There’s this bunch of new stories that could not escape without comment. Months after the Mammootty incident comes this.
Global multi-national technology company Microsoft Corp found an able brand fit in Yash Raj Films’ latest flick Bachna Ae Haseeno starring Ranbir Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Minissha Lamba and Deepika Padukone.
The gist of it all is that Microsoft glorifies itself and its wounded brand using movies. In the case of Mammootty, if true, it was geographically targeted to stifle the world’s largest migration to GNU/Linux. How typical.
Relating to Microsoft, Homa said, “We used a lot of Linux. None of the breach was anything related to Linux. All of it was Microsoft. Homa went on to say, “Microsoft is so full of holes. That’s why it’s still a target. If you limit your exposure to Microsoft, you’re going to be in a more secure environment.”
Unable to see its reflection and its own behaviour, Microsoft continues to mock the users that it needs. It still uses inapproriate words like “pirates” to describe prospective customers, whose counterfeiting it tends to welcome (provided they don’t go elsewhere).
Microsoft has been increasing its efforts to battle software piracy using lawsuits and educational programs to bring more illegal users into the light. But as Microsoft moves toward delivering more applications as services, its anti-piracy tactics will also have to change, according to solution providers.
[...]
“It is too early to speak to the possibility of [Software Plus Services] being abused, or speculate on whether or not it will have a positive impact on software piracy,” said Cori Hartje, senior director of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative, in an e-mail interview with ChannelWeb.
Propaganda terms like “Piracy” do not belong here. Microsoft has already raved about so-called ‘piracy’ as part of its business model.
The following effective daemonisation is surely accidental. It has finally been resolved. Here are the details.
Microsoft Word Now Knows the Difference Between Osama and Obama
In my post yesterday, I quoted a frustrated reader who couldn’t believe that Microsoft Word still proposes “Osama” as a corrected version of “Obama.” He wanted to know why Microsoft didn’t update its dictionary.
Given the special relationship between Microsoft’s CEO and McCain [1, 2], a few people might take a wild guess and call it intentional or xenophobia (some people actually believed this). The Republican party has, in general, been good to Microsoft and he administration let them carry on unpunished and virtually borderless, in terms of the law. The government was indifferent towards an urgent need to regulate.
Obama’s support of Free software and ODF also comes to mind. Earlier today, Rex Ballard wrote: “Obama is using Linux servers on his web site, and appears to be a
friend of Open Source.”
“…Actually, Bush loved Microsoft. During the Jack Abramov investigation, Microsoft was directly tied to Abramov, Carl Rove, and several of their shell game “charities”. The Gates foundation was also found to be a major contributor to several “PAC disguised as charities”.
“Remember when the head of “Focus on the Family” came out and announced, repeatedly, on national radio and television, that he would never vote for McCain and his followers shouldn’t either? Another case of a Charity acting as a political action committee.
“McCain won the nomination anyway, and now they are “best buddies” again.” █
“Windows 2000 already contains features such as the human discipline component, where the PC can send an electric shock through the keyboard if the human does something that does not please Windows.”
We previously mentioned several calls for ISO to be replaced or its role be surrogated. As we finally know for a fact that ISO is insensitive to abuse [1, 2] and that it tells huge developing countries which complain to just sod off, it’s becoming an urgent matter. Jomar Silva seems not only disappointed but also somewhat furious. And rightly so! Here again is what he wrote in response to ISO’s snobbery.
ISO IS NOT ANYMORE THE APPROPRIATE AND LEGITIM FORUM TO DEAL WITH THE STANDARDISATION NEEDS AND ASPIRATIONS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.
[...]
As a Brazilian and as a person who lost a year of life working seriously on it, I can only feel offended and attacked with this decision.
I believe that the time has come for developing countries unite to build an International Standardization Institution that is appropriate to our reality, that understands our problems and aspirations and that treat us with the minimum amount of respect and dignity. Enough to be being used to legitimize the desires of someone else. While we’re in developement, we have the unique opportunity to develop (and change) the world and, we cannot let it go away.
There are no listening ears at ISO. The European Commission has not yet completed its investigation, either. Many of those involved in the opposition to the corruption can offer nothing but blog posts, but it seems suitable to make every effort available to depose and expose the pairing of Microsoft and ISO.
