Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> High Plains Thumper on Tuesday:
>
>> http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2118681/microsoft-
>> convicted-software-piracy
>>
>> or http://tinyurl.com/2xcpvk
>>
>> Microsoft convicted of software piracy
>>
>> James Middleton, vnunet.com 09 May 2002
>>
>> [quote]
>> Microsoft was found guilty of software piracy last year by a French
>> court, according to facts unearthed today by the geek community.
>>
>> But the Redmond giant's conviction and three million franc (£285,000)
>> fine somehow managed to escape the headlines. In fact, until today the
>> only place the story has appeared is in French newspaper Le Monde
>> Informatique.
>>
>> <SNIP>
>>
>> The software giant said that it would appeal against the decision, but
>> the strange thing is why the story remained in obscurity until now.
>> [/quote]
>
> Ouch. That's nasty. How about this one?
>
> http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/WINXP_anticompetitive_study.PDF
>
> [quote]
> The New Challenge: “Windows XP/.NET”
>
> These findings are especially critical because Microsoft is in the
> process of rolling out the most aggressive bundle of products in its
> history – an operating system (Windows XP) with a host of embedded
> applications (browser, messenger, media player) that is intertwined with
> a wide array of Internet services (Hailstorm and the .NET initiative).
> The bundle covers all of the functionalities that are converging on the
> Internet including:
>
> • Communications: E-Mail (Hotmail), Messaging (Microsoft Messenger)
> • Commerce: Identity Verification (Passport—names and addresses),
> Utilities (e.g. Calendars, Contact Lists), Transactions (e.g. documents,
> payment records)
> • Multimedia Applications: Music and Video (Media Player 8), Digital
> Photography (My Pictures)
> • Internet Services: MSN
>
> Today these Internet activities are vigorously competitive, just as the
> browser was before Microsoft launched its monopolistic assault, but
> Microsoft requires computer manufacturers to buy all of “Windows
> XP/.NET”, and laces the bundle with technological and business
> practices that have already been ruled illegal by the courts, such as
> the following:
>
> • commingled code,
> • proprietary languages,
> • exclusive functionalities promoted by restrictive licenses, •
> refusal to support competing applications, ii • embedded links, and
> • deceptive messages.
> [/quote]
I found this on Page 14 (PDF page 20). Footnotes have been enclosed in
added parenthesis, to differentiate from the text:
[quote]
Subverting competing software: In a repeat of past actions against
competing software, Windows XP will not fully support critical
applications from competing suppliers while it promotes Microsoft’s
proprietary offerings.(115) In other words, the operating system is being
manipulated to make competing software less attractive.(116)
Windows media player will not fully support RealPlayer format.(117)
Windows media player will not support ripping of MP3 format.(118) In other
words, if you want to record music, you must use Microsoft’s WMA format.
(119) Content (music and videos) created in Microsoft formats, WMA for
audio and WMF for video will not play on competing players.(120)
Microsoft’s digital rights management programs are bundled with
“Windows XP/.NET.”(121) Taken together this is a comprehensive campaign
to use the operating system to make it difficult to use competing
formats.(122) [/quote]
What is startling is the footnotes, here is a sample, starting at No. 122
on Page 31 (PDF page 37):
[quote]
122 The forced upgrade cycle plays a key role here. By desupporting
competing software and driving consumers to new machines, Microsoft erases
the installed-base of its competitors.
Buckman, Rebecca, “A Titan’s Power – Potent Program: With its Old
Playbook, Microsoft is Muscling Into New Web Markets using Aggressive
Bundling, It Roils High-Tech World with Windows Overhaul Some Gains for
Consumers,” Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2001
Music is another battleground. Microsoft announced earlier this year
that the latest version of its Windows Media Player, which lets people
listen to music and watch videos on the Web, will work only with Windows
XP and not with older versions of the operating system. Mitch Kapor, the
founder of onetime rival Lotus Development Corp., calls that a “forced
March to upgrade.”
123 Klein, Alec, “Microsoft, AOL Clashed Over Media Player,”
Washington Post, June 21, 2001, describes Microsoft efforts to impose
contractual conditions that restrict the ability of competitors to be
visible or reach the marketplace, which parallel quite closely the
conditions targeted at the browser.
In one proposal, Microsoft wanted to prevent AOL online subscribers
from using RealNetworks’ RealPlayers software in Windows XP. “any
third party code or functionality shall not be in a form accessible or
utilizable by other applications or consent,” states a Microsoft draft
dated June 14.
After a conference call with Microsoft engineers that day, an AOL
software engineer wrote an email to an AOL negotiator that Microsoft’s
proposal was meant “to prevent the user from using the standalone
RealPlayer when the player is installed by AOL.”
That would have required AOL to “hide Real’s program file
folder” and other icons that link the consumer to RealPlayer, according
to the e-mail….
As part of the negotiations, the Redmond, Wash., software maker also
wanted AOL to guarantee that 50 percent of the music and audio content
played on the AOL Internet service in Windows XP would be done through the
Windows format, according to source close to AOL.
124 Vaughn, Steven, “Resisting The WTheindows XP Message,” ZDNet, May 9,
2001; Smart Partner ZDWire, May 8, 2001,
125 Klein, Alec, “Microsoft, AOL Clashed Over Media Player,”
Washington Post, June 21, 2001; Buckman, Rebecca, “A Titan’s Power –
Potent Program: With its Old Playbook, Microsoft is Muscling Into New Web
Markets using Aggressive Bundling, It Roils High-Tech World with Windows
Overhaul Some Gains for Consumers,” Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2001.
Microsoft has written support for Passport and the Widows Media
audio-video format into business contracts. Microsoft says support for
those services is simply an option, though some companies report they are
feeling pressure for Microsoft to adopt the services…
Match.com and Tutor.com, which provide content to MSN such as online
matchmaking and homework help, say Microsoft has asked them to adopt the
Passport service. It was a “requirement,” says Tutor.com’s director
of business development.
Markoff, John, “Break in Talks Between AOL and Microsoft,” June 17,
2001,
“Tremendous progress had been made between AOL and Time Warner and
Microsoft, but ultimately the talks broke down over an issue unrelated to
AOL and Microsoft per se,” said John Buckley, an AOL corporate vive
president. “The issue was Microsoft’s determination that it be in a
position to control digital media on the Internet, and we could not
acquiesce to that ambition….”
AOL officials said Microsoft had objected to AOL continuing to use
RealPlayer, including the issue of the stability of the program running
with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.
126 Wilcox, Joe, “Windows XP Could See September Ship Date, CNET
News.com, August 7, 2001.
127 Wong, Wylie and Robert Lemos, “HailStorm Still Thunders in the
Distance,” ZDNet News, August 30, 2001,
Whether it’s a case of purposeful confusion or of real ambiguity
about how to proceed with the project, Microsoft’s comments offer fodder
to critics who have accused the company of preannouncing HailStorm as a
marketing poly to freeze its competitor’s initiatives…
Critics say Microsoft is falling back on a familiar strategy –
spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (or FUD) – to convince consumers
to wait for its products rather than buy from the competition.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer tossed out the idea of
HailStorm during a press conference nearly two years ago. And in March,
Microsoft formally announced the HailStorm initiative.
Swisher, Kara, “Microsoft Charts New Course, But is it the Right
Approach?” Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2001,
Hailstorm [.NET] still smacks of the same tone of previous fights over
Intuit, MSN and browsers. Then, as now, