Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Vista 10 Still a Failure, So Focus Shifts to Attacks on GNU/Linux, Android

Hopping to the competitor's side of the fence/gate, just like in Troy

A fence



Summary: Vista 10 adoption is already plateauing (at very low levels considering the zero-cost 'upgrade') and Microsoft is trying to assert or exploit (patent) monopolies where adoption and market growth are extremely high (Free software)

Barely anybody is using Microsoft's 'new' (rebranded) browser, according to this article which cites an IDG report, which in turn uses Microsoft-friendly data sources such as Net Applications. That's despite Microsoft's dirty and anti-competitive tricks regarding the default Web browser (Microsoft overriding users' preferences) [1, 2] in Vista 10. Microsoft Emil, who is writing lots of propaganda pieces for Vista 10 over at VentureBeat these days, is trying to give a terribly false impression by passing the gross distortion/illusion that Vista 10 now has majority market share (extreme cherry-picking) while even the most Microsoft-friendly surveys put its market share at under 5%, instantaneousness debunking Microsoft's unverified claims of 75 million Vista 10 'users' (however Microsoft defines these). Matt Weinberger, in the mean time, comes out with another promotional Microsoft piece advocating a new Microsoft monopoly (because the operating system monopoly has been lost to Android, GNU/Linux, and so on). One Microsoft apologist (very Windows-centric) is now trash-talking GNU/Linux and devaluing privacy in an effort to convince people to adopt Vista 10 and avoid GNU/Linux. How much more blatant can it get? Microsoft doesn't "love Linux", it just hates it. The Microsoft boosters truly fear Free software and they're pretty bad at hiding it.



"Expect Microsoft to continue wielding patents against GNU/Linux and Android (it's still happening), especially now that Windows is in a state of crisis."Android is currently being besieged by Microsoft. A site that is affiliated with Microsoft's MSN (and by its own admission "owns shares of Microsoft”) is trying to promote Microsoft inside Android, a former Microsoft lackey (see her career history, before she scrubbed it off her profile) is promoting Skype on Android, and Ketan Pratap says "Microsoft's Push Into Google's Android Is Good News for Users". That's almost as foolish or terrible as saying that the Trojan horse was good for Troy.

Microsoft is viciously attacking Google, Android, and ChromeOS using patents. Make no mistake about it, there is extensive evidence of that and not even Microsoft would deny it when asked. When Microsoft approaches Android et al. it's part of an effort to weaken competitors, not contribute or complement them.

Patents are an ugly business. They're offensive, not defensive, but tabloids like Gizmodo make gossip out of Google's patent search, adding a 'sexy' angle to it. Google is no fan of patents and it tries combating them using prior art searches.

There is a practice we've been covering here in relation to patent attacks to Android. Tim Sparapani calls this "Attack of the Patent Privateers", alluding to a system of cartels that collude against competitors (assuring one thrives with protectionism, not innovation). As Sparapani puts is, companies like Apple or Microsoft "are becoming more clever about using – or misusing, depending on your perspective – the patent system to extract funds from competitors or thwart others’ growth. This harms America’s best companies and most promising startups.

"One example of this growth is the emergence of so-called patent privateering, which contributes to an ever-greater amount of frivolous or abusive patent litigation. Privateering is a pleasant euphemism for empowering a pirate to attack your competitors for profit. Patent privateering occurs when a company lends or sells a portion of its patents to another litigious company to sue alleged patent infringers who are all too often the competitors of the original patent recipient company that was under the impression it had licensed the entire portfolio."

That's what Microsoft is doing to Android and Google, using Nokia's patents in MOSAID/Conversant's hands, to give just one example. Microsoft even does this more directly with Vringo. Sparapani uses the word "pirate", not "troll", to refer to the types of goons whom Microsoft empowers to attack competitors.

Patents are thankfully collapsing with developments such as the Alice determination. Patents on software lose their value, as do their profiteers, based on this latest analysis of the Marathon Patent Group, which (as the name implies), is not a producing company. This is basically nothing but a bunch of goons for hire -- people who will use patents to attack by proxy (hence retaliatory litigation becomes an impossibility). To quote the latest on this:

According to Zacks, “Marathon Patent Group Inc. is a patent and patent rights acquisition and licensing company. The Company acquires patents from a wide-range of patent holders from individual inventors to Fortune 500 companies. It serves its clients through two complementary business units: IP Services and IP Licensing and Enforcement business. Marathon Patent Group, Inc. is based in Alexandria, Virginia. “


Expect Microsoft to continue wielding patents against GNU/Linux and Android (it's still happening), especially now that Windows is in a state of crisis. Microsoft will do this not only directly (blackmail using patents) but also indirectly, using entities like the one above (we wrote about several of them before).

Microsoft does not want peace, it wants domination. As long as this remains the case, peace will be reached with Microsoft only when Microsoft is practically dead.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
 
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
When You Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day