There are now two incompatible, international document standards on which the world can conduct its discourse, manage its business, and record its archives: Odf, which was produced by the people, for the people; and OOXML, which was produced by Microsoft, the convicted monopolist.
Andre took a shot at Mr. Bryden, who clearly cares more about his job and reputation than about integrity and ethics [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. He chose denial as an escape route out of this huge scandal:
ISO’s Mr. Bryden said:
Some of the negative publicity is quite extreme and as ISO’s Secretary General it’s not exactly pleasant for me to see ISO vilified, particularly when much of the extreme criticism is based on false assumptions and a lack of understanding of what ISO is and how it works.
To my great surprise even NB were often not aware of how ISO works according to its procedures.
Procedural unclarity and the lack of raison d’etat in the ranks of ISO leadership contribute to the mess. It is not only that procedures are unclear. To a certain degree they always would be. Perfect rules are utopia.
What matters to me is how rules bias the members to go in a certain direction.
In a nutshell, ISO is dysfunctional. Rather than admit and acknowledge the known flaws, Mr. Bryden slams the opposition. If a person does not obey the rules — no matter how innocently — it does not make that person’s conduct acceptable and the procedure valid.
Given what was witnessed, a substitute is desperately needed if not a complete replacement. To quote the former convenor of OOXML, “ISO is becoming a laughing stock in the IT circles.” Who can ever rely on ISO for standards-setting anymore? To prevent the death or dishonouring of standards, ISO must go now.
The International Organization for Standardization and International Electrotechnical Commission have given the green light to publish the Microsoft-backed Office Open XML specification after organization leaders rejected appeals from four countries to protest the vote that approved OOXML as a standard.
The ISO’s decision comes as no surprise. A month ago, a leaked document, recommending that the appeals from national standard bodies from South Africa, Brazil, India and Venezuela “should not be processed further”, tipped up on Groklaw (PDF)
The core WordPerfect Office applications support an impressive range of file formats, including Open Document Format (ODF), the very oldest WordPerfect versions, and a few ancient Microsoft Office formats (Word for DOS, anyone?) that even Microsoft doesn’t support anymore.
To Microsoft, preservation is a matter of business decisions. It’s about money on the face it. No profit, no retention [1, 2, 3]. Everyone suffers as a result. █
It’s a delight to see a widely-respected publication such as The Times (Online) finally telling people the truth about OLPC. The trade journals and Microsoft-obedient press like the Wall Street Journal have been exploited extensively to spread the lies and rewrite history on behalf of Intel and Microsoft. There are clear examples of this where even Intel employees were given room for ‘placements’ that defend themselves. That misuse of literature can hardly be tolerated. It puts society at risk because it prevents future generation from learning about history. It imperils legal justice, too.
Anyway, read the following article and sober up with truths. Having watched the project closely for over two years, I can attest to having the same understanding of what happened. Now it’s time poetic justice.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, supreme prophet of digital connectivity, revealed a strange tent-like object. It was designed to change the world and to cost $100. It was a solar-powered laptop. Millions would be distributed to children in the developing world, bringing them connection, education, enlightenment and freedom of information. The great, the good, the rich and the technocrats nodded in solemn approval.
And then some of them tried to kill it.
Microsoft, makers of most of the computer software in the world, tried to kill it with words, and Intel, maker of most computer chips, tried to kill it with dirty tricks. Of course, they don’t admit to being attempted murderers. And when I introduce you to Intel’s lovely spokesperson, Agnes Kwan, you’ll realise how far their denials go. But the truth is the two mightiest high-tech companies in the world looked on Negroponte’s philanthropic scheme and decided it had to die.
[...]
My Intel spokesperson, Agnes Kwan, seems to exist to evade the issue. I played e-mail ping-pong with her over several days. She was trying to avoid giving me any dates that would show the Classmate came after the XO. This included sending me a bizarre and barely literate “ethnographic” study of computing in the developed world. In the end, all she would say about the timeline of the Classmate was: “It’s hard to pinpoint a start date with the nature of ethnographic research in which ethnographers collect data over a long period of time.” Sorry?
We advise that you read this article. The author had the guts to make the accusations and the editors did not'intercept' it.
We wrote about this several times before. It’s about OLPC’s need to join hands with the likes of Larry Lessig and fight corruption, not liaise with those who shower in it.
“They try to counter GNU/Linux on low-cost laptops by manufacturing ‘lessons’ on ‘failures’.”To give just one example: Intel sold computers at a loss (dumping) just in order to ensure OLPC could not get a foothold in Nigeria. Going by trade law, this may be illegal and it’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as Intel's crimes go (there are more obvious cases where the company is to be convicted of bribery, too). Intel is now after Nvidia’s lunch because it seeks growth, so sit sight and watch. Nvidia is already complaining, just like AMD. Intel and Microsoft were recently caught engaging in collusion that harms consumers.
There are some other current incidents to remember. Consider what happens with ASUS at the moment. Again, it’s about Intel and Microsoft. They try to counter GNU/Linux on low-cost laptops by manufacturing ‘lessons’ on ‘failures’. The most recent Fiscal indicates that low-cost laptops are among Microsoft’s main threats, so they push the ‘perception’ envelope (FUD). They want their healthy margins back.
“So, you want manufacture and market a Ubuntu-based UMPC? Well, look what happened to OLPC (now running Windows),” Microsoft will insist. It’s especially important to do this where kids are involved. Given enough stories of ‘failures’ that Microsoft can generate, people’s positive perceptions of Free software turn to fear. See the quote below. How many projects of migration to GNU/Linux has Microsoft countered by handing out gratis (or highly-discounted) software and/or equipment, sometimes even funds?
“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”
From my point of view, business issues are minor in comparison with issues of human rights and general well-being. And I reject completely the assumption that the way to improve people’s well-being is always through a market. A market is a tool, and for some things it’s very good. It can work well in some areas of life, as long as somebody is making sure it doesn’t go haywire. One of the things we see when businesses have too much power is that they corrupt those watchdogs, and we see this in the U.S. all the time. The U.S. government has ceased to effectively monitor the market to make sure it works well. Instead, it is a tool in the hands of big business. So instead of capitalism of a useful kind, we now have extreme capitalism, which is thoroughly corrupt. And the results of that are increasingly bad, here and everywhere else.
Microsoft is not there to compete. It’s there to destroy competition. It’s an ethical illness. █
Diversionary tactics, holding action, and retreats may each seem contrary to the achievement of the overall objective when considered solely in their own terms, but taken in light of the overall conflict, may contribute to overall success. In the Chinese Civil War that followed World War II, Mao Tse Tung’s Army ran away from every battle, until they won the war. They knew that overall victory, not local victory, was the objective.
Thus it is imperative to measure each action in accordance with its contribution to overall, not just local, victory.
Victory
“A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software.” This is the mission statement of Microsoft itself; it is the definition of the conditions under which Microsoft itself can declare overall victory.
LinuxWorld, which will begin tomorrow, promises to deliver some major news for Linux. But people should remember the planting of articles to sabotage a Linux announcement on behalf of Microsoft (via a marketing proxy, as usual). King of the Microsoft Munchkins, Waggener Edstrom [1, 2, 3] , was directly involved. This seems like criminal stuff and it was covered here before. It’s a smoking gun, no doubt. Other names that are mentioned there include John Markoff of the New York Times. Be sure to read it. other bits of interest (not related to the smoking gun) include:
Speaking of plots thickening, back when Maureen O’Gara published her stalking article, I received an email from Jeff Merkey in May of 2005, claiming to have been involved: “If you are wondering who gave MOG your address and who tracked you down, well, guess who? Now that you have been exposed, my task is complete here.” I have no way to verify if the claim is true, of course. It may be like bombings in the Middle East. How do you know if those claiming responsibility are being truthful? I mention it because someone using the nym basicdistrust whom the locals on SCOX Yahoo! message board seem to think is Merkey just posted a rant about me, which ended, “Death to Linux! Hell to dishonest paralegals!!” I take that as a potential threat against my person, actually. Just in case anything happens to me, you’ll know where else to begin looking for clues in SCOworld and its environs.
