–Bill Gates

Summary: A conceited corporation, Microsoft, shows not only that it exploits its botnet to forcibly download massive binaries without consent but also that it vainly overrides people’s privacy settings to spy on these people, sometimes with help from malicious hardware vendors such as Dell or Lenovo

THE topic we have neglected as of late is Vista 10, which is still doing pretty poorly in the market. Its whole purpose seem to be data collection and Microsoft will not tolerate barriers to: 1) adoption of Vista 10 and 2) data collection from each Vista 10 user.

Microsoft is aggressively trying to impose downloads of Vista 10, even without consent from users. One ought to wonder, when will there be class action lawsuits? Microsoft pretended this was done in error, but later it became clear that this was not an accident. Microsoft is really desperate to make everyone adopt this malicious spyware, which acts as a keylogger with a lot of other nasty features.

According to reports from earlier this week, Microsoft’s special ally Dell helps snooping on users in more than one way. Not many reports mention this, but it’s a problem that affects Windows only [1], just like in the case of Lenovo, which took all the blame for Microsoft's bad behaviour.

According to reports from the British media, Microsoft is now overriding users’ preferences not only when it comes to downloading Vista 10. It not only ignores privacy settings, either. Microsoft is now using Windows updates to actually alter privacy settings [2], showing once again that anything privacy-related is a farce under Windows [3]. Remember that Microsoft works closely with the NSA.

One article rightly recalled Microsoft’s hypocritical AstroTurfing against Google and wrote: “Microsoft spent millions portraying Google as a greedy and amoral data marauder. Redmond doesn’t need to read your email, it told everyone. The Scroogled campaign positioned Microsoft itself as the ethical alternative; the occupier of the moral high ground.”

As one person put it in Twitter, “now that they’ve apparently “given away” Windows 10, the die is cast. Vast majority of people have no idea of privacy loss/laws” (it is only a ‘free’ ‘upgrade’, it is not “given away”).

The press will likely find yet more of Dell’s serious privacy violations [4], including this second one [5,6], but rarely will it bother to mention that only Windows is affected. This whole bunch of stories comes to show that Dell and Microsoft Windows are more like NSA incorporated. They are designed to erode privacy. Surveillance is a built-in goal. Just like in the case of Lenovo, however, Microsoft received none of the blame. Lenovo and Dell get all the negative publicity, but it is a Windows issue, not just a Lenovo or a Dell issue.

We wish to remind readers that now is a good time to leave Windows. The decks in the proprietary software world are stacked against privacy. They guard the watchers, not the users. Windows sometimes puts people in prison [1, 2]. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Dell, Comcast, Intel & Who Knows Who Else Are Out to Get You

   News came out on Tuesday that since August Dell computers have been coming out-of-the-box with a root certificate preinstalled that is an “unintended security vulnerability.” The source of the quote, by the way, is Dell itself.

   And you thought all you had to worry about was Superfish, the adware Lenovo installed on its computers that left users vulnerable to man-in the-middle attacks — even when running Linux. At least the latest dumb move by Dell seems to be Windows specific, meaning most readers of FOSS Force can breath easy and repeat the official Linux mantra rewritten from an old Dial soap campaign.

2. Why Microsoft yanked its latest Windows 10 update download: It hijacked privacy settings

   According to Redmond on Tuesday, “when the November update was installed, a few settings preferences may have inadvertently not been retained for advertising ID, Background apps, SmartScreen Filter, and Sync with devices.”

   Fair play to Microsoft for shedding light on the blunder. Basically, its operating system allowed apps to access people’s unique advertising ID numbers; the SmartScreen Filter that sends executables to Microsoft servers to analyze was enabled; software was allowed to run in the background; and settings and passwords would be backed up the cloud. If you previously disabled any of those, they would be reenabled by the MCT-derived upgrade over a previous Windows 10 install.

3. Sneaky Microsoft renamed its data slurper before sticking it back in Windows 10

   Microsoft pulled a major update for Windows after it blew away the user’s privacy settings, allowing app developers and advertisers to glean the user’s identity.

   But that’s only part of the story, which gets murkier by the day.

   We already knew Windows 10 Threshold deleted third-party data monitoring tools and cleanup tools, including stalwarts like Spybot and CCleaner. It even disabled Cisco’s VPN software. Just a bug, said Microsoft.

   Two bugs would be a puzzling coincidence – but something else makes it altogether more troubling.

   This year Microsoft introduced background tracking services called DiagTrack, or the Diagnostics Tracking Service. It was added to Windows 8.1 installations as well as betas of Windows 10. It arrived without much fanfare in May 14, in the shape of a patch, KB3022345.

   It was just one of several slurping enhancements added via the back door.

   [...]

   Microsoft spent millions portraying Google as a greedy and amoral data marauder. Redmond doesn’t need to read your email, it told everyone. The Scroogled campaign positioned Microsoft itself as the ethical alternative; the occupier of the moral high ground.

4. New Dell computer comes with a eDellRoot trusted root certificate

5. ​Dell in hot water again as second ‘Superfish’ root certificate surfaces

   Dell customers have turned up a second root certificate installed on some Dell machines, which could make them easy prey for malicious attacks on public Wi-Fi networks.

6. Second Dell backdoor root cert found

Summary: Commentary about Microsoft’s attempts to make GNU/Linux look like it’s its own property, thanks in part to broken patent law in the United States

YEARS AGO, shortly after Novell and Microsoft revealed that they had signed a patent deal that involved Wine, we hypothetised that Microsoft was perhaps trying to keep Wine under patent threats. Amusingly enough, “Chinese People Try To Patent Wine On ARM,” according to Phoronix. One must wonder how Microsoft feels about it.

For those who think that Microsoft has finished extorting companies, look no further than this Dell deal where “[t]he companies did not provide specific information on which products the agreement will apply to” (or how much — if anything at all — gets paid).

We long ago called for a boycott of Dell, immediately after Microsoft pretty much took this dying company under its wing. Appropriately enough, Muktware is now contradicting its own report (which we criticised) in the comments, insisting that maybe a few pennies are paid to Microsoft by Dell (or nothing at all) and that this is more of a publicity stunt, trying to make Chrome OS and Android seem expensive and dangerous. At the time we also wrote about Verizon joining OIN and other factions of the Linux world, demonstrating that unlike Dell, many companies are now taking a stand for GNU/Linux, not against it (as Dell did). █

Summary: The dying computer assembly company is joining a notorious attack on GNU/Linux as if it is trying to appease Microsoft rather than today’s generation, which increasingly embraces GNU- and Linux-based platforms

Last year we called for boycott of Dell and at the end of the year we gave more reasons for it. Dell had done a disservice to Free software for a number of years and in 2007 it joined the Microsoft/Novell deal, perhaps implying (but never explicitly saying so) that it will play a role in putting patent tax on GNU/Linux.

