Andy Updegrove has found a couple of news items which are particularly interesting, especially when they are grouped listed in tandem (as they were). To address the “thirst” for standards, China has decided to create no less than — wait for it — 10,000 new standards!
The country will compile 10,000 new standards to meet the standard vacuum in certain fields next year. Meanwhile, some 11,000 outdated national standards will be revised, the Standardization Administration chief Liu Pingjun said, according to today’s People’s Daily.
That’s an awful lot of standards. The point of standards is to limit and to address detrimental diversity which eliminates cooperation and thereby choice.
”In spite of China’s open arms to standards, the country has just rejected one candidate.“How does this relate to this Web site? Think about Microsoft and Novell, both of which are striving to get — or at the very least assist — a document format specification standardised, despite the fact that one standard already exists to serve this purpose. Moreover, it does not suffer from all those deficiencies that we frequently mention, e.g. platform specificity, patent encumbrances, poor documentation, etc.
In spite of China’s open arms to standards, the country has just rejected one candidate.
The once-overwhelming VICS system of Japan eventually may not find its place in the China market. Tongyan Qi, key propeller of China real-time traffic information services and chief of the State Traffic Information Service Workgroup, sets forth in a panel discussion on NaviForum Shanghai 2007, the largest international navigation event organized by China government, that, though trial use of the VICS system is underway in Guangzhou and Dalian, it will not be used as the standard for China real-time traffic information; China will formulate its own standard instead.
While the total conversion potential was roughly equal in the case of both UOF/ODF and UOF/OOXML, conversions in either direction between UOF and ODF were found to be significantly easier to accomplish than with UOF and OOXML.
[...]
So what can be done? The most obvious way to avoid an unending series of standards wars – assuming that there is still time to do so – is for IT standards development organizations to try much harder to avoid the adoption of standard that require onerous financial and other licensing terms.
There are several points to be made here:
The patent trouble that is embodied in OOXML is being acknowledged by more and more nations
The inelegance of OOXML is proving to be a technical barrier
Convergence is seen as crucial, but only one company (and its bought proxies) stands in the way
Microsoft moves the hot potatoes in a ‘deprecated’ basket
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Moving the hot potato in an ‘optional’ annex is not a solution. The solution is to remove those horrors out of the standard, not to sideline with a solution that please the vendor.
In the post cited above, ECMA is rightly described as a proxy. Microsoft loves to hide its presence behind seemingly-independent agents. We find this in analysts, in lawsuits and attacks, and even secrets paymentsmade to SCO. There are heaps of examples, but that’s beyond the scope of this post. The only thing to be aware of is that there is media control which discriminates against Free software [1, 2, 3], all on behalf of wealthy sponsors. █
Any profound technical assessment of competing products is likely to end up considering factors like marketing, competitive/anticompetitive tricks, and even lobbying. Nowadays, it takes more than good (even superior) products to win. Just consider astroturfing which Microsoft used to defeat OS/2.
”Today we turn our attention to another scandalous set of cases where another regulatory body fails to do its vital job.”In an engineering world, from an entirely pragmatic point-of-view one can drift towards (and be distracted by) companies. Therein, certain behaviours ascend to another level, which is politicians.
A case that was brought to the news a few days ago might be that last straw which breaks the camel’s back. There is some exemplary evidence that shows the role of inter-personal relationships. In other words, companies can have insiders in government, which in turn enables them to act viciously without proper scrutiny. The watchdogs are asleep by choice. Blame nepotism, favouritism, or just favours (strategic charity, financial incentives, et cetera).
This time, as usual, it is Deborah Platt Majoras that makes the headlines (mind the fact the many of the links below have expired or will have expired by next week, but articles are quoted verbatim and are no older than one year).
The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy said in a petition Wednesday that Majoras’ husband, John M. Majoras, is a partner at the Jones Day law firm.
U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras is consulting with the agency’s ethics officer to see if she should recuse herself from a review of Google’s planned acquisition of online ad network DoubleClick.
Antitrust regulators with the Federal Trade Commission have received an extension to review the controversial $3.1 billion Google-DoubleClick megamerger, according to sources.