Growlaw has various bits that suggest Victor Raisys may be another Microsoft/SCO mole. She draws no conclusions, but only shares evidence. Be sure to read and learn.
Do you, by any chance, remember the name Victor Raisys? He was a technology analyst at Soundview Technology Group, who predicted difficulties for Linux when the SCO litigation began in 2003.
[...]
I’m a simple soul, and while I realize that odd coincidences do happen in life, I still can’t help but notice a man, whose job at Microsoft was to figure out how to stop Linux, showing up at Soundview just when the SCO litigation began, where he mirrored the Microsoft position regarding the threat to Linux SCO represented and dissing Red Hat. In the end, what it all means I’ll have to leave to others. My role is research, which I present with links so you can verify and reach your own conclusions.
This story is more than the apparent history lesson – a history that we’ve lived through together.
Microsoft has seeded employees throughout industry – and occasionally that placement has been blatant – as brought to light in the MA-OOXML and ISO down-your-throats debacle.
In propagandist positioning, this tendency has been particularly strong – recall MoG and her husband and their transparency concerning towing the Microsoft barge down its canal.
The “single source of negativity” articles that Victor Raisys has participated in certainly fits into that pattern.
They work like a movement (of Microsoft), backed by insiders. Don’t believe anything you read and trust nothing that happens. You only ever see the facet of a watch, but none of the many cogwheels behind the shiny casing. █
Earlier on we wrote about Microsoft using its patents offensively. It keeps claiming to be a victim, but it’s nothing more than double-speak — a case of buttering both sides of the toast. Since Microsoft sues using its patents in an unprecedented fashion, people begin to react. There is nothing extraordinary here, but Microsoft tried to justify going hostile.
Bruce Perens brings back memories of the confidential E-mails predating (if not preluding) the SCO lawsuit. He seems very convinced that Microsoft had a hand in it and he’s looking for more ‘smoking guns’ so that he can share his research in high-reach press (maybe trade journals).
Crimes Microsoft Gets Away With – So Far
News publications are cautious about making accusations, and because of that, some nasty acts of Microsoft are essentially being erased from the record.
[...]
Microsoft convinced Baystar Capital to put $50 Million dollars into SCO’s lawsuit against IBM and other Open Source users, and promised to “backstop” Baystar’s investment if SCO lost money, according to this sworn testimony. But I’m told that one person’s testimony, even sworn testimony, isn’t proof.
“The road to OOXML has been riddled with Microsoft corruption.”Some of the examples given there are from the OOXML fiasco. We wrote about this earlier today. A ZDNet article now cites CompTIA. It’s a Microsoft lobbying arm that fought for OOXML (Van Der Beld [1, 2, 3], anyone?). Total loss of credibility there, for sure! History is being rewritten.
The road to OOXML has been riddled with Microsoft corruption. From start to finish. It is all well documented. Interestingly enough, they also quote Microsoft’s Oliver Bell, who seemed to be concerned with BoycottNovell’s exposure of the corruption (he asked about us). Gray Gray Knowlton too was concerned. Might they end up escaping the company like others already have following the embarrassment and breaking of laws?
The EC has yet to slap Microsoft with heavy fines when the investigation is complete. The market cannot take care of itself when abuse becomes the ‘norm’.
“Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process.”
I think that ISO and IEC are on the edge of a precipice which, if they fall off, will cause them to rapidly lose relevance to IT (ICT) developments in many parts of the world, especially emerging markets.
What they appear to be saying to India, Brazil, South Africa, and Venezuela is “Go away, our process works. We love our process. You are wrong. Live by our rules and be quiet.”
If the appeals process is cut off without detailed community examination of the charges against what happened in the OOXML experience, I think that the reputations of the ISO and IEC will continue to diminish. It does not seem to me that anyone at the senior levels of these organizations get this. Rather than giving these four nations the cold shoulder, and doing it with what appears to this reader as having arrogant undertones, it makes far more sense for ISO and IEC to allow the process to carry on.
Complaints will surely continue to come. In fact, the process was so obviously broken and abused that Rob Weir has just published this detailed item. It shows what a disaster it has been from beginning to end.