“Dell did not have to do this, but it chose to.”Now that Windows (Microsoft’s common carrier) is in real trouble because many users are exposed to crackers other than the NSA (to which Microsoft provides back doors) Microsoft is very much focused on trying to scare vendors (and people, who usually rely on these vendors) away from GNU/Linux.

Chrome OS is a GNU/Linux distribution, possible the most widely used of its kind, so Microsoft has been running attack ads (smear campaigns) against it. In addition, adding to reasons to boycott Dell (Microsoft took over at least part of Dell and it has been getting worse since), Dell is reportedly joining Microsoft’s extortion and intimidation campaign against Android and Chrome OS. Dell did not have to do this, but it chose to. “Without disclosing too many details,” writes Monika Bhati, “the companies said they have agreed to license each company’s applicable intellectual property related to three product lines: Android, Chrome OS and Xbox.”

Monika Bhati’s softball ‘article’ is just parroting claims from press releases without investigating any further or at the very least checking what’s true and what’s FUD. This article repeats the unsubstantiated claims that Microsoft makes billions of dollars this way, despite lack of any actual evidence (the real goal is to deter against GNU/Linux adoption). She is not alone in it and we need to stop this. This whole thing is typical cross-licensing, intended for the most to disguise the reality of finances, as in Novell’s case (I spent years of my life researching this, so I recognise these patterns).

One must wonder: where is OIN in all this? The OIN brags about adding Verizon to its ranks this week, but it does absolutely nothing to stop Microsoft’s racketeering campaign. The OIN’s CEO, whom I spoke to several times over the phone, is quote as saying: “We appreciate Verizon’s industry thought leadership in joining OIN and supporting patent non-aggression in Linux. We believe Verizon is a bellwether for other communications service providers from an open-source and intellectual-property perspective, and look forward to working with other carriers so they can similarly come to understand the benefits of participation in the OIN community and partake of this growing culture of patent non-aggression.”

Mr. Bergelt is quoted as saying that he is into “non-aggression in Linux,” so how come he does nothing at all to stop the racketeering against OIN members like Google? This is beyond useless and the OIN will never even lobby against software patents because its large members are in favour of them. Some of them are very much part of the problem.

People need to vote with their wallets. The Linux Foundation and OIN are not going to save or preserve freedom in GNU/Linux; they don’t prioritise this. One is a mutual pact not to sue and another is a branding operation (employing for the most part marketing and branding professionals). █

IT HAS BEEN quite a while since we first called for a boycott of Amazon and the Microsoft-connected Dell. We explained the reasons and expanded the list. But [1] and [2] help show that even employees of those companies should boycott their employer, which sometimes may pretend to like GNU/Linux in pursuit of profit [3-8]. well, at least unlike Coca Cola and Nestle [9], Amazon and Dell don’t murder their employees… yet. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Amazon workers face ‘increased risk of mental illness’

   A BBC investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse has found conditions that a stress expert said could cause “mental and physical illness”.

2. Dell’s Production Line Exposed: 74-Hour Weeks, Forced Overtime and Squalid Mass Dorms

3. Dell Staff Show Ubuntu Linux Some Love

4. Dell Expands Project Sputnik, Open Source Linux Laptop

5. Have you read about Dell’s Sputnik 3 touchscreen laptop ?

6. Dell Launches its Third “Sputnik” Ubuntu Ultrabook

7. Dell’s Sputnik 3 might be the best Linux laptop yet

   Sadly, Sputnik 3 is just the codename of the device. If you go to buy the Linux machine from Dell, you’ll see that it’s more properly known as the XPS 13 Developer Edition. The machine comes in two configurations with the base model starting at $1,249. That hefty price gets you a dual-core Intel Core i5-4200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, and a 13.3-inch 1080p touchscreen LCD.

8. Dell aims for cloudy orbit with Sputnik Ubuntu developer project

   Dell is taking another stab at making the Sputnik Ultrabook it converted from Windows to Ubuntu even cloudier for developers.

9. Striking Nestle worker murdered by right wing paramilitaries

   Striking Nestle worker and trade union organiser, Oscar lopez, was shot four times by multiple gunmen in a local bar. ‘Sinaltrainal’, his trade union had been locked in a bitter dispute with Nestle over union recognition and report receiving several death threats via text message from a right-wing paramilitary group, ‘Urabenos’- the day before Lopez was murdered. The messages read, “We are going to chop you up” and “Death to all Communists”.

Last month we wrote about OEMs dumping Windows and Microsoft’s booster Ina Fried adds another new example, which is ASUS. The ongoing attempt to use vapourware won’t work anymore (Blue is hogwash).

“The ongoing attempt to use vapourware won’t work anymore (Blue is hogwash).”Vista 8 is a total disaster and Microsoft’s results are getting harder to game [1, 2, 3], with some people who urge Microsoft to fire Ballmer. As Pogson puts it, Microsoft is “Trying To Work For A Living” now that preinstalls of Windows are weak (Android is preinstalled more times). Here are some numbers of Microsoft’s own (rebadged) hardware sales: “Microsoft’s shares took a beating following its gloomy fiscal 2013 earnings report earlier this month, in which it wrote down nearly a billion dollars on its unloved Surface RT fondleslabs. But the software giant isn’t out of the woods yet, because new details have emerged that have the full Surface picture looking even worse than was previously thought.

“In Redmond’s annual 10-K report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), published on Tuesday, the software giant reported actual Surface revenue figures for the first time – and they’re not good.”

Also note that “Microsoft managed to mow through an $898m marketing budget in just eight calendar months – and consumers still didn’t take the bait.”

An article from famed computer expert Jean-Louis Gassée says: “Last week’s Monday Note focused on Microsoft’s conversion from a divisional to a functional organization. It resulted in interesting discussions in the comments section as well as in e-mail exchanges and conversations around a couple of Valley watering holes. Some thought Microsoft’s statements had the sincerity of a death-bed conversion, others pointed to the challenges in remaking a cricket team into a football squad, most expressed doubts about Microsoft’s ability to successfully adapt to a world where the PC no longer reigns supreme.”

Either way, even Microsoft-friendly sites take notes of growing impatience at Nokia, which despite being a Microsoft pawn has openly complained about Microsoft’s failure. Interesting times. Can Dell still rescue/salvage itself? █

Summary: Microsoft is trying to write off a billion dollars as its hardware ambitions are pretty much dead and OEMs (other hardware makers) leave Microsoft for Linux/Android; Microsoft’s shares crash (as shown above)

Microsoft had a very bad week last week, just after the ‘reorg’ PR campaign [1, 2, 3, 4]. Gregg Keizer said that “Microsoft’s attempt to transform its dog-eat-dog corporate culture into a kinder, gentler cooperative climate is likely doomed, according to an expert in failed business strategies.”

“Note that Microsoft takes almost a billion-dollar charge on Surface (way to hide the losses).”What “kinder, gentler cooperative climate”? The bribes? The patent extortion? Those are just baseless promises. Anyway, the article goes on, citing Carroll. Here is some background: “Carroll’s book, which he wrote with fellow Devil’s Advocate co-founder Chunka Mui, conducted postmortems on some of the most famous business failures, and is based on research into 2,500 enterprise flops. Devil’s Advocate, meanwhile, is an alliance of experts who help corporations evaluate strategy shifts.”

What shifts of strategy have been seen in Microsoft? That has been mostly PR. The real business was the illegal monopoly on formats and a common carrier, Windows, which is rotting because of form factors diversity that even bribes cannot make up for.

We recently wrote about Dell‘s resistance to Vista 8 and now we witness resistance to Microsoft as a whole, accompanying news about the company’s shares collapsing shortly after ‘reorg’. Well, here is what Pogson makes of the ‘reorg’ and here is a noteworthy observation about OEMs walking away from Microsoft, one recent example being Microsoft’s partner Samsung (older news from this year) and a new example being Lenovo, which has some former Microsoft staff at the top. Here is the news:

Microsoft has been having a rough time with its fledgling Windows RT operating system. Devices using the tablet-centric operating system, have sold poorly since the operating system was introduced last year. The flagship tablet running the operating system from Microsoft, Surface RT, recently received a significant price cut in an effort to spur sales.

Note that Microsoft takes almost a billion-dollar charge on Surface (way to hide the losses). This is ruining Microsoft’s relationship with OEMs. To quote this one article: “Less than a year after Microsoft entered the tablet computer market with the Surface, the cracks are starting to show.”

“he NSA scandals definitely won’t help Microsoft this year.”Just starting to show? No, people pointed them out just weeks or months after the debut. Here is coverage from IDG which is not really shocking. It says that days ago Microsoft “booked a large write-off to its Surface RT business after it slashed prices on the tablets to stimulate demand this week. Its quarterly earnings results also showed that Windows 8, an operating system designed to bridge the divide between PCs and tablets, has been so poorly received that it contributed to a revenue drop in its operating system software unit.”

This Vista 8 stunt is similar or reminiscent of how Microsoft previously hid massive losses. Some coverage is filled with understatements. These financial tricks are nothing new and the scams begin. As Will Hill put it:

Microsoft took an 11% decline in value, $32 Billion, on their latest earnings report. No one is buying Vista H8, Microsoft’s crappy tablets, which had $900 million in unsold inventory, or Nokia’s crippled phones. The reorg fooled no one.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/113117251731252114390/posts/it9853xDVVC

As usual, the Microsoft press and Warren Buffet say, Buy some Now! Even the CNN article claims “decent numbers”. What fraud.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dividendchannel/2013/07/19/microsoft-corporation-enters-oversold-territory-msft/

Here is a report which calls it the biggest sell off in 13 years. To quote: “Shares suffer biggest one-day percentage sell-off since 2000 as investors fret over weak demand for Microsoft’s latest Windows operating system and Surface tablet.”

Following many high-level departures, including those two CFOs who got extra money just to keep their mouth shut, something big is happening here. The NSA scandals definitely won’t help Microsoft this year. █

Summary: The company with history of hostility towards GNU/Linux is now becoming part of Microsoft

COMPUTER giant Dell was recently hijacked by Microsoft and now it’s Best Buy‘s turn. iophk calls it “Yet another reason to avoid Best Buy,” adding that “they’re really worried about the chromebooks that people would otherwise buy” (see upcoming daily links for major news related to this).

Here is a report showing what happened:

Microsoft, in a new take on the store-within-a-store model, will take over the entire computer section of 600 Best Buy stores.

Microsoft, tweaking the store-within-a-store concept, has announced plans to build Windows Stores inside of 500 Best Buy stores in the United States and another 100 in Canada.

Best Buy was reportedly wakened by Vista series machine and now made hostage by the very same company which arguably caused its demise. It’s the same as Dell and Novell. This has “Stockholm Syndrome” written all over it. Our new Wiki page about Best Buy helps provide other reasons to boycott Best Buy, notably the store’s FUD campaign against GNU/Linux. Fortunately, there are many alternatives to Best Buy. █

Summary: Microsoft continues to dominate the “desktop” and GNU/Linux is made more expensive than Windows at Dell

THE ‘bug’ which Canonical won't fix still needs squashing. Now that Dell is dominated by Microsoft (see our newly-organised Wiki page about Dell) it is not shocking that Dell makes GNU/Linux more expensive than Windows, as before. Microsoft is paid for Ubuntu-based Dell PCs (Dell joined the Microsoft/Novell patent deal) and Pogson helps show the outcome using screenshots, too. He asks, “why does Dell promote “7″ by charging $20 less than GNU/Linux on identical hardware?”

He adds: “I suppose we should be happy that they offer GNU/Linux but that’s just the first step in liberating retail shelves. Price is still a barrier. The price of a licence for GNU/Linux is ~$0 so the product should be ~$50 less with GNU/Linux. At least be honest, Dell, and tip the teeter-totter in the right direction. Your customers would be glad to take GNU/Linux for $25 less.”

“No escape from Vista 8 on this machine, it’s still there even if you get Linux.”
      –iophkThis is why we should not take as a given Canonical’s claim of pseudo victory and neglect of the community (the latest spin from Mr. Bacon is announcement of a subdomain, community.ubuntu.com).

Canonical wants to claim victory when GNU/Linux is taxed (Novell style). Linux is winning, but not on the desktop, which Ubuntu was all about. “No escape from Vista 8 on this machine,” writes iophk about this new article from the MSBBC, “it’s still there even if you get Linux.” A common phrase of wisdom is, do not declare victory prematurely. It may only help your enemy and lower morale in the long term. If people cannot get an OS-free machine from Dell, then by buying it with GNU/Linux (Ubuntu only) they help reinforce a Microsoft ‘Linux tax’. So much for choice, eh? Either way Microsoft is extorting the customer, irrespective of the ‘choice’. █

“In the face of strong competition, Evangelism’s focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X.”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

Summary: The sale of Dell turns out to have been initiated by Microsoft, whose leading product (common carrier) is already having obituaries written about it due to the messages which come out from Microsoft

The manager behind the product which we dubbed Vista 8 has already been fired. It is easy to see why now that we have preliminary market statistics, just over half a year after the official release. Vista 8 greatly harmed OEMs such as Dell (Dell too has complained) and this new report says that Microsoft is paying Dell [1, 2, 3] to encumber PCs with Vista 8, leaving the customers out of the loop.

The terms of Microsoft’s $2 billion loan into the war chest of Denali Holdings, the Dell private buyout entity led by Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, are now public record. Microsoft’s money was key in raising the $24.4 billion required to finalize the offer for Dell, but it’s possible Dell will benefit even beyond the loan; the loan documents make clear that after the acquisition is complete, Dell will re-negotiate its payment terms for Microsoft software licenses.

So no longer is it mere speculation that Microsoft was behind Dell going private and selling out. “Windows Blues,” as iophk calls it, is what we are seeing here. “Vista 8 is failing so they are already doing the N+1 thing,” he adds. Here is a report about it. Talk about rush; this is motivated by panic. The Guardian says “PC sales plummet”, but what it means to actually say is “Windows preinstalls plummet” (because of failure to evolve). “Biggest expectation is that update will revive start button familiar to users for 17 years before removal from Windows 8,” writes Charles Arthur. But that’s not really an apt summary. The real news is that Windows is plummeting to minority market share and Microsoft has no clue what to do about it. Here is CNET claiming “‘Wintel’ on the wane: Intel goes Google”. The summary is as follows: “Intel has been synonymous with Windows PCs seemingly forever. But it’s trying to change that in a hurry. Enter Google.”

I recently had lunch with an Intel engineer who acknowledged this trend. Moblin and Tizen were not good enough as comeback attempts. Here is a criticism of what Microsoft is essentially doing right now. The author alleges that Windows 8 marketing fiasco deemed even worse than ‘New Coke’ and he starts with the obvious pitfall: “With the Windows Blue update on the way, analysts have already started writing obituaries for Windows 8, the operating system that proved to be immensely polarizing among PC users. While history will likely look upon Windows 8 more kindly than the widely despised Vista, Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty tells The Financial Times that it will be remembered as the biggest marketing fiasco since Coca Cola decided to rework the
formula for its famous soft drink back in the ’80s.”

Here is IDG with some numbers:

Microsoft’s own numbers show Windows 8 sales falling rapidly

Microsoft says it’s sold more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses to date, but its officially reported monthly sales are falling off precipitously

Based on some numbers from IDC (part of IDG), despite a lot of money spent on marketing, Windows is a non-starter outside the desktop. █

Summary: The resemblance between Microsoft’s strategy against free Linux phones (Android) and against free GNU/Linux servers, two areas of FOSS domination

Microsoft is frantically trying to stop GNU/Linux by robbing it in the development sense. On the server side, the de facto operating system is not Windows and Microsoft would love to change that by striking deals with companies like BitNami. Here is the latest press release about it. Microsoft has been using a "man in the middle" style of attack against real FOSS (i.e. FOSS that is not tied to a proprietary stack) and the latest openwashing about it can be found here. It says: [hat tip: iophk]

Last week, Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. quietly turned one year old. The birthday passed without fanfare, but next week, Microsoft plans to host a birthday party at its Silicon Valley campus.

More PR nonsense. It is not even news. All this thing should be considered to be is an attack on free systems like GNU/Linux and *BSD. Here we see, in another new press release, the Microsoft-sponsored SUSE. playing along. SUSE pays Microsoft for GNU/Linux and so does this new product from Amazon. Dell, which Microsoft is taking control of these days, favours Microsoft’s SUSE as well now.

Canonical, which has been aiding Microsoft as of late, does this too with Dell. To quote:

Dell’s (NASDAQ: DELL) not the only big-name channel partner with which Canonical, the company that develops Ubuntu Linux, has been forging closer ties lately. On Tuesday, as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced the general availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, Canonical was also playing up Ubuntu’s seamless integration into the Azure cloud platform—a move that makes much more sense than it might at first seem.

All we are seeing here is Microsoft’s attempts to tax GNU/Linux servers, making them more expensive while offering the same applications under Windows. The same strategy is being used against Android. This is not some far-fetched theory. Microsoft has been very clear about that. █

“I would love to see all open source innovation happen on top of Windows.”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Summary: What lies beneath the strategy of taking control of OEMs without paying to buy them; Steve Ballmer visits Lenovo, which absorbed former Microsoft executives, trying to secure Windows lock-in

Microsoft used a proxy battle via Icahn to abduct Yahoo in pursuit of Google, the #1 rival of Microsoft (in the lucrative enterprise market in particular). In the mobile market, Microsoft abducted Nokia, killing Nokia’s Linux pursuits. The same is happening on the desktop/server. Lenovo, for example, was preinstalling Android/GNU/Linux or nothing, based on this article which shows Ballmer getting involved (after a while Lenovo started promoting Ballnux, but not before Microsoft executives had entered the company). The report says: “First, a large percentage of Lenovo’s sales are in Asia, where it’s very common to find Lenovo PCs with no operating system preinstalled. In fact, in many Asian countries, it’s hard to find Lenovo PCs with “genuine” Windows. In spite of the fact that Lenovo has promised for years to preinstall Windows on more PCs, and Steve Ballmer himself visited the Lenovo offices last December, it’s still very easy to order Windows-less Lenovo computers from Asian Lenovo sites.”

OEMs are walking away from Windows, so Microsoft wants to hijack the leadership of companies like Dell and so far it makes some progress. From the latest news:

TIN BOX FLOGGER Dell has signed a licensing deal with Microsoft to become a worldwide distributor and OEM for devices running the Windows Embedded operating system.

Dell, which is in the midst of a messy leveraged buyout that could see it become a private company, is trying to move away from its low-margin PC business. The firm announced that it has signed a worldwide licensing deal to become an OEM and distributor of Microsoft’s Windows Embedded operating system.

According to some news, Icahn steps closer into Dell. Can he help Microsoft abduct Dell without a takeover, just like Yahoo? There is already a hijacking-esque move: “Taking a huge publicly traded company, such as PC maker Dell, back to its origins as a private corporation is a huge effort and now there’s word that those plans may be getting more complicated. Billionaire Carl Icahn is rumored to be buying a six percent share of Dell and if that happens, his next move may be to organize an effort to stop Dell from going private.”

Microsoft Dell is one to boycott unless the planned deal is revoked. Dell has had some GNU/Linux projects in the pipeline (Alienware too) and Microsoft wants to stop this. Icahn is getting uglier. Icahn Threatens “Proxy Fight” as Dell Buyout Drags On, says one headline. Here is one that says Carl Icahn retaining proxy vote option, rival bid in battle for Dell. To quote:

Corporate raider Carl Icahn is refusing to give up the right to a proxy vote on a large once-off dividend from Dell and is continuing to threaten to launch a rival bid as the battle for ownership of computer giant Dell intensifies.

Now watch the report which says Dell to Reimburse Icahn if He Drops Proxy Fight, Litigation Threats (why is this even legal? It’s blackmail).

Dell Inc. (DELL) said it is willing to provide activist investor Carl Icahn with the same expense reimbursement that it has offered to its other two bidders, but only if Mr. Icahn drops his threats to pursue a proxy fight and litigation.