It is worth adding that Microsoft is the key driver for scrutiny here. Microsoft was caught lobbying in the press, the activist and the political level in order to put this merger under great pressure. Hypocrisy knows no bounds because Microsoft was both willing and prepared to pay twice as much for the same company. It got rejected by DoubleClick investors, so envy and arrogance ought to be considered as possible explanations.
This brings back memories of the blind eye that was turned to Intel just a couple of months ago, despite the decision made in other courts around the world.
South Korea began investigating Intel’s marketing and rebate practices for computer processors two years ago after similar probes by Japan and the European Union.
Although neither Intel nor the KFTC provided details on the findings, sources told the Korea Times said that the antitrust regulators did plan to impose penalties on the chipmaker. “The FTC gained some evidence backing up suspicions that Intel has offered discounts to computer makers in exchange for sealing exclusive deals, and coerced dealers not to buy products from rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD),” said one source.
South Korean media have reported the inquiry has centered on allegations Intel abused its market dominance by pressuring computer makers to avoid using chips made by Intel’s rivals.
FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras, a Republican, has rejected requests by lawmakers, other commissioners and Advanced Micro Devices Inc to open a formal antitrust investigation into its much larger rival Intel, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The New York Times reported on Monday that FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras has rejected requests to escalate at informal review into a formal investigation, citing unnamed government officials and lawyers involved in the matter.
Intel, the world’s biggest maker of computer chips, has been cited for anti-competitive behavior for allegedly offering large discounts to computer makers in exchange for their not using products from AMD, the paper said.
Those faulting Intel include regulators with the European Commission and Korea, the Times said. Japanese officials also made similar accusations in 2005, it said. Intel controls some 80 percent to 90 percent of the microchip market, it said.
On the same note, when Intel came under fire for a questionable acquisition, Intel did not require much effort to escape an iron fist.
It is not common for the Federal Trade Commission, which issued a second request for information to Intel last week, to ask for more information on such mergers.
Other watchdogs have been frustrated with the FTC’s decisions. Consider this one:
The American Antitrust Institute (AAI), a Washington DC lobby group, has written an open letter to the Federal Trade Commission urging an investigation of Intel’s allegedly monopolistic business practices.
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AAI say its insistence of an investigation is based on allegations by AMD in a private case and information obtained by the EC’s complaint, which have not been made public
How is it all possible? Well, in the past we showed financial links between Microsoft and politicians, so the DoJ. Nepotism was hardly a surprise. We have also listed Intel’s abuses against AMD and others (partial list here), but where does Intel get all that power from? In particular, how is Intel able to dodge such investigations? Lobbying might be the answer, so here are some articles to consider:
This seems like a normal type of practice, which it should not be. People who are paid to rewrite laws and pressure for political change ruin the spirit of democracy. When it comes to lobbying, the law requires only disclosures, yet does not forbid the activity as a whole. Another example from the beginning of the year:
Micron Technology Inc., on Thursday said it has opened a government affairs office in Washington to lead the computer memory maker’s lobbying efforts on patent reform, international trade, research funding and other issues.
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Carroll, 33, worked for the last six years as trade policy director for semiconductor maker Intel Corp., which she joined in 1998 as European government affairs policy manager based in Brussels, Belgium.
Of course, a company like Intel can always use the same excuses as Microsoft, claiming that it merely ‘innovates’ and the whole world is against it for no apparent reason. Case of point:
Still, he sighed, the worst case scenario is that he might have to write a cheque, even if fines in the current case could be as high as $3.2 billion
The EU may indeed be anti-America, but only is “anti-America” means “against kickbacks”.
The bottom line of this post ought to say that the FTC is a lost cause, so any time it’s mentioned in the context of large monopolistic companies, it ought to be questioned or dismissed promptly. The same goes for the DoJ, but not the AAI. In the context of formats, ECMA is still seen as somewhat a marketing puppet (pay to play), whereas ISO paints itself as a victim which nevertheless lost its spine (and thus its credibility). █
Update: going further off topic, the Department of Justice has had other serious issues relating to trust. It goes only several months back. The recent Department of Justice scandal is depicted here.
Microsoft may have lost in court, but it quickly tried to win the war of media reaction via organisations like CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association and ACT (the Association for Competitive Technology) which both intervened in court on its side.
E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often with the knowledge of the groups’ leaders, exploited the tax-exempt status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build support among conservatives for legislation or government action sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.’s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
Microsoft took first place with $651,100 given out, while Hewlett-Packard gave only $185,550, and Gateway gave a paltry $2,000. Microsoft’s donations certainly illustrate well the true size of the company and the extent of its political concerns.
Nearly a decade after the government began its landmark effort to break up Microsoft, the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct, including the recent rejection of a complaint by Google.
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In the most striking recent example of the policy shift, the top antitrust official at the Justice Department last month urged state prosecutors to reject a confidential antitrust complaint filed by Google that is tied to a consent decree that monitors Microsoft’s behavior. Google has accused Microsoft of designing its latest operating system, Vista, to discourage the use of Google’s desktop search program, lawyers involved in the case said.
Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea — both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?
The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better, a “corruption” of the political process. I don’t mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean “corruption” in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can’t even get an issue as simple and clear as term extension right.
Novell today announced that Office Depot , a leading global provider of office products and services, has chosen SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server as a core operating platform for the company’s global servers. The goal of the standardization is to reduce complexity and control costs while maintaining superior stability and performance for Office Depot’s end-user applications.
It doesn’t mention coupons, Microsoft, or “IP”. It is also worth adding that Xandros started selling its Linux products in Office Depot last year. This happened before the deal with Microsoft.
The story from ELCOT returns and it consistently mentions Linux as a product, which is attributed to Novell.
Tamil Nadu’s schools were running Microsoft Windows on a horde of aging machines—1,880 servers and around 30,000 desktops. The OS was in need for a refresh; however, moving to Windows Vista looked like an expensive option largely on account of the increased hardware requirement. ELCOT decided to move its own systems from Windows to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
Pricing starts at $10,000, and goes up depending on the number of users or processors, according to IBM. An InfoWorld test two years ago found the product cost $120,000 for 2,700 users, making it more expensive than similar products from Microsoft and Novell, but less expensive than products from Sun and Thor Technologies (now owned by Oracle).
Two weeks ago I was in L.A., jumping from meeting after meeting, and at the end of every meeting, I asked everyone what they saw in the Identity and Access Management road ahead. I got some great answers, which you can peruse right here, and just this morning, I got these additional answers from Baber Amin of Novell, and definitely thought they were worth adding to the discussion. And hey, it is the holidays, so I can certainly forgive a little lateness.
Novell-based Operations
Alvarado’s network operation is Novell-based, and it has been that way since Berger joined the district four years ago. One of his first initiatives was to “stabilize the foundation” by deploying ZENworks to tighten up computer systems management. Now, along with the NetWare 6.5 operating system and ZENworks , the district currently runs Patch Management for security compliance, iPrint for network-enabling printers, GroupWise 7 for e-mail, eDirectory for network directory services, and File System Factory (now known as Storage Manager) for storage management.
So going with a Novell solution for identity management was a no-brainer, he said.
Ron Hovsepian insists that Linux will continue to play just a partial role in bringing revenue to Novell. Identity management is important to Novell’s survival. █
China, Europe express and show intent to ‘clean up’ the mess
Wise men once argued that a lot of inventions worth patenting had already been patented. They insisted that there is little room for more great ‘innovations’. This report from China appears to confirm this.
On November 27, 2007, the Innovative National Construction and Intellectual Property Symposium was held in Beijing. Representatives from a variety of industries spoke at the event; most of them expressed their worries and frustrations with China’s IPR protection framework. Mr. Fu Shaoming, head of the IPR unit from Foxconn, China’s largest electronics OEM firm, claimed in his speech that 90% of China’s new and practical patents are de facto garbage and should be discarded.
Amazon doesn’t appear to be learning a lesson in patent tactlessness. It carries on filing so-called ‘junk patents’, which are fortunately getting revoked, at least by the EPO. Check out this description of the following revoked patent.
The so-called “Gift Order Patent” has been revoked by the EPO in an opposition proceeding today after a hearing involving three opposing parties and the patent proprietor, Amazon Inc. The patent relates to a method for purchasing goods over the Internet to be sent as gifts.
Here is a little update on our favourite patent trolls, Ray Niro and Acacia. Of interest:
Assuming it files one per month for the next 39 months until the patent expires, then what Acacia is really seeking is $600M from US industry for the JPEG-on-a-website patent. My guess is they’ll sue many more companies than that, and seek up to a billion dollars – which, assuming a 33% contingency fee (which is low, probably), amounts to a cool $100 million per year for the Niro firm.
And people wonder why he’d like to shut down websites critical of Acacia and other patent trolls. The real question is what does he want from you and me, for our photo blogs, our personal websites. His statements to IP Law 360 only referred to companies.
The other real question is how many companies will spend millions in attorneys fees to fight rather than pay the $500K or $1M or $2M that Acacia is demanding. That’s the sad state of patent litigation these days.
Thank you, TrollTracker, for documenting such valuable nonsense. █
”…Novell received some positive press coverage as well.“The most major news, at least from Novell’s perspective for this week, is all to do with postponement of its financial report (due to a SEC probe). We covered this on Thursday after the Wednesday’s downtime (caused by heavy load). It was the same day that Novell received the grim news. However, Novell received some positive press coverage as well. Some of it is presented below.
Novell is scouting for sale and service partners to create better business opportunities and to provide wide range of business solutions in the Indian market.
There is one lucky partner. Novell grants a special honour to Novacoast, which is claimed “partner of the year”.
Novacoast, Inc., an IT professional services and product development firm, won Novell’s 2007 Solution Partner of the Year award for the Americas, seizing the top honor for the fifth time in the past six years. A Santa Barbara-based company, Novacoast continues to hold top partner status with Novell due to a strong customer focus, technology expertise, and a results-oriented approach. Novacoast has been a key partner in helping Novell expand its Linux and enterprise management offerings to new customers and new markets in 2007.
Just recently, government information technology vendor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) announced that it, along with its team members, has been awarded a certificate of completion for its HSPD-12 vendor evaluation. Team members include Novell, Honeywell, ImageWare and ActivIdentity.
For future reference, Sequiam’s ties with Novell’s technology are worth taking note of. They are described in the following new press release.
Sequiam Corporation (OTCBB: SQUM), a leading provider of innovative consumer and commercial identity-management technologies and services, announced today that production is underway on several versions of the new biometric hardware kits for Fujitsu. These kits will be used in multiple applications, including Novell® eDirectory(TM), enabling NMAS Authentication for client and server login. They will also be used for secure access to www.annesdiary.com, the world’s first secure social networking site for children, which utilizes Novell eDirectory.
The hardware kits will be used by Fujitsu for multiple security access applications including Novell’s eDirectory and www.annesdiary.com, which Orlando-based Sequiam (OTCBB: SQUM) touts as the world’s first secure social networking site for children, particularly young girls. The site has 600,000 subscriptions around the world.
Novell Marketing
The following Novell commercial seems similar to a bunch of older ones. It may be just a part of them, but it might also be a new one based on the datestamp.
Novell’s PR blog reveals a migration from Windows to GNU/Linux where Novell’s SUSE was chosen.
Guangdong Mobile’s Windows environment couldn’t provide the stability and security the company needed, so after testing a variety of alternative solutions, Guangdong Mobile replaced its Windows with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
ELCOT’s migration to SUSE Linux, which has been covered here several times before, makes the news again.
That day, Elcot’s managing director, C. Umashankar, walked into his office in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and was handed a brand new laptop. He recalls promptly giving it back to his PA. “I asked him to load Suse Linux on it. I guess he was surprised. But when the installation — complete with drivers and wireless networking — only took 45 minutes and very little external effort, there was a new confidence in my PA.” That confidence spread quickly. And with it came more penguins. Within weeks, the Rs 750-crore Elcot was undergoing a enterprise-wide migration to Suse Linux. A year later, Umashankar and his team had moved 30,000 computers and 1,880 severs belonging to some of the state’s schools to Linux — creating possibly the largest Linux rollout in India.
