Bonum Certa Men Certa

Anguish of Monopolies

"We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger….If you’re going to kill someone, there isn’t much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. You just pull the trigger. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."

--Jim Allchin, Microsoft VP



And you are here: 'First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.' - Mahatma Gandhi
Original from Nicholas Klein. They are fighting us while smiling (schmoozing) at us.



Summary: Government bailouts for Microsoft (passing money or national debt from taxpayers to Microsoft's tax-evading management) won't last forever; Microsoft as a business is becoming unsustainable or barely sustainable

THE people who have sympathy for Microsoft are either working for Microsoft or they might simply be mentally weak. Some are exceptionally gullible.



This past week we saw several US "tech" giants falling on their sword; Microsoft too isn't doing well, it has been faking its performance for decades while taking de facto bailouts from the US taxpayers. Nowadays the levels of bailout are unprecedented and barely sustainable.

"Microsoft's influence in the Web has never been more meager."Seeing the rapid demise of Windows (relative to Android in particular), Microsoft resorts to illegal tactics again, this time tightening the screws on Linux and BSD [1, 2, 3, 4] while even bigger things happen at the 'sidelines'.

Microsoft's influence in the Web has never been more meager. In spite of plenty of acquisitions, Microsoft descended into oblivion on the server side. Its Web browser, even when almost imposed on Windows users, continues to lose market share. The same is true for Microsoft's search engine, which Microsoft now markets by proxy in DuckDuckGo (DDG). Yes, DDG is like a Microsoft-hosted Bing proxy that allows Microsoft to spy on everybody. DDG's management now openly admits this while refusing to spill all the beans, citing an NDA. We won't even mention "Azure" being an utter failure because it's not even clear what that brand is; like "clown computing", everything gets rebranded to fake growth while Azure itself quietly lays off staff. It's not growing. It's technically hopeless. Military ("defence") budget cannot eternally bail out "Azure". Sooner or later taxpayers will realise who's causing inflation and why. The shareholders are being conned and a lot of the money in this game is people's pension funds. They're going to lose it. It's like a pyramid scheme, gambling and riding totally fictional valuations.

"The shareholders are being conned and a lot of the money in this game is people's pension funds. They're going to lose it. It's like a pyramid scheme, gambling and riding totally fictional valuations."Mentioned in passing the other day was Netcraft's report for the end of July. The latest Netcraft report, showing sharp decreases for Microsoft yet again, isn't mentioned by the mainstream or "tech" media. Microsoft barely registers in the charts anymore. From what we can gather, a lot of businesses appear to have moved to apache/nginx during the pandemic. Some chose third-party (not locally-hosted, e.g. with Varnish) caches and CDNs. For some that meant "clown computing" or Clownflare, which isn't so good either (Clownflare loses money, it's not really a viable business). Not "so good" to say the least or to put it very politely... they view the "customers" as products and site visitors as something to be sold.

On the desktop ("client") side, Microsoft is throwing wrenches at the cogwheels at hardware level. This whole UEFI thing is obnoxious and they've infiltrated a lot of organisations such as OSI and the Linux Foundation, rendering them Microsoft advocacy groups, i.e. the very antithesis of their original purpose/s.

"When Microsoft goes under we’ll have a new (another) problem to deal with: staff from Microsoft that ends up in a lot of other companies, spreading unfit-for-purpose pseudo-engineering."Microsoft is definitely fighting us. It is using the tactics of Nicolo Machiavelli, but a lot of people aren't familiar with Machiavellian tactics, so they just aren't seeing it. As Machiavelli himself put it: "Men rise from one ambition to another. First they seek to secure themselves from attack, and then they attack others."

Maybe Microsoft was "underdog" in the 1980s, but back then it already sabotaged the rivals and broke the law. By the 1990s Microsoft was already on a killing expedition. Sadly, many of today's young people don't know this. The media distorts their perception and lies to them about the past.

When Microsoft goes under we'll have a new (another) problem to deal with: staff from Microsoft that ends up in a lot of other companies, spreading unfit-for-purpose pseudo-engineering. That has already happened in some companies, including Nokia and Canonical.

"...yesterday we were notified that the Microsoft representative in charge with the education strategy had requested the organizers to pull the Ubuntu presentation because it is 'unfair competition' to hold such a presentation at an event sponsored by them. They are indeed co-sponsors but the conference is organized by the Ministry of Education and its local office, and is being held on the premises of a public University."

--"Then, they fight you," May 2008



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
 
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago
The Slopfarm WebProNews Has Turned Google News Into a Laughing Stock Full of Plagiarism by Slop
If Google News dies of neglect, that's one thing. It's starting to seem like active neglect by Google is a form of participation.
Do What is Moral, as What's Legal Isn't Always Moral
Do what's objectively moral, no matter the costs and the risks
Slopwatch: Google News Assisting Plagiarism and Anti-Linux FUD, Serial Slopper Rips Off Linux-Centric Journalists
This makes the Web a much worse place and lessens the incentive to do journalism
Links 30/08/2025: NVIDIA Fakes Results to Hide a Bubble Already in Implosion Phase, Data Breaches Galore, Important Win for Workers' Union in Canada
Links for the day
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
In Kazakhstan, Yandex Estimated to be 20 Times Bigger Than Microsoft
Bing is measured as down this month
Shutterstock Not Enough? The Register MS Uses Slop Images in Articles (Seemingly More and More Over Time)
Cost-saving trajectory amid office shutdown?
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Games, PostmarketOS, and Slop
Links for the day
Links 30/08/2025: Imgur Uproar and Many Ukraine Updates (Mediazona Reports Over 200,000 Russians Died for Putin)
Links for the day
How Not to Build Software
code forges that need a Web browser perhaps fill some 'niche' demand
GAFAM and "MATA"
The use of dark humour there hopefully helps illuminate what a lot of "modern" technology became like and how it interacts with human civilisation (to what ends and whose gain)
Birds Are Not "Pests and Vermin", Privacy is Not a Crime, and GNU/Linux is Not 'Hacking Platform'
I could not help but think of Free software analogies
The Sites Should Be Very Fast Again
That issue is now resolved
Flying in 2025
worse than ever before
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025
Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
It's also burning the planet
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
Slopfarms are a real pain
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day