06.13.10
Posted in Finance, Microsoft at 8:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is taking additional debt and the important tax question returns to haunt this abusive company
ACCORDING to this new press release, Microsoft has chosen to increase its existing debt — a subject that was discussed earlier in the IRC channel. We already have many articles that cover Microsoft’s debt situation. It received too little coverage from the mainstream press.
The reaction to Microsoft’s announcement was mixed. Some just repeat the technicalities whereas others — like Forbes for example — go further and publish the headline “Microsoft Debt Issuance Makes Zero Economic Sense”
Microsoft has $1 and $0.75 billion of debt that matures in 2019 and 2039, respectively. Ironically, though this debt comes with higher interest, it makes sense if the company believes that we’ll have significant inflation and it will be paying off its debt with inflated dollars.
Microsoft borrowing money again? Well, maybe its real situation is different from what it publicly signals. Some other papers are baffled as well. “What’s behind Microsoft debt offering,” asks one newspaper in its headlines (we do just headlines for the sake of brevity).
Coverage arrives from other prominent directions [1, 2], including AP, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal (twice even), and Reuters which says:
The company said it will use the net proceeds from the offering of convertible notes to repay short term debt.
Barron’s with its almost-perpetual bias in favour of Microsoft stood out from the crowd with positive spin. No matter how one looks at it, Microsoft takes upon itself more debt and the company’s financial situation seem misaligned wrt reports and behaviour. Even a former Microsoft employee, Jeff Reifman, continues to protest against Microsoft’ dodgy tax habits, which we covered here many times before. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Marketing, Microsoft at 8:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another piece of the immense PR machine employed by the Gates Foundation is revealed
LAST MONTH we showed that the Gates Foundation was using and recruiting additional, external PR agencies (via Edelman) to glorify itself and deceive the public. This was not surprising, but seeing exactly who’s involved helps understand this whole marketing operation. A few days ago we found this new article, which says:
Hanamura is working to create a tool, Viewchange.org, which helps consumers of media find exactly the stories they want. The Gates Foundation commissioned Viewchange.org to solve the problem of story telling around their work. It will be focused on telling stories of social progress and challenges, but will be applicable more broadly.
As we explained previously, the Gates Foundation is highly reliant on PR and it uses legions of workers to brainwash everyone and make people all around the world love a villain. As longtime readers are probably aware, we also have pages documenting the activities of Microsoft’s PR agencies and AstroTurfing. Microsoft even talks about it this week (to an extent). The title says, “How Microsoft Does Social Recruiting” (we have many examples of that). Tomorrow we will cover many stories that the Gates Foundation generated last week and we will show the truth behind them. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Google’s very own web browser Chrome has been gaining popularity for sometimes now among users. And with the recent rollout of Chrome version 5, they’re looking forward to gain users among Mac and Linux users.
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No. 1 in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. It might not be a slogan to attract an avalanche of American Internet users, but the Norwegian company that makes the fastest Web browser you’ve never heard of sees a major opportunity in the United States and the rest of the world.
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After three decades of bowing to Microsoft (MSFT.O) and its Windows juggernaut, PC and computing gadget makers are preparing for a new era that could offer the first real choice for the software that make their products tick.
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Android 2.2 Froyo arrived with much fanfare on May 20 at Google’s I/O conference. The new platform software for smartphones is chock full of new features, such as tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot services, faster performance, and Flash 10.1.
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The Adam tablet had a unique distinction uptill now, that of being the only known tablet PC to be using the Pixel Qi screen. But as per the latest slate pc news, Adam will soon have company as there are a plethora of tablets that will be wearing the innovative technology that makes a screen just as viewable out in the sun as it is indoors. In fact, quite a few of those tablets were there to be seen at the Pixel Qi booth at Computex and they indeed look promising. But of all those present, special mention has to be made of one that can make a difference and rise above the sea of tablets – the Innoversal Lattice.
[...]
Saving the best for the last, Innoversal has said the tablet will make its debut by September and is likely to sport a price tag of around $530 to $550. Also, an interesting aspect of the tablet is there is the option of either Windows, Linux, or even Google Chrome as the default OS of the Lattice.
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The only template that I did not create is the Turabian template. I just downloaded it, and modified the properties, so that it would work with the templates web site.
