebooks, usually at the expense of GNU/Linux distributions that don’t share a bed with Microsoft. From last week:
The slow-but-steady introduction of ARM-based netbooks is going to be interesting to watch. The above video from NetbookNews.com shows a Pegatron-brand netbook running Xandros Linux on a Freescale platform with an 800MHz ARM CPU, all in a fanless, super slim body that the guy in the video, Sascha, estimates to weigh around 1.75 pounds (800 grams).
More from the news:
Well I started out using the Xandros Linux on the EEE’s and it worked great but I wanted more. So I tried Windows XP for a short time but XP was such a bloated and slow mess I went back to Xandros. Then along came UbuntuEEE (Now EasyPeasy) and I was really happy what it did for my 40G. Finally Canonical came out with Ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix and it’s the bees knees for netbook OS’s.
And lastly:
With major Linux distros like Ubuntu and Xandros embracing the technology, software availability should be improved. Broadband wireless deployments have accelerated sharply over the last year, and should continue to grow by the time the new MIDs appear next year.
It is worth abolishing Xandros, which admits it is no longer focused on GNU/Linux. Here for example is the latest press release which shows that Xandros merely offers hosting when it comes to Linux-powered servers.
A Brazilian Cloud services firm has implemented Scalix Hosted Edition email and collaboration platform to offer robust email and collaboration hosted services to their clients.
Over at Novell’s Web site we’ve found one rave about SLED 11.
Imagine my delight when I received a copy of SLED 11 … it was a polished Desktop with awesome features GNOME-Do is one them and totally a Gem. I could take the Evaluation disk to the Boss, it looked nice, he installed it, was amazed to see it integrate with Active Directory (no PhD required), he feels confident to present it to the Executive Board .. he is pleased with the support options, he feels happy, I feel happy, smiles all round.
Well, yes, but was it required that the boss pays Microsoft for GNU/Linux? Other distributions are equally (or more) capable. They are both libre and gratis and they don’t endorse Microsoft’s slanderous claims by passing money to it. █
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Posted in Antitrust, Law, Microsoft at 3:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“No other large companies as far as I know use their employees as attack dogs to silen[ce] dissent. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense.”
–The Prickly Prince From Microsoft Strikes Again
Summary: A trip down memory lane of smear campaigns
Microsoft’s smear campaigns are an issue well understood to us. There is a lot of evidence out there, e.g.
We also wrote some posts on the subject, e.g.:
For future reference, a reader has suggested that we add the Jackson example. The reader explains: “You’ll notice that over time Microsoft people have been able to attack critics to the point that anything other than praise is a target nowadays.”
Here are some of the rulings/documents from Judge Jackson:
“Even ten years ago,” explains the reader, “Microsoft people responded to facts by attacking the messenger.” He offers the following as proof:
“The government is not trying to destroy Microsoft, it’s simply seeking to compel Microsoft to obey the law. It’s quite revealing that Mr. Gates equates the two.”
–Government official
Microsoft’s contempt for the legal system/s is a subject we’ll return to later today, in reference to news.
More judges are given as examples in this context.
“Interesting,” says our reader, that “this Jan 8, 2001 article referred to below is locked away in the archives”
Among the examples, in the Jan. 8 issue of The New
Yorker, Jackson said Microsoft founder Bill Gates “has a
Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an
arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success,
with no leavening hard experience, no reverses.” He
added that company executives “don’t act like
grown-ups!”
“Frustrating,” is how the reader describes it, adding this BBC reference which says:
“[Gates] has never been accused of causing bloodshed on a
scale associated with the French general [Napoleon]…”
“… until now,” alleges our reader. He refers to the human damage caused by bad engineering.
“He refers to the human damage caused by bad engineering.”Finally, writes our reader, ” Your articles on Windows worms in the hospitals point out that the deaths have begun. Figure each worm per hospital causes a handful of deaths, multiplied by now thousands of hospitals which are infected with Windows and multiplied again by a dozen or so Windows worms outbreaks and you quickly have casualties of not so insignificant proportion.
“We appear to have a major, ongoing industrial disaster being ignored by the militaries, defense departments, intelligence and even private insurance agencies. It Microsoft that big of a cult that normal laws and guidelines do not apply?”
Harsh words? You decide. █
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Posted in Java, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Red Hat, Ubuntu at 2:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us.
“Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there’s no way to avoid this danger. But that’s no reason to put our head inside Microsoft’s jaws.”
–Richard Stallman
Summary: The Mono discussion awakens, Mono-hostile assessments outweigh the rest
THE matter broke loose a couple of days after Fedora had said that it was concerned about Mono. More and more bloggers are starting to write about the subject. Béranger, for example, argues that he is fed up with Mono. He writes:
Of course I’m fed with Mono. I am so annoyed by the public passion for this technology that I won’t bother anymore to blog against it. A tiny mention though, in this short post.
First of all, I was exceedingly pissed off by a long pro-Mono plea by Jo Shields, which I have read as posted by Carla Schroder. I can’t comment on it, as I don’t want to read it again. It hurts my guts.
The only thing I can say: we don’t need Mono, the same way we don’t need Java. It’s not just about Microsoft. It’s about stupid people who try to force some technologies there where they’re not needed.
Other sources of opposition suggest that defense of Mono proponents is very weak and a detailed breakdown is offered to explain why Mono critics are right.
Also, sharing pearls for wisdom such as “Double click is patented”, “They’re just doing FUD” does not really help people think you’re serious. DOSsing BoycottNovell also doesn’t help (nor to claim they did it to themselves), nor helps claiming that Fedora included Gnote just for space saving (weird how what make Fedora lose space apparently makes Ubuntu save it, uh ?): I’ve got a nice news for you:
“We do have some serious concerns about Mono and we’ll continue to look at it with our legal counsel to see what if any steps are needed on our part,” Frields said.
“We haven’t come to a legal conclusion that is pat enough for us to make the decision to take mono out,” Frields said. “Right now we’re in a status quo. Gnote is a relatively recent development and unfortunately was too late in the Fedora 11 development cycle to include by default.”
That conclusion was probably drew after some consulting with RedHat’s “oh-so-sophisticated anti-Mono lawyers”.
It’s not that Mono is that bad. Let’s move it to Medibuntu and everyone is fine.
Whether Ubuntu likes it or not, Mononono is now on Launchpad. It is an entry which someone describes as what “seems like a collection of legal issues related to Mono & Moonlight, each well documented.”
For practical reasons too, Mono is not suitable for users (developers aside). Tony Manco has obtained proof that Gnote, for example, can take up less than one megabyte of RAM. See the screenshot below. Compare that to Tomboy, which is a lot heavier.
Other than Microsoft and Novell, who does Mono actually serve? And if OOP is a must, why not Java? █
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Posted in IRC Logs at 2:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Read the log
Enter the IRC channel now
To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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