When a new 6,000 page DIS is submitted to JTC1 only one month after the publication of another standard (ODF) in the exact same space (XML document formats for office applications) and 19 NB’s submit contradiction statements, and the JTC1 Secretariat’s “best effort” is to hold no consolations with the NB’s claiming contradictions, to hold no meeting, to make no attempt to resolve the question, then I believe that any NB would has a legitimate grounds for appeal on the inaction of JTC1 with regards to contradictions. There is no evidence that a “best effort” was made here to resolve the contradictions. Doing nothing is clearly incompatible with the required “best effort”.
It starts gently and gets down to more gory details. Just imagine that the BSI was taken to court over the abuses [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
The fight against the adoption of OOXML as an ISO standard is continuing in many countries. In the UK the UK Unix & Open Systems User Group (UKUUG) unsuccessfully, sought a judicial review of the British Standards Institute’s decision to vote yes. UKUUG are now seeking to appeal against that rejection of a review and you can help them.
“Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process.”
I was coming in from Sunday School this past week into the main church service when I was summoned to the audio/visual booth. There was to be a presentation that morning and the PowerPoint file was not compatible with the A/V computer. Why? Because the file was created in Office 2007 & the computer ran Office 2003.
[...]
Now all the A/V people have to do is get the Microsoft update and there will be no other issues. But why should they have to go find it? Why wasn’t it automatically pushed to them. People with Office 2003 will (at some point or another) open Office 2007 files. They don’t want to find out that it doesn’t work. Most times, they won’t even know why it is not working or how to get it to work. All they want it to do is have it work.
So thanks, OpenOffice, for just working.
As this post hopefully demonstrates, not only has Microsoft broken compatibility with rival office suites; it also jeopardised users by breaking compatibility with security software whose filters are not ‘OOXML-fluent’ (and never will be).
A World of Freedom, Choice
Aside from Web-based substitutes to Microsoft Office, the following new article presents one among many options.
Another change has been the spread of the open-source software movement. Desktop competitors to Microsoft Office, such as OpenOffice.org, have begun to get some traction. These suites may not come with all the features of the Office apps, but they don’t come with its price tag, either. They also offer good functionality, good support for Office document formats (as well as truly open formats of their own), and you pay whatever you want to pay — or nothing at all.
As a result, users have become more open to considering alternatives to Microsoft’s ubiquitous suite.
OpenOffice.org gets a lot of attention these days as a practical, no-cost alternative to Microsoft Office. While OpenOffice.org does a fine job, however, there are times when a smaller, faster, feature-packed word processing program would be useful. There is another open-source application that fits the bill perfectly here — and it deserves far more attention than it gets.
The monolithic nature of Microsoft Office (one size fits all) and the monopolistic data formats typically mean that people’s computers must obey Microsoft’s hardware requirements, which they negotiate with companies like Intel to boost their profit. It’s never about the consumer or developer; the customers are OEMs, hardware manufacturers, the government, and the media industry.
Europe’s Commission intends to bring an end to this abuse. It seems genuinely willing to do the right thing and there’s room for citizens’ feedback until the end of September.
The draft document based on which the final EIF v2.0 will be elaborated is now available online on the IDABC website of the European Commission. External comments from all of those interested are welcome by 22 September 2008.
Even the Commission seems more open than ISO. Long live ISO. █
his was going to be mentioned very briefly in this evening’s digest of links, but the response to a previous short analysis was very positive. It’s worth expanding on it now that Microsoft’s ‘shocker week’ is through.
Things haven’t gotten much better. To give just a quick overview, an analyst quoted in Reuters suggests that Microsoft should go into debt with another round of buybacks.
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) should take on debt to repurchase stock as a way to revive its flagging share price, a financial analyst said in a new report issued on Tuesday.
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co analyst David Hilal called on the company to take advantage of its predictable cash flow and rock solid balance sheet to execute a leveraged buyback.
As a reminder, Microsoft is estimated to have just $26 billion in the bank. It is far less than it has had for decades. If Microsoft had bought Yahoo!, it would would have borrowed over $20 billion from the bank. Their CFO even headed over to check these option, as reported by Reuters back in March.
This is bad for Microsoft. It had already completed buybacks valued at around $45 billion over the past 3 fiscal years. Will it be more? The frantic investors dropped their shares regardless and the stock nosedived in the past year.