And here is the latest:

Carl Icahn refuses to drop proxy fight option in Dell proposal, WSJ reports

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is refusing to drop the option of a proxy fight to force Dell Inc to pay a big dividend, in spite of the board committee’s request that he drop his threats and launch a formal bid for the company, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Icahn had asked the board’s special committee to be reimbursed for the cost of his due diligence on Dell, a benefit the committee has already granted to rival bidders Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP.

Silver Lake is connected to Microsoft. Dell is just a “pawn in the battle,” as Microsoft likes to call it. █

Summary: As Microsoft realises that Vista 8 is worse than Vista and there is nothing to be done to change this, focus gets shifted to a yet-inexistent, mythical operating system

Amid OEM hatred of Windows Hate, or Windows 8 (developers hate it too, with Steam and Valve giving vapourware the finger and now releasing a GNU/Linux distro) Microsoft has been trying to take over the fragile Dell (perhaps with a proxy), but it is not finalised yet. According to reports such as this, Vista 8 is already killing Dell. The thing about Mr. Dell is, he also wishes to diverge away from desktops. He should know that Microsoft fails there. There is a lot of vapourvare for Vista 9 right now, as well as PR for Vista 8. Here is a Microsoft booster citing a Microsoft partner for figures that boost Internet Explorer and Vista 8. Even those biased numbers don’t look too good for Microsoft, which is why UEFI tricks get employed, tying hardware to Microsoft. Katherine Noyes wrote about it the other day:

Linux Girl was comfortably ensconced on her favorite barstool down at the blogosphere’s Broken Windows Lounge when the news broke on Tuesday.

Let’s just say there was no more peace to be had after that.

Linux bloggers fairly tripped over themselves with excitement on PCWorld, on Slashdot and beyond, generating a din that could be heard throughout the Linux blogosphere and its surrounding territories. Linux Girl jumped to attention and began taking down as much as she could.

“‘Secure boot’ does not prevent viruses from writing to the (pre)bootloader, it just notices if it has happened,” noted Slashdot blogger jhol13, for example. “Then the ‘notification’ or ‘failure mode’ is DoS, your computer won’t boot. I’d rather boot with a virus than not boot.

Microsoft Windows is struggling. Only months after Vista 8 was released Microsoft is already talking about future versions. And we’re talking about a 3-year (or thereabouts) release cycle for Windows. These dirty tricks which are intended to buy Microsoft some time without GNU/Linux gaining ground must be tackled as an antitrust issue. Microsoft moles in the press (former staff and the likes of them) are trying very hard right now to demonise the complainers and rescue Microsoft from antitrust scrutiny. █

Dell is under fire from a notorious Microsoft proxy and it may already be a Microsoft proxy itself, just like Nokia.

Vista 7 and Vista 8 represent the gradual decline of Windows (Vista 8 sped that up) — a failure which is killing Nokia. According to this report, Dell is already complaining about Windows:

Dell blames ‘uncertain adoption’ of Windows 8 for some of its financial woes

Paints a gloomy picture of the PC business, emphasizes Windows 8 troubles and a decrease in Windows 7 sales

Why, in that case, is Michael Dell selling out to Microsoft? Faster corporate suicide? █

Summary: Microsoft’s ruthless proxy fighter seems to be doing to Michael Dell what he already did to Yang

We recently called for a Dell boycott because the company was becoming a Microsoft pawn, just like Yahoo after Icahn got involved and let Microsoft abduct it from the inside (Yahoo is no longer independent).

According to some reports, Microsoft’s pals show up on the scene again:

Blackstone Group LP (BX) and activist investor Carl Icahn submitted proposals to buy Dell Inc. (DELL) that would rival a $24.4 billion buyout offer from Silver Lake Management LLC and company founder Michael Dell, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Blackstone, the world’s biggest private-equity firm, outlined an offer valued at $13.65 to $14.50 a share, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private. Icahn said he’d pay $15 a share, with a cap on the amount of cash used in the deal, two people said.

As one site put it, “Carl Icahn Poses Serious Problem for Michael Dell”. This is like Jerry Yang all over again.

Short-suffering Dell (DELL) shareholder Carl Icahn is not going to take this lying down — this being what he says is a weak, unacceptable bid for the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker.

Where did he come from, you might ask? It turns out he now owns a large stake in Dell, and he’s telling founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, who are trying to lead a buyout of the company, that it won’t be happening the way they expect if he has anything to say about it.

Here is more:

There has been another twist in the story of Dell CEO Michael Dell’s quest to take the company he founded private. Already facing a backlash from Dell’s biggest stockholders over the terms of the bid that he and private equity firm Silver Lake have made for the company, there are now two rival bids to contend with. The first comes from a group led by infamous corporate raider Carl Icahn with another led by asset management company Blackstone Group. And both, at least on the surface, appear to be better deals for Dell shareholders—-especially those who want to bet long on the company and keep their stake.

In a press release issued this morning, the “special committee” formed by Dell Inc.’s board to handle negotiations for the company’s sale acknowledged the offers from the Blackstone and Icahn groups. “Both proposals could reasonably be expected to result in superior proposals” to the Michael Dell/Silver Lake offer, the committee said in its written statement on the offers. The committee will now enter into further negotiations with both to hash out the details of each offer and weigh them against the plan to go private.

If Mr. Dell wants to save the company he should escape Microsoft and not become the next Nokia. It’s not too late; not yet. █

Summary: Microsoft Dell will die just like Nokia under Microsoft leadership, so here’s hoping that shareholders will stop the hijacking by Microsoft

“Shareholders are being pushed aside,” says the article “The Dell Deal May Die”. We covered this before; although revocation is improbable, it is still possible. Microsoft is struggling with hardware, so it tries to occupy companies which make or distribute hardware.

Daniel Eran Dilger, who had ridiculed the now-dead Zune for a long time, wrote that “Microsoft sells out of Surface Pro, just like the Zune HD did in 2009″ and even IDG pokes fun:

Of course, Microsoft could settle the sell-out controversy by releasing sales numbers for Surface Pro.

Secrecy means they have a lot to hide. It would expose lies or deception, thereby becoming a PR disaster. Those fake shortages which we covered after Microsoft had captured Dell are not taken without a barrel of salt and Microsoft still cannot sell such tablets due to lack of apps — something which Microsoft tries to compensate for by ripping Android off. IDG had this to say:

When it comes to mobile platforms, it’s all about the apps. Got apps? Then you’ve got users. If you don’t, then you don’t–just ask BlackBerry about its failed Playbook, and both Palm and HP about the disaster that was WebOS. Overall app quality means more than numbers alone, of course, but if you don’t have many apps populating a storefront, the odds are pretty low that new entries will knock your socks off.

