01.03.09
Posted in Deception, FUD, Microsoft at 9:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
FOR reasons that we mentioned in the past, the Gartner Group utterly lacks credibility. It negotiates its output with companies that are also its clients. IDC is very much the same, as we pointed out before. Sadly, IDC is not just an analyst firm as it also owns lots and lots of media outlets, which are of course biased (they rely on funding, e.g. through advertising or contracts) and it sometimes goes as far as historical revisionism.
Here is an another antitrust exhibit which shows an IDC report being mailed to Microsoft for review before being published [PDF]. The mail says: “I hate to put it like this, but at this point, IDC is done negotiating with us. We have moved them quite a bit already, but they are now holding the line, saying that if we want the names of their ‘big’ analysts on the report this is it.”
Why is there wiggling room anyway?
This may be less of a ‘smoking gun’ than this one [PDF], where Microsoft is removing the sponsorship from an IDC study. We wrote about it over a year ago. Responsible for that FUD was also Peter Galli, a former reporter who now reports directly to Microsoft. █
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Posted in Finance, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OLPC at 8:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type.”
–Bill Gates about OLPC
One of our readers has alerted us that there is OLPC material in the Comes vs Microsoft (Iowa antitrust) case. This is important because we already know that Microsoft sabotaged OLPC (along with Intel) and forced it into submission — with Microsoft leadership and products of course.
For those who are new to it, there is fairly extensive coverage that can be explored from starting points like this or this.
Today’s post is merely an update that explores this exhibit [PDF], which is a long internal Microsoft memo about OLPC and string of E-mails from 2005 — the dawn of OLPC era in the public arena.
“In the E-mails, one finds Martin Taylor, who is known to many as Microsoft’s anti-Linux guy.”In the E-mails, one finds Martin Taylor, who is known to many as Microsoft’s anti-Linux guy. He is responsible for the Get the Facts campaign, for instance. “I like the proposal [of] giving away the back-up strategy if XP is rejected,” says our reader.
Also in the E-mails, one finds Orlando Ayala, who was the head of Microsoft’s Anti-Linux Fund, better known as Unlimited Potential. We wrote about it yesterday. Mundie is there too among other familiar faces and so are Rick Rashid and Will Poole, who later left the company to ‘occupy’ NComputing, where he’s likely to do service to his former employer, Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4] (NComputing competes with OLPC).
Looking at the E-mails, they are clearly funding Media Lab and MIT and discussing that in the conversation. “This could be a very significant investment, with the discussion indicating that it would be somewhere between $10MM and $30MM,” they say.
In principle, they could be threatening to decrease funds if some demands are not met, which relates to the kickbacks routine or even what they did in Kenya by allegedly threatening to withdraw funds if OOXML was no accepted. Here, by contrast, they talk about funding of something charitable and the selling of Windows to children.
The PDF is fascinating; They potentially muck about with charitable means, using money to impact technical decisions of a not-for-profit organisation. They even try to introduce confusing language like “Education Open Source” (posturing).
If someone has OCR software that can extract and produce the text of the PDF (should be trivial), that would be splendid. █
When will they finally learn?
Update: one of the diligent readers has begun making the exhibit available as text and it can be found below.
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Posted in America, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Vista 7, Windows at 3:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Wine is a better Windows than Vista”
–David Gerard
Despite attempts to control public perception, Vista 7 turned out to be a dud and it’s already exploitable. According to some sources, Microsoft has begun leaking its not-yet-a-reality product, just as Microsoft's evangelism tactics instruct where they state [PDF]: “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.”
Did Microsoft push out Vista 7 to give people the illusion that it’s already “out there”? Some people sure think so.
Report Accuses Microsoft of Purposefully Leaking Windows 7 Beta
Microsoft’s Windows 7 beta 1 was not officially intended for release until January. However, the release somehow hit torrent sites this week. Many, including commenters here at DailyTech, suspected the “leak” was really a clever ruse by Microsoft to drum up tech community excitement for its upcoming release.
Elsewhere, in Slashdot to be precise, it turns out that Windows comes with a few more lemons and the arrest of Microsoft's former 'partners' may be a prelude to it.
“According to Microsoft, ‘No information is collected during the [Genuine Advantage Program] validation process that can be used to identify or contact a user.’ That’s little comfort to the software counterfeiters who were just handed jail sentences ranging from 1.5-6.5 years by the Futian People’s Court in China, especially since Microsoft contends that much of the estimated $2B in bogus software was detected by its Windows Genuine Advantage program. ‘Software piracy negatively impacts local economic growth,’ explained Microsoft VP Fengming Liu in a celebratory New Year’s Eve press release. But then again, so does transferring $16B of assets and $9B in annual profit to an Irish tax haven, doesn’t it?”
Tax evasion in its own right is a subject we explored here before. It’s a small problem compared to some others.
According to The Register, there may be increased enforcement urging people to pay for non-Free software, which is good news to Free software.
Chilean lawyer Guillermo Frêne is having a bit of a bad hair day after it was revealed that draft legislation aimed at cutting the internet connections of illegal downloading ne’er-do-wells was presented in .doc format written on pirated software.
This ought to be push more Chilean to Free software [1] and steer them clear of Microsoft’s abuses [2, 3, 4]. █
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[1] ElMostrador.cl: Chilean Public Pension System (INP) Switches to Linux
The institution will save more than 67,000 USD per year in license fees.
Two of every three Chileans either pay or get paid by this state-owned institution, which has 63 offices and ten corporate buildings all over the country, using more than 1500 computers.
[2] Microsoft will turn Chile abstention into a Yes?
Despite the 217 comments tabled by Chile in September, the Microsoft puppets are well active in the Committee and will vote this Tuesday to turn the vote of the country from an abstention to a Yes. You can expect more of those things happening until the end of March.
[3] The day Chile was Bought by Microsoft
Just today, a secret agreement between MS and the Chilean Government came to light. In it, every citizen was sold as a potential user of a Windows Live Spaces model where every SSN is linked to, overbypassing any privacy term and cashing Bill some bucks. It wouldn’t be so awful to all if that agreement wasn’t aprooved yet (Spanish follows).
[4] Chilean Mapuches in language row with Microsoft
Mapuche Indians in Chile are trying to take global software giant Microsoft to court in a legal battle which raises the question of whether anyone can ever “own” the language they speak.
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