__/ [ B Gruff ] on Friday 22 September 2006 12:08 \__
> On Friday 22 September 2006 01:45 Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Samsung US executive gets 8 months for price-fixing
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | A marketing executive with the U.S. unit of Samsung Electronics Co.
>> | Ltd. agreed to plead guilty and serve prison time for taking part in
>> | price-fixing in the computer memory chip business, the U.S. Justice
>> | Department said Thursday.
>> `----
>>
>> http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/060921/1350150.html?.v=1
>
> This is of course just because the E.U. is jealous of the U.S., and hates
> American companies...... or have I got the wrong thread here?:-)
The well-targetted FUD from Microsoft is going up to some people's heads, not
surprisingly so. Earlier I read the following:
http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/060921/17342_id.html?.v=1
,----[ Snippet (see papagraph at bottom) ]
| ...Adobe is objecting to Microsoft's inclusion in Vista of its own
| software for creating and viewing digital snapshots of documents, known
| as XML Paper Specification, or XPS. XPS competes with Adobe's widely
| used portable document format, or PDF.
|
| While Adobe earns money by selling its Acrobat software to create PDF
| documents (while giving away the software to read such documents),
| Microsoft will include both reading and writing software as part of
| Vista for no extra charge. That could erode Adobe's sales. -from WSJ
|
| Look, turning word files into pictures shouldn't really cost that much
| extra these days, nor should the revenue from this service be all that
| much. It should just be taken for granted, any company can write the
| software. It's like if I had a company that was the first to make text
| bold, which maybe in the 1970's was a major programming feat. (Wow! Ic
| an do it to ANY font!) But then now in the 21st century I decide to
| attack Microsoft for making text bold in its new Word program. They
| are giving away my franchise for free? Yes because the minimal cost to
| do so represents the economic value my business adds- zero. Thus I
| don't deserve profits from it.
`----
It strikes me that too many people remain naive when it comes to the way
software and standards work. This reminds me of those who could not care
less and, much like Bush, they blurt out "Let Microsoft just innovate". They
live in a cocoon of virtual cushions. And they don't put "innovate" in scare
quotes, by the way. It's a mind bubble that captures one's scope of
exploration.
What Microsoft intends to do here is to 'Netscape' Adobe by making its
product, which encourages interoperability, obsolete. Whether free or not,
it's another step that is intended to pull rivals out of the platform and
makes life inconvenient to anyone who deviates from the 'Microsoft way' (AKA
'comply or be shot').
Examples: making IE anti-standards, as well an application that is not
available for Linux (FrontPage and the anti-standards SW gang encourage Web
'poisoning'); replacing OpenGL with proprietary DirectX so that games can
only be released for Windows (and XBox); proprietary bits in DVD's which
makes it illegal to play them on Linux... *sigh*
Enough for now. It angers me just to think about it...
Best wishes,
Roy
--
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