[...]
As users caught on with Umashankar’s infectious enthusiasm, they started getting more familiar with the features of their new OS. Soon a cycle of interest developed and users found new ways of switching mail clients to work on Suse Linux.
While Novell has its Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition and Microsoft has its Small Business Server offerings, you have some research to do before deciding which way to go. And there are several open-source products that will probably work well for you as well.
A story that first made the news about 4 months ago has recently returned.
The judge’s approval of 200 hours of community service drew comments from law enforcement officials frustrated by an MIT professor who faked his own death.
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Donovan is well-known and widely respected in the IT community because of his text books and inspirational speeches. A serial entrepreneur, he started several companies, the most famous of which was Cambridge Technology Partners, which was sold to Novell for $266 million in 2001. The Cambridge Technology Partners operation was recently spun off by Novell.
This story was not mentioned here before because it barely has anything to do with Novell. Being a large company with an even more glorious past, the number of people out there in industry who are also former Novell employees is quite vast. Eric Schmidt is doing well at Google and Matt Asay cannot help criticising Novell for its deal with Microsoft. Both of them are former Novell employees (among many more). █
To those who have the most to lose from ODF adoption, namely Microsoft, this is not encouraging news, but for the rest of us it’s a reason to be pleased. It improves digital preservation, widens choice, lowers prices, and leads to products that are better (the effect of a truly competitive market).
The most recent news comes from the blog Open Malaysia. Interestingly enough, it mentions something which happened under the radar of the mainstream media. Korea is among those who have adopted ODF and made it a national standard.
The proposal for ODF to be accepted as a Malaysian Standard by SIRIM, Department of Standards Malaysia and ultimately the Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation is dormant for more than a year now. Four months after the Malaysian proposal went to sleep, Italy made ODF a National Standard. Eight months after that, Korea has followed suit. With this Korean news, perhaps the Malaysian proposal will be awakened.
OpenDocument Format supporters are welcoming presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s promise to put government data online in universally accessible formats should he be elected.
When U.S. presidential candidates start promoting their open-source and open-document platforms, you know that the open-source movement has finally arrived.
Think of this as somewhat of a spillover that contains various unrelated topics, and primarily news from the past week.
Novell in China
Articles about Dell, Microsoft and Novell continue to come. It’s an interesting relationship that remains wrapped as somewhat of a mystery because of vague patent agreements. This new article is about China.
Novell and Dell announced to expand Linux offerings with the addition of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 installed on Dell OptiPlex 330 and 755 business desktop PCs in China. The systems will be available later this year.
Steve Ballmer at Microsoft can be quite eccentric at times — although in fairness he is apparently an unassuming family man who is a decent cove — and the mention of the operating system Linux makes him come over strange.
Watch the photo.
SCO
In case you wish to catch up with the latest on SCO (Novell is still very much involved), read this article.
In a similar case, Andreas Kuckartz, a German Linux advocate, had been publicly stating since 2003 that “SCO IP Licenses for Linux” amounted to little more than “protection money pricelists” and that SCO is “spreading rumors about copyright violations in Linux.” Further, Kuckartz claimed that “The SCO Group Inc. is probably is involved in crimes such as stock manipulation and filing a fraudulent complaint against IBM.”
Shares of Novell Inc. rose Monday after the Waltham, Mass., software maker received an upgrade to buy from neutral from UBS Investment Research.
The stock gained 3.7% to $7.06 in midday trades. Shares are now up almost 14% year-to-date. UBS also lifted the 12-month price target for the stock to $9 from $8.50.
There are a variety of new GroupWise videos. One is worth a quick mention, but there’s nothing exciting to see here really.
There has not been much Novell buzz in the audio/video world recently. Bear in mind that such material often comes from fans and supporters. It’s not the press.
Send this to a friend 
In the post cited above, ECMA is rightly described as a proxy. Microsoft loves to hide its presence behind seemingly-independent agents. We find this 
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