Dell will suffer with Microsoft if it does not stay independent or shareholders-run. Nokia phones lack apps due to Microsoft and some believe that Dell will be “Nokia 2.0″. Here are some quotes:

“When I first heard that Dell was going to go private, I had hopes that this might be an effort to get away from Microsoft’s control, but those hopes were dashed pretty quickly when I saw that Microsoft itself was investing 2 billion in the venture,” said Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone. “Now it looks like Microsoft is being even less subtle about its OEM manipulation.”

Watch where Nokia has come under Microsoft leadership:

Nokia would license its flagship phone software from Microsoft, rather than develop its own, set fire to three of its own mobile platforms, and eventually shed thousands of jobs. Nokia now has a smaller head count than at any time since 1998.

Since it’s also a year since Nokia ripped up the Symbian roadmap – as we exclusively revealed at the time – it’s a good time to ask: how’s the partnership with Microsoft going?

Nowhere. It’s another company killed by Microsoft, with many people losing their jobs.

Windows is a dead end in a world which goes mobile (I write my articles on a tablet out in nature right now), so Microsoft relies on the other cash cow, which depends on Windows monoculture. Here is a sure way to kill this cow’s momentum as well:

Microsoft, long-standing hater of piracy, appears to have decided to step up their targeting system to place their own customers directly in their crosshairs. Your immediate reaction may be to blast the previous sentence as hyperbole, but you would be wrong to do so. Nothing else can explain what they are doing with their Microsoft Office 2013 retail software, which is to make it a single install license that is forever tied to one machine.

No network effect then. Say goodbye to Microsoft with such moves, but will Dell die with Microsoft just as Nokia is? It’s up for Michael Dell to decide. Tomi T Ahonen shows Dell at #5 among computer makers (Nokia is at #8).

Its time to update the biggest computer-maker listing. I really wish the big analyst houses would take over this chore, they report on the data separately already.. but yes, I was the first to start to count smartphones into the total computer shipment numbers and have reported that statistic now for many years already. If you want to see the chart for end of 2011, its here.. Time to do the 2012 number update…

Nokia fell very sharply. Can’t Dell learn from it?

Microsoft is trying to force people to get Office just like Windows because, as iophk puts it, they are “going after data lock-in in Indonesia” (not just in Indonesia):

Microsoft Indonesia, the local arm of software giant, Microsoft Corporation, is in talks with computer manufacturers to embed Office 365, the US company’s cloud-based software service, in personal computers (PCs), executives said.

Andreas Diantoro, president director of Microsoft Indonesia, said that the company was discussing with vendors of at least seven leading PC brands the possibility of collaborating on Office 365.

The brands, he said, included Acer, Hewlett Packard and Toshiba.

“We are exploring the possibility of bundling our product with that of our partners’,” he pointed out.

“Piracy helps Microsoft,” iophk notes, quoting: “Microsoft, he said, had a 98 percent share of the software market but only 10 percent of that market used legally-purchased software.”

“Unless it is that FOSS has a larger market share there than elsewhere,” he added. █

Summary: Upset investors can still prevent Microsoft from ‘pulling a Novell’ on Dell

Ashlee Vance, formerly a FOSS-centric writer at The Register, has an interesting hypothesis about Microsoft Dell, which VAR Guy keeps opposing whilst identifying unhappy investors:

Done deal? Hardly. Dell’s (NASDAQ: DELL) $24.4 billion deal to go private apparently faces pushback from at least fo-.ur major shareholders, Reuters reported. And don’t forget: A special Dell committee is managing a 45-day “go-shop” period, during which the committee is actively soliciting alternative bids. So who will wind up owning Dell, and how will the current variables impact partners and the PC maker?

The VAR Guy is no fan of Microsoft and he believes that the abusive monopolist uses fake shortages (as hype generation strategy) for reasons he summarised here. Walt Mossberg is still unsatisfied with the latest hardware that has a Microsoft badge (the one with fake shortages) based on his article which is not a favourable review, again.

Nokia and Dell are deep in the mud unless they dump Microsoft. Already, the monopolist alienates mobile partners and soon it will be OEMs, too. There are other implications,. As Chris Hall puts it: “Let’s say it finally happens and the big OEMs get tired of dealing with Microsoft and decide to make Windows only one choice of several on new computers. Not a world like we have now, where the likes of Dell halfheartedly offer half baked and broken installs of Ubuntu, installs that need serious tweaking before they’ll work. Not that world, but a pretend world of Linux being offered across all models, with a choice between two or three distros. You know, OEMs giving Linux exactly the same treatment as they give Windows today.” █

Summary: Linux at Dell is over as it turns into Ballnux

NOW that the “Dell deal is done” and the company can operate more secretly we are less likely than ever before to discover if Dell has indeed paid Microsoft for Linux since their 2007 deal. One thing is for sure though. Microsoft is run by patent thugs who will do as they wish with Microsoft Dell. We wrote about Microsoft’s dirty involvement in Dell’s affairs in [1, 2, 3, 4] and we included antitrust action-acquired evidence.

“This investment might help Microsoft influence whether Dell adopts Android or not, that is likely the goal behind this,” said Parakh who is quoted in this article. Even if Dell sells an Android-powered device, it will be Ballnux (Ballmer-taxed).

Some of the media misreports this whole development, spinning it as Microsoft doing a favour to Dell. Nokia suffered from that spin too; it’s akin to euthanasia mindset. Silver Lake is seemingly an alter-ego of Microsoft and an instrument of conquer.

Where are we left with a Dell boycott? Well, many other options exist. HP is not the best, but as one reader put it:

Boycotting HP will be hard because the main alternative, Dell, is getting owned by M$. M$ is investing in Dell both directly and, via Silver Lake Partners, indirectly. That will be enough to reduce Dell’s already meager support of Linux. The situation is further complicated in that many institutions and municipalities have agreements that bind them to purchasing only from Dell. That gives M$ a vector through which to spread Vista8 or other dreck.

Microsoft was lobbying secretly with HP papers, leading to action like this new one: “April demands the negociations between Microsoft and the French Ministry of Defence to be suspended and transparency to be made on this subject.”

Over at europa.eu, authorities get increasingly pressured on this matter: [via]

Member of the European Parliament Amelia Andersdotter wants public administrations to consider software freedom as one of the reasons to select new ICT solutions. “Authorities should base their choice at least partially on an ideological framework. What freedoms does the software give to their citizens, enterprises, authorities and schools?”

Watch Munich’s response:

No Microsoft, open source software really is cheaper, insists Munich

The city of Munich has hit back at Microsoft in a row over whether the city’s plan to use open source software is cheaper than using Microsoft’s products.

The city is currently migrating 13,000 computers from Windows NT 4 and Microsoft Office 97 to a custom build of Ubuntu and OpenOffice as part of its ‘LiMux’ project. A further 2,000 computers will stay on Windows but are being switched to OpenOffice. The move began in 2004 and will be completed in the Autumn of this year.

Last year Munich released figures which it said demonstrated the project would save the authority more than €10m by sidestepping the need to licence Windows 7 and newer versions of Microsoft Office, as well as associated hardware upgrades.