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New Videos
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Environment
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A court Monday convicted seven former senior employees of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary of “death by negligence” for their roles in the 1984 leak of toxic gas that killed an estimated 15,000 people in the world’s worst industrial disaster.
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From Tony Hayward, BP CEO on the impact of the oil leak on May 18th:
“I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.”
That’s minimizing of the event sounds all too familiar to the initial reaction we hear from companies right after they suffer a serious data breach. We hear minimizing such as “There hasn’t been any evidence that the data was abused,” or “The breach seems to have been a human mistake, rather than technical,” or “The amount of data compromised represents a small fraction of all of our customers.” As if any of that matters to those who have their personal information now in the wrong hands.
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A SUNDAY TIMES investigation has exposed Japan for bribing small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales.
The undercover investigation found officials from six countries were willing to consider selling their votes on the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The revelations come as Japan seeks to break the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling. An IWC meeting that will decide the fate of thousands of whales, including endangered species, begins this month in Morocco.
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Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
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The Chinese government has issued a white paper laying out current, and future, internet policy – and you might not recognise its view of internet use in that country.
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Rejecting the Justice Department’s plea that only limited evidence be dismissed, a federal judge in Arizona has sanctioned the government and thrown out the entire wiretap in the ongoing prosecution of former Rep. Rick Renzi.
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Posted in Deception, Hardware, Microsoft at 5:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft needs to wake up and realise that it merely imitates other people’s work and then claims credit for it
In the following new article, IDG forgets to point out that there is extensive prior art:
From the article:
Microsoft’s sleep proxy lowers PC energy use
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Microsoft researchers have slashed desktop energy use with a sleep proxy system that maintains a PC’s network presence even when it is turned off or put into standby mode.
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Although Microsoft is using the system with Windows, it is designed to be agnostic to the operating system.
Other operating systems have had this functionality for many years. They don’t need Microsoft’s so-called ‘innovation’. Has Microsoft attempted to patent this yet?
Microsoft was asleep (as in ‘sleep proxy’) while its competition was innovating. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Virtualisation, Vista 7, VMware, Windows at 5:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Paul Maritz
Photo by former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble
Summary: Mr. Maritz and his partners/colleagues from Microsoft (former Microsoft executives who run VMware now) help Ballnux and Vista 7 at the expense of GNU/Linux, so Microsoft gets paid either way (or twice, in the case of virtualisation)
A FEW days ago we covered Novell’s new relationship with VMware [1, 2], which is full of Microsoft executives. This development was covered in Novell’s PR blog by Ian Bruce right here and separately in here. The VAR Guy says that “VMware and Novell Counter Red Hat”:
Call it a preemptive strike. When Red Hat Summit kicks off June 22, the open source company is expected to strongly promote Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) to partners and customers. Instead of sitting back on its heels, Linux rival Novell is building a stronger virtualization partnership with VMware. In short, Novell and VMware are ganging up against Red Hat. Here are the details.
As people probably know, SLES is taxed by Microsoft. It would be profitable for Microsoft to promote SUSE at Red Hat’s expense. Red Hat is also a far bigger contributor to GNU/Linux than Novell is, so hurting Red Hat is a Microsoft objective.
“If people run Windows and SUSE virtualised using VMware’s new deal, then Microsoft is paid twice for an operating system.”In other coinciding news, Microsoft’s boosters reveal that VMware is helping migrations to Vista 7. Why is VMware helping Microsoft, which was supposed to be a rival? Could the origin of VMware’s management (Microsoft) have something to do with it? One analysis of the Novell-VMware relationship says that it “fills an OS gap” and IDG resorts to exaggeration when it uses the headline “Novell back from the dead” (just because it signed the deal with VMware, which promotes Vista 7 just like Novell does [1, 2, 3, 4]). If people run Windows and SUSE virtualised using VMware’s new deal, then Microsoft is paid twice for an operating system. Isn’t that just perfect for Microsoft? █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents at 4:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell is pushing Mono into new places and projects, including MeeGo which is now talking about OpenSUSE Build Service as well
RIGHT about now Novell is trying to portray itself as a guardian/protector/saviour of Linux. In reality, Novell pollutes GNU/Linux with Microsoft encroachments such as Mono, which have people code for Microsoft rather than for GNU/Linux. A day ago we found out about another Mono project created by what seems like a Novell apologist (right after the Novell deal had been signed he wrote: “Boycotting openSUSE/SLED is the most damaging thing to do to open source adoption instead of Microsoft supporting the openSUSE system.”)
