__/ [ Rex Ballard ] on Friday 16 February 2007 13:39 \__
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> From: anonymous
>> After following the last link I have below, I speculate but it appears
>> that
>> Microsoft wanted to settle quickly. They have information that Microsoft
>> violated US Dept. of Justice 2002 ruling. If I have an article listed
>> below that you have not done yet, you are free to use:
>>
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9011285&intsrc=hm_list
>> or http://tinyurl.com/ysj3ky
>
> Keep in mind that during the DOJ vs Microsoft case, the prosecution
> did more for their case during their cross-examination of defense
> witnesses, than they did during their presentation of the direct
> evidence. Furthermore, there were clear indications that differences
> between the Windows 2000 licenses and the Windows XP licenses were
> designed to exclude Linux from the marketplace, and to force users to
> buy Windows licenses they didn't need. New provisions in the Vista
> licenses are designed to force Linux users to pay for upgrades that
> they don't need. And the increase in prices, at both OEM and Retail
> level, for Vista could have been used to increase the damages even
> more. Most importantly, if Iowa had gone to Judge Kollar-Kotelly and
> presented their case, it's possible that the contempt of court during
> the period that all of the provisions of the settlement were in force,
> could have prompted the judge to extend all of the provisions of the
> original settlement for another 5-7 years.
>
> Many states are already passing "open IT" laws designed to force state
> agencies, state funds recipients, and tax exempt organizations to
> consider Open Source alternatives first. Purchases of Microsoft
> products in particular, and proprietary products in general must go
> through a much more expensive review process. Unfortunately, it's
> hard to target Microsoft specifically.
>
> When AT&T established it's monopoly over telephones, the government
> passed laws to regulate the telephone companies. The same thing
> happened with Electricity and electric companies.
>
> My guess is that the real reason Microsoft let this case drag on as
> long as they did was to make sure that the settlement included Vista.
> If Iowa doesn't demand that Microsoft reduce the price of Vista, then
> they can't come back later and complain that they were overcharged.
>
> The one thing I have noticed since the settlement was announced, is
> that the original links to all of those PDF files of e-mails and
> letters has been password protected. It seems that what was
> previously public domain information, is now being restricted by the
> settlement. Of course, anyone who downloaded those documents to their
> hard drives while the documents were in public domain, can publish
> those documents whenever they feel like it. My guess is that lots of
> people did download all of those documents, and will be posting them
> on their own web sites.
Yes. Fortunately, many people from the Groklaw and Slashdot communities did
just that. You can find the mirrors (I have seen a few) if you follow the
most recent threads. Rest assured, all the available evidence will be
reconstructed, reassembled, and made public in a cohesive fashion. It could
take a while though. Groklaw has just set up a page with the Gates
deposition tapes, as well. It's just a shame that the trial did not carry
on. The longer it progressed, the more smoking guns got resurrected. While
Microsoft could not take back the memos (just make them harder to access and
create some 404/405s on the Web), it could end this ripple effect that was
very damaging. I spread quotes form these memos in many Web sites and have
heard from people who said they have had it! It was time for ethics (Linux).
>> /quote/
>> Restaurant meal helped fuel Microsoft's Iowa settlement deal
>> Lawyers say agreement to end class-action lawsuit was reached on Sunday
>>
>> According to information released by the Iowa plaintiffs during the trial,
>> the lawsuit covered 7.5 million purchases of Windows and other Microsoft
>> products between May 1994 and June 2006. More than 1,100 Microsoft
>> customers opted out of the suit, but Conlin said that number was a
>> statistically insignificant portion of the overall base of users who made
>> qualifying purchases. "It was just half of half of half a percent of the
>> total number of people affected," she said.
>
> 7.5 million people in Iowa will be getting coupons for $40 off the
> price of Vista, which is overpriced, as compensation for being
> overcharged $40 for Windows 95 and Windows 98, and the cases didn't
> even go into the overcharging for XP. The scope of the trial didn't
> even attempt to go into damages due to viruses, damages due to
> sabotage of 3rd party products, the forced upgrades to XP, the
> announcement and immediate withdrawal of offers by HP and Toshiba to
> provide their computers preinstalled with Linux. If there was a
> smoking gun memo there, it could have opened the doors wide open to
> new litigation.
>
>> Regarding a claim by the plaintiffs that they had proof Microsoft was
>> violating its 2002 antitrust settlement with the DOJ, Conlin said it's
>> unclear if and when the public may have access to that information. "We
>> did what lawyers are supposed to do, which is turn it over to the U.S.
>> Department of Justice and the Iowa Department of Justice," she said.
>> /-quote/
>
> Keep in mind that the DOJ received over 6,000 complaints per year,
> asserting that Microsoft was actively defying the settlement. All of
> these were "investigated" and "dismissed" by a 3 member "technical
> committee", consisting of 1 member chosen by the Bush administration,
> and 2 members chosen by Microsoft. Nearly every vote was split 2 to 1.