Even a Microsoft booster wrote about it:

A report compiled by Microsoft and HP purports to demonstrate that the Munich city government’s well-publicized switch to Linux from Windows actually cost more money than it saved has come in for a fresh round of criticism, this time from the city itself. According to a report from The H Online, city officials in Munich have said that the study makes some false assumptions to arrive at the conclusion that the Linux transition cost nearly $82 million, while the equivalent OS and productivity upgrades in a purely Microsoft environment would have cost just under $23 million.

HP has done many bad things to Linux, as we covered for years, but it also did good things and it is not owned by Microsoft like Dell and Facebook are.

Going back to the Dell deal, here is some shallow coverage as opposed to analysis.

A Microsoft booster at the Gates-funded Seattle press reminds us that Gates is still getting much richer because of his antitrust abuses (he is the main stakeholder in Microsoft), but little is said in the financial press about Michael and Bill with their shared history. To quote:

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — After weeks of rumors and speculation, Dell (DELL) said founder and CEO Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners are acquiring the company in a $24.4 billion deal.

So Michael is happy enough to become Bill’s vassal. This isn’t another Yang, it is self-inflicted. Microsoft failed to transform into a hardware company amid its failures with the cash cows [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], so it tries buying some failed or failing hardware companies without paying the full price. It’s another Nokia in essence. Some pointed this out. Even the Microsoft booster compares it to Nokia in her post.

At IDG, GNU/Linux and OLPC proponent Agam Shah warns about Microsoft’s plot to impede GNU/Linux at Dell:

Microsoft may be seeking protection from Linux with Dell loan

Microsoft’s $2 billion loan to Dell is a sign that the software maker wants to influence hardware designs in a post-PC world while protecting itself from the growing influence of Linux-based operating systems in mobile devices and servers, according to analysts.

Microsoft did this before (see earlier links), but IDG’s Microsoft booster labels it “just a conspiracy theory”:

Did a fear of Linux spark Microsoft’s investment in Dell?

[...]

There’s likely some truth to that, although not nearly as much as some people will have you believe. One reason is that it’s likely that the new Dell will be moving away from a reliance on selling PCs, and more towards selling services and consulting. Selling PCs is a cut-throat business, with razor-thin margins; selling services and consulting is far more lucrative. That’s almost certainly the direction Dell will be heading, although it will likely still build hardware.

This response was alluded to by Sam Dean, who asks, “What Role Does Linux Play in Microsoft’s End of the Dell Deal?”

As we’ve noted many times, Dell has consistently delivered more types of systems pre-loaded with Linux than other major PC hardware makers. The company currently offers Linux servers and an XPS 13 laptop with an Ubuntu OS aimed at developers.

It is unlikely, though, that in its deal with Microsoft, Dell agreed to be shackled in terms of what operating systems it can pre-load on its systems. If Microsoft does exert any pressure on Dell regarding Linux, what would matter most to the company would be servers, where Linux is a phenomenon

Regardless, Dell would probably tax Linux claiming patent violations, so avoid Dell. The company is finished, just like Nokia.

Microsoft’s mole Elop wants to also embrace Vista 8 according to the Microsoft booster (headline is “Nokia looking into tablets with eye on Windows 8″), so we see suicidal tendencies in companies abducted by Microsoft.

This won’t work for Microsoft because just as it tried taking over Yahoo! in order to stay relevant on the Web/search (losing focus in the process) there are unintended consequences, such as alienating companies in the hardware sector. Microsoft, while failing with its own hardware almost every time, thinks that Dell or Nokia can somehow change that? Two negatives don’t make a positive if added, only if multiplied.

Just as we and many others decided to boycott Nokia, many will decide to boycott Microsoft Dell. This will be an “epic fail” as the following commenter put it:

What’s the worst that can happen?

MS virtually buys Nokia via it’s own ex-exec, Elop. The other mobile OEM’s flock to Android.

Now MS is taking some control over DELL. The other desktop OEM’s will now flock to Google ChromeOS on the low end, and they will even consider making Linux distros or using existing Linux distro’s on their desktops – and actually market these – in effect disobeying Microsoft’s current remit that they are not allowed to. (Lest discounts be revoked). With Google as a BFF, though, those OEM’s might see an alternative way to make money from the desktop. And then they might call Microsoft’s BLUFF.

Windows market share is already falling and with ChromeOS moving into the desktop market, including in schools and business, then this decline will continue, very much like the decline of IE that gradually faded from over 90% share to 20% share of the browser market (and still sinking).

OEM’s are already alienated by the Surface In Retail games MS is playing.

In short, this move by MS to control DELL is going to create a blood bath as bloody as the bloodbath in the mobile market. And, if you remember, MS was slain in that war.

MICROSOFT BUSINESS FAIL.

As Eadon has long predicted here, Microsoft will collapse surprisingly quickly.

Also see Poson’s take and VAR Guy’s take here:

First, let’s look at the potential upside. A closer Dell-Microsoft relationship could give partners more innovative and more scalable devices across the board — though other PC and server makers could be irked.

On the potential downside, multiple reports suggest Microsoft may demand Dell make certain commitments to Windows 8 and future upgrades. The VAR Guy has already stated that Dell’s relationships with the open source community — where names like Red Hat, SUSE and OpenStack come to mind — could become strained.

Still, the real story here likely involves a longer-term business transformation. Michael Dell has been marching into alternative markets like storage, networking, IT systems management and enterprise software. The company continues to sell millions of PCs, but Michael Dell realizes the long-term path to growth must somehow come from outside the PC market.

Ignore media spin like this and remember how hard Microsoft worked to derail Linux at Dell. The news from Dell is bad news no matter how one tries to spin it. The best we can do now is let Microsoft Dell rot. █

“We should whack them [Dell over GNU/Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value.”

–Paul Flessner, Microsoft

Summary: The UEFI damage is done and spinners try to sell the idea that Microsoft loves GNU/Linux

Dr. Garrett, a leading UEFI apologist, responds to some of the latest UEFI outrage and his opponents do so too. To quote one such opponent;

A number of Samsung laptops are dying after they are booted with a live-usb image of Ubuntu 12.04 using UEFI, according to information at the Ubuntu bug reporting site.

There are many articles about it, some from Microsoft apologists and many from the original source of this whole story, The H, which is based down in London.

Those rushing to fix it were former Novell developers (who had been paid by Microsoft through Novell to help promote Microsoft agenda in Linux) such as these two. Here is a new article on the subject:

Matthew Garrett has published some patches today out of which few break hibernate and kexec support on Linux when secure boot is running.

Released through a patch series titled Secure Boot: More controversial changes, the patches are known to break hibernate and kexec functionality “without providing any functional equivalent”. Garrett notes further “…, so I’m not suggesting that they be merged as-is.”

