Eye on Microsoft: Assorted Links on EU, Elsevier, NHS
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2009-06-24 23:04:31 UTC
- Modified: 2009-06-24 23:04:31 UTC
Summary: Spillover of news stories
●
MS vs EU: Microsoft does not control Windows anymore
From an European point of view at least they don't. You see the way the EU and the US deal with monopolies is completely different. In the US the state reaction when faced with a monopolistic company is to break it apart, something that almost happened to Microsoft during their first US antitrust investigation.
The EU doesn't break up companies, in fact they are usually quite OK with monopolies. For a long time water, power, cable and telecoms have been monopolies in most European countries and most people were OK with that. Of course there is a catch: in almost all cases the government owned a controlling share of those monopolistic companies and actually imposed some policies on them.
Now that most industries have been liberalized the state operate in a similar but subtly different way: You are entitled to operate a monopoly or quasi-monopoly as a private company, but you are expected to let the state have some control over your company in exchange. In other words from an European point of view if Windows is a quasi-monopoly then the state has the right to impose features and restrictions on Windows, as simple as that.
●
Elsevier Does a Microsoft with Open Access (see recent scandal [
1,
2])
Elsevier Does a Microsoft with Open Access
[...]
I've seen these kind of stories so many times in the world of open source, with Microsoft as the main protagonist, that they warm the cockles of my heart when I see them popping up in other areas like open access. Why? Because if a multi-billion pound company like Elsevier is starting to stoop to this kind of tactic, it demonstrates just how profoundly worried it is - and how close open access is to widespread acceptance.
●
NHS Gateway Reviews damn €£13bn IT decisions (NHS is
largely derailed by Microsoft and its suppliers)
Since the start of the programme the British Medical Association, representing doctors, has repeatedly questioned the systems being used and the management of suppliers.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- 24/7 Wall St. Editor-In-Chief and CEO Calls IBM Is "America’s Worst Big Tech Company", Talent is Leaving, Supposedly Strategic Units Culled
- 21 hours ago by Douglas A. McIntyre
- IBM's Debt Increased Over $5 Billion in 3 Months While IBM Laid Off Many in Europe, US, Confluent, HashiCorp, and Red Hat
- An increase of $5,000,000,000+ in debt in just 3 months!
- Drama at the European Patent Office (EPO) This Week
- We'll be covering the EPO quite a lot this weekend and next week
- EPO Cocainegate Escalates - Part VI - The Strikes Go On and On (Major Strike Today)
- We'll be covering this later today in relation to what the Office dubs "ethics"
-
- Getting Aggressive Suggestive of Loss - Part III - Threats From Burner Accounts Formally Treated as a Crime
- Countries that cannot preserve freedom from self-censorship are countries where free press ultimately cannot prevail
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, April 24, 2026
- Gemini Links 25/04/2026: 3.4k+ Capsules, Microsoft Layoffs, Call for Nuclear Disarmament, "Internet is Sad and Lonely"
- Links for the day
- Links 24/04/2026: Zelenskyy Says Ukraine's War Position "Most Stable", Samsung Workers on Strike Due to Pay
- Links for the day
- Dr. Andy Farnell on Why Calling Slop or Chaff "Hey Hi" (AI) Harm Us All, Except for "Ten or Twenty Rich Industrialists"
- "words to avoid"
- Recent Happenings at IBM Reaffirm Rumours About the CEO; He Might be Resigning (or Pushed Out) Soon
- If the rumours are true (no, we did not check those tax records for ourselves), it's not unthinkable that IBM is already doing what Apple did months ago
- Gemini Links 24/04/2026: Public Reticulum Gateway Node, Smol Computers, and Old E-mail
- Links for the day
- Links 24/04/2026: Intel Abandoning Computer Freedom (Even Further), Iran Reports That American Software and Hardware Remotely Sabotaged/Hijacked During War
- Links for the day
- The Great Wonders of Slop "Efficiency"
- Thankfully nothing was lost in the transmission and lots of work (datacentre emissions) got "done"
- IBMers Expect Another Giant Wave of Layoffs, Talk (and Sing) About the PIPs
- The media won't be covering the key facts
- As We Predicted, Francophonie Countries in the EU and Outside the EU Dumping Microsoft for National Security Reasons
- We expected Belgium or some other Francophonie place to do so next
- Even to Microsoft Insiders It Seems Like XBox Has Already Died or Surrendered to the Japanese Companies
- Now the Microsoft layoffs are evident for people to see
- Absolutely Terrible Journalism About Microsoft Layoffs This Week
- 7 hours ago by Leila Sheridan
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 56 Out of 200: 5RB and Brett Wilson LLP's Copy-Paste Machination for Garrett and Graveley
- Here is another straightforward example of their junior barrister overusing copy-paste on his Mac
- Getting Aggressive Suggestive of Loss - Part II - Lawyers Are Not "Hired Guns" (and Should Never Act Like Ones)
- The matter is being investigated
- Nadella is Killing Microsoft. Slop Kills It Even Faster.
- A decade from now we'll look back at slop like we look back at skateboards
- Huge Microsoft Layoffs Coming Shortly (With Financial Report)
- There will be lots of slop layoffs. Be ready. It's a bubble.
- Gemini Links 24/04/2026: Data Breaches and Unofficial Gemini Protocol Specification Archive
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Offers About 10,000 of Its Senior American (Read: Expensive) Workers to be Laid Off
- How many slopfarms and media parrots play along?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 23, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, April 23, 2026
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 55 Out of 200: Strangled Women, Charged for Strangulation, Cannot Find a Job Now (After Microsoft)
- merits public awareness and wider scrutiny
- Gemini Links 23/04/2026: Spirituality and Detachment, Shoplifting in the UK, and "Introducing Scout, an iOS Native Gemini Client"
- Links for the day
- Links 23/04/2026: YouTube Age Limits Expanded and 'Secret' Model With Bug-Finding Hype Campaign 'Leaks'
- Links for the day
- Media Operatives of Microsoft Paint Microsoft Layoffs as Buyouts (Intentionally False Narrative)
- Those are mass layoffs disguised as something else
- IBM's Stock Has Collapsed Over 10% in One Day, Insiders Explain What's Happening
- Today, due to a lack of time, we mostly present an outline of what people say (not IBM-sponsored media hacks with LLM slop)
- Getting Aggressive Suggestive of Loss - Part I - Threats Sent From Burner Accounts Since February, Belatedly Reported to British Police
- Threats connected to Graveley or Garrett or 5RB or Brett Wilson LLP [...] We're not dealing with a law firm here; we're dealing with the underworld
- EPO Cocainegate Escalates - Part V - Where Does the António Campinos 'Family Affair' Go From Here?
- Do cocaine in public, get caught, take paid "sick leave", come back to lead Europe's second-largest organisation
- Links 23/04/2026: Legal Trouble for Microsoft, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and DMCA Whac-a-Mole
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, April 22, 2026
- Gemini Links 23/04/2026: Sunrise Chasing Season, Going Back to Older Software, New Gemini Client for Mobile Devices
- Links for the day
Comments
The Mad Hatter
2009-06-28 19:14:10
It's the same with government. One thing there is to like about the Pirate Party is their openness.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-06-28 19:17:50