Dubbed SparkleShare, Bons is building his project using Mono, GTK+, and Git.
The same developer helps Novell’s version of MeeGo, which is full of Mono [1, 2, 3, 4]. Yes, he is involved in the Novell project that changes MeeGo, based on Novell’s Meeks (it’s a recent post about Evolution, which is also owned by Novell). Here is another thing which Novell is doing to MeeGo:
The openSUSE community has announced the releases of version 1.8 and 2.0 of the openSUSE Build Service. [...] The MeeGo developers are particularly excited since they use the openSUSE Build Service within their project and so they also have a write-up as a result of the new OBS and some of the features they had requested.
Here is the original post from MeeGo. What are they getting themselves into? It was only days ago that Novell advertised its Microsoft-taxed SUSE (Ballnux). Does MeeGo want to be taxed by Microsoft as well? Because that’s where Novell is leading Nokia and Intel. A few days ago, a former Novell employee who is back to being a journalist advertised some more of Mono, probably ignoring the problems already highlighted by the FSF. Mono is means for Microsoft to control developers and also to charge money for distribution of GNU/Linux. Novell seems to be using MeeGo as a “host” (in the biological/technological sense). █
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Posted in Marketing, Novell, SCO, UNIX at 4:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell’s spin is dissected following the end of the copyright/UNIX case
The SCO case seems to be over [1, 2], but SCO’s trustee (Cahn) says that there might be additional attempts made by SCO:
So it seems that after seven years, this charade by SCO is finally over. What will it tell the bankruptcy court now? Earlier this year, former U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn, the company’s bankruptcy trustee, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the jury decision will not dissuade it from pursuing its lawsuit against IBM. Said Cahn: “The copyright claims are gone, but we have other claims based on contracts.”
That’s typical SCO, basing its entire existence on lawsuits. But let’s look at Novell’s official statement from Ian Bruce (PR Director) and interpret it:
“Yesterday, United States District Court Judge Ted Stewart issued a Final Judgment regarding the long standing dispute between SCO Group and Novell.”
Novell’s message: This entire case is about Novell and SCO. Forget about the other aspects of it.
“As part of the decision, the Court reaffirmed the earlier jury verdict that Novell maintained ownership of important UNIX copyrights
Subtle point: “important” as in valuable, i.e. worth a lot of money to Novell.
“which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on the Linux computer operating system.”
Semantics: Linux is a kernel. It’s a platform, not an operating system.
“The Court also issued a lengthy Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law wherein it determined that SCO was not entitled to an order requiring Novell to transfer the UNIX copyrights because “Novell had purposely retained those copyrights.”
Pedant’s point: Novell kept UNIX because it is an asset. Novell did not do this to protect Linux, which is had not even sold at the time.
“In addition, the Court concluded that SCO was obligated to recognize Novell’s waiver of SCO’s claims against IBM and other companies, many of whom utilize Linux.”
Partial translation: a confrontation over UNIX may have ramifications that apply to other companies.
Commenting on the Judgment, Novell President and CEO Ron Hovsepian…
Note: Ron Hovsepian was working for IBM for many years, almost two decades in fact. He joined Novell in June 2003 (around the time the SCO case was launched).
“…stated “After almost a decade of litigation…”
Observation: Is he talking for Novell or for IBM? Novell got involved only later on. It wasn’t there for quite some time.
“…, we are very pleased to see this final judgment uphold all of Novell’s claims. I am very proud of this achievement and the work Novell has done to ensure Linux remains free and open.””
Spin alert: What Novell did here is insist on the ownership of UNIX, which is worth a lot of money. Novell spins this as “ensur[ing] Linux remains free and open,” which is a side effect for the most part. █
Update: In Groklaw, Pamela Jones replies to Cahn’s quote by writing: “That’s the beauty of the ruling, though. Novell has the right to waive.”
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