Here is another article:

Samsung laptops will no longer be irreparably destroyed when their users try to boot Linux on them, kernel chieftain Linus Torvalds made certain today.

Coincidentally, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols complains about UEFI more than he did before.

Some Samsung laptops with UEFI will brick when you try to install Linux on them, others have problems, and the Linux Foundation is continuing to try to bring its fix for Windows 8 UEFI Secure Boot out.

Sam Varghese says that UEFI causes civil wars, which of course help Microsoft. He writes:

Could Microsoft’s implementation of secure boot be, one day, the reason why Linux vendors get into strife with each other? Could Oracle one day go to Microsoft in order to get a key issued to Red Hat by Microsoft revoked?

Kernel developer Matthew Garrett raised this possibility last year, within the context of a discussion that focused on the additional measures that have to be implemented for Linux systems to satisfy all the requirements of secure boot, so that there is no door left open for Microsoft to revoke the key issued to any Linux distribution.

Lance Whitney, a Microsoft booster, floats rumours that Microsoft might ‘pull an Apple’ (Microsoft added Apple to the cartel in the 90s) on another OEM. First it was Apple and now it’s Dell, which preinstalls GNU/Linux on some machines. Here is a response to some media spin:

Now we hear that Microsoft wants to lend a hand, as in “several billion dollars”. The forums buzz again: It’s just like when Bill Gates came to Jobs’ rescue and invested $150M in the Cupertino company, thus avoiding a liquidity crisis.

The analogy is amusing but facile. Dell 2013 isn’t Apple 1997. A look at Dell’s latest financials shows that the company still enjoys a solid cash position ($14B) and a profitable business (3.5% net profit margin). It’s profits may not be growing (-11% year to year), but the company is cash-flow positive nonetheless ($1.3B from the latest quarter). There’s no reason to fold up the tents.

As for Microsoft’s involvement: The Redmond company’s “investment” in Apple was part of a settlement of an on-going IP dispute. Microsoft avoided accusations of monopoly by keeping alive a highly visible but not overly dangerous adversary.

So what is Dell trying to accomplish by going private? To answer the question, let’s step back a bit and explore the whys and hows of such a move.

Novell was a similar story. Microsoft and Apple got Novell’s patents when it went private or sold. Don’t expect Dell to support GNU/Linux any more than Facebook does whilst partly owned by Microsoft.

What’s really disturbing is that amidst all these anti-Linux moves there is spin from Microsoft boosters like this one about Microsoft using Git. At IDG there is this report and a response from Simon Phipps, the OSI President, who writes:

By implementing Git in its developer tools, Microsoft is using GPL-licensed software — and perhaps ending its war on open source

This is not true, Just like Xamarin with Mono, Moonlight, and MonoDevelop, all we see here is the openwashing of Visual Studio. Don’t try to associate this with Linux because the program does not even run on Linux and don’t call it Linux-style because it’s all about Windows.

Microsoft continues to hate Linux, and by extension FOSS too. The actions speak for themselves. █

“We should whack them [Dell over GNU/Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value.”

–Paul Flessner, Microsoft

Summary: Microsoft’s Linux internment and Microsoft Linux (SUSE) in the news; a little bit about GroupWise too

MICROSOFT has been creating its own internment pen for GNU/Linux users and it is looking to hire a mole to handle operations and lure some innocent sheep in.

As Microsoft boosters put it, Microsoft has Red Hat customers in sight. Microsoft already taxes Red Hat Linux (servers) at Amazon and now on its own turf it is trying to take this extortion further. Aiding Microsoft’s efforts we have had SUSE for a while, but fortunately Dell is moving away from that (although not to the right system, feeding Oracle instead). From a new page:

How Dell Migrated from SUSE Linux to Oracle Linux

Switching the underlying operating system on a single server is not trivial. Neither is dealing with the related conversion and compatibility issues. Imagine what’s involved in switching the operating system on thousands of servers spread globally across an enterprise, like Dell just did.

The good news here is that Dell itself won’t pay Microsoft tax (for its own systems), but at the same time Dell is actively promoting Microsoft-taxed Linux for OEMs solution, which troubles us a bit. It’s a signed deal which has the VAR Guy arguing about SUSE Studio:

Dell Servers Embrace SUSE Linux, But SUSE Studio Is Real Story

[...]

No doubt, Dell has relationships with multiple Linux distributions — including SUSE, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Canonical Ubuntu. But SUSE apparently is the “first Linux vendor” in the Dell OEM Technology Partner program.

Sort of makes you wonder: Is something deeper brewing between Dell and SUSE? Hmmm…

This is just another reason to actually avoid Dell, but Joe Brockmeier, the former Novell employee, is promoting this. VAR Guy, who has also been close to Novell over the years, goes ahead and promotes GroupWise, which sane Web sites say nobody cares about anymore (and they are right). To quote:

No One Cares That Novell Has A New Version of GroupWise

Today Novell released its 2012 version of its email software GroupWise, and the announcement was greeted by most with a big yawn. GroupWise? Seems so last century. (Actually, the last updates to the software were for version 8 back in 2008-2010.) According to one analyst, “GroupWise has 10,000 customers and is used by 47 of the 50 US state governments.” It has been a distant third to Exchange and Lotus Notes for a while, and many GroupWise customers have switched over to Google Apps in the past several years.

GroupWise is proprietary and it distracts from Free/Open Source options that work equally well or better. GroupWise — like SUSE — is a solution in search of a problem, much like OpenSUSE when it looks for other people’s work again (trying to ape Linux Mint in this case). SUSE over the past 5+ years has been just a product for Microsoft to tax GNU/Linux through. It lacks technical merit/advantage and the latest release of OpenSUSE — as put in this new review — “was released too early. Period.” Boycott Novell and boycott SUSE. █

Summary: How Dell is promoting Microsoft patent tax on GNU/Linux and how Tuxera makes Linux more Windows-like (with Microsoft’s limitations and patent tax, too)

DELL is said to be taking it up a notch with Microsoft Linux, shortly after another Dell and VMware announcement. This is troubling because Dell is promoting Microsoft tax on GNU/Linux by doing this.

Meanwhile, another taxer of Linux, Tuxera, brings out more Trojan horses:

Most distributions use the Tuxera community program for NTFS support; the driver in the Linux kernel has not been actively worked on for some time now. NTFS-3G and Ntfsprogs, originally separate projects, were combined last year.

Well, Tuxera in the kernel would be a problem for the same reason Novell was. What Novell did was put Microsoft hooks inside Linux, thus promoting the dependence of Linux on Microsoft (e.g. Hyper-V). Surely enough, the work of Novell will then be propagated to other vendors of Linux, so Microsoft uses companies like Novell and Tuxera to carry out Microsoft’s dirty work, in exchange for money. It’s about bringing Linux closer to the Microsoft environment, not Linux environments. █