>
> Even when when Microsoft was openly and publicly punishing Linux users
> and companies who were switching to Linux, the court turned a blind
> eye.
>
> Ironically, this may have helped to fuel the development and adoption
> of Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, and VMWare Player. The Linux
> distributors found new ways to penetrate the market and help Linux
> users purchase Linux-ready computers. LiveCDs, Knoppix, Ubuntu, and
> new drivers for most devices have made it a trivial act to install
> Linux on nearly 70% of the computers sold in the last year. The
> "white box" market has grown to nearly 40% of the market, and nearly
> all PCs sold in the last 6 months have featured 64 bit processors and
> hyperthreading designed to facilitate virtualization.
>
> The current trends are toward virtualization, with Linux being the
> primary operating system and the OEM version of Windows being the
> secondary operating system. The big sticking point at the moment is
> that VISTA HOME BASIC, which has all of the features required or
> needed in such a configuration, expressly forbids it's use as a
> Virtualized client. The versions of VISTA that do permit
> virtualization are loaded with extra features that consume nearly all
> of the available memory - increasing the footprint of Vista and Office
> 2007 to a minimum of 1 gigabyte.
>
> Microsoft is fighting the market tooth and nail. Trying to squeeze
> every possible dollar out of Vista as they can, using one last big
> extortion play. Ironically, this his triggered a rejection of Vista
> in the marketplace, with purchasers of new machines opting for XP
> instead. You can pretty much figure that any machine sold after
> Januarry 30th with XP instead of Vista - will ultimately become a
> Linux machine running Virtualized XP.
>
>>
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/expectations-mount-microsoft-forecast/story.aspx?guid=%7B0DB4CAAF-82F0-4AAD-AE4E-1738E4379E5E%7D
>> or http://tinyurl.com/ysoj4s
>
>> ,----[ Quotes with annotation ]
>> | "(Microsoft manager:) I don't like the fact that the report show us
>> | losing on TCO on webservers. I don't like the fact that the report show
>> | us losing on availability (windows was down more than linux). And I
>> | don't like the fact that the reports says nothing new is coming with
>> | windows .net server."
>> | [...]
>> | "I don't like it to be public on the doc that we sponsored it because I
>> | don't think the outcome is as favorable as we had hoped. I just don't
>> | like competitors using it as ammo against us. It is easier if it doesn't
>> | mention that we sponsored it."
>> `----
>> http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/9000/PX09695.pdf
>
> Ironically, this one letter could prove to be very damaging. For
> years Microsoft has tried to claim that they offer better TCO. Their
> "fast facts" is filled with speculative cases where someone who
> considered using Linux opted not to and listed a bunch of bogus
> expenses as their reason why Linux adoption would be too expensive.
> This letter shows that Microsoft had funded a study of actual
> migrations which showed that Linux had better TCO, and decided to not
> only bury the story (or at least withdraw their name from the report
> making it an interesting study but with much less credibility and news
> coverage), but they also attempted to use much less reliable sources
> as marketing material in claims that Windows had better TCO than Linux
> or Unix. It was
>
> Of course, companies that did their own research, deployed Linux on
> some of their servers, and actually monitored procurement, support,
> training, and staffing costs, quickly found that Linux had much lower
> TCO, and much higher ROI. In fact, the biggest problem in tracking
> Linux projects was that the costs were so low, that they were often
> below the radar. For example if developers used Fedora or even SUSE
> SLED for development, and ported to a server, there were trivial
> support expenses ($1500/year), no "Client Access Licenses", unlimited
> users, and the servers were often machines that had originally been
> purchased for Windows. The newer server was configured with Windows
> to maximize performance for the expensive licenses, the older servers
> were converted to Linux rather than being recycled externally. Linux
> also came with all the goodies needed to create a fully functional
> server or gateway to high-end UNIX databases and legacy systems.
The TCO memo is one that I have plantered in many sites that mentioned Get
the Facts campaigns. These still show up on a daily basis. What better
rebuttal would there be then Microsoft's own frustrated tone? Let alone the
cheating...
> Even the labor costs were lower, because Linux administrators could
> script routine tasks, and usually also had the skills to assist with
> development efforts.
>
> Most companies who have actually made the transition from Windows to
> Linux on at least some of their systems, have reported real-world
> savings of 80% to 95% depending on the functions being performed.
> Migration to Linux desktop has also shown savings, but the savings are
> onlly 70% to 85%, essentially the total of all costs is 1/3 to 1/6
> that of Windows. I believe this does not include the costs and
> impacts of viruses and malware, which would make Linux 1/10th to
> 1/20th the cost.
Sorry I don't reply more often. I read everything though.
--
~~ Greetings
Roy S. Schestowitz | Play Othello: http://othellomaster.com
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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