It gets worse. Would you believe that Microsoft has lost $90,000,000,000 in value so far this year? So says Bloomberg.
Microsoft Holders Say Web Spending Masks Idea Drought (Update1)
Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer says he plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the company’s unprofitable Internet business. His investors say they want proof he knows what to do with the money.
After walking away from six months of on-again, off-again talks about buying all or part of Yahoo! Inc., owner of the No. 2 Web search engine, Ballmer has left shareholders wondering if he has a plan B.
Microsoft, the biggest software maker, has lost about $90 billion in market value this year as Ballmer vacillated on Yahoo and failed to show how he would crack Google Inc.’s dominance of Internet advertising.
Looking elsewhere in the news, there are too few encouraging signs. Microsoft has apparently just elevated its marketing budget for Windows Vista from $300,000,000 to $500,000,000. That’s a lot of brainwash.
Microsoft is really taking the gloves off this time. ZDNet is reporting that it will spend $500 million to make a powerful statement to its hundreds of millions of customers. I imagine the statement would have to go something like this:
Windows Vista isn’t really as bad as they say. Honest. Please don’t be mad at us. We promise our next operating system will be better. Pinky swear.
After the rejection of Windows Vista by so many large companies, including Intel, for whom a heavy Vista was possibly created, there is not much hope for change in the enterprise. Even Microsoft Watch seems to have given up. Here is a new catch of an opinion on Vista:
“Personally, I can’t stand it,” said Aaron Nettles, president and CEO of Vorsite, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Seattle. “It just seems more unstable to me, and I can’t stand not being productive.”
Mind this person’s role and location.
Another important point to make is that other Windows-based products like Server 2008 and Home Server are based on the same code and they are equally problematic on the face is it. We looked at Home Server before. It took about a year to fix a serious data corruption bug (resolved this week). What does that say about trust in the product? It’s all an illusion, a fairy tale wrapped in brand name.
The other day we also mentioned the financial fraud. Here are some more details to ensure this information is never lost (long-term).
When John Heilemann began working on a book about Silicon Valley in 1998, he discovered that he was hitting up many of the same sources as a group of lawyers from the Department of Justice. The DOJ, of course, was building its antitrust case against Microsoft, and Heilemann wanted in: “I started calling around and got the assistant attorney general to let me inside a lot of the case — as long as I didn’t write anything until the trial was over.”
Those who believe that Microsoft is still in a strong position and gaining further power are easily carried away by corporation-generated hype and glorification attempts that serve as self-fulfilling prophecies. “If Microsoft does great, so are its products,” right? They just need you to believe. It boils down to perception. █
e have been through this more than once before [1, 2]. Samsung was caught in the midst of a huge scandal and even its chairman was personally involved. He not only quit the company but he is now going to prison.
The ex-chairman of South Korean firm Samsung, Lee Kun-hee, has been found guilty of tax evasion in Seoul and given a three-year suspended jail term.
[...]
The charges followed a three-month investigation into alleged corruption at South Korea’s biggest conglomerate.
Lee, one of South Korea’s richest men, had headed Samsung for two decades before his resignation from the chairmanship in April.
Remember that Samsung signed a Linux-hostile deal under Kun-hee’s leadership.
A noteworthy thing is the similarity between Samsung’s business practices and those of Microsoft. For instance, information about Microsoft’s tax evasion you’ll find in [1, 2]. Lest we forget other mischiefs, including the recent crusade of corruption, all in the name of lock-in. There are some other questionably-criminal activities here and here. Windows Vista too is still blushing at the courtroom after collusions.
It almost seems as though there is more justice in Korea than in supposedly ‘more civilised’ parts of the world. Had justice prevailed in the west, governments would not handle Microsoft so submissively and cowardly. Then again, enforcement of the law typically boils down to political manipulation (or corruption). █
“Did you know that there are more than 34,750 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., for just 435 representatives and 100 senators? That’s 64 lobbyists for each congressperson.”
–CIO.com
Disclosure: My father traded with and distributed Samsung electronics almost exclusively for 20 years, so there hardly any bias against the company.
There are no listening ears at ISO. The European Commission has not yet completed its investigation, either. Many of those involved in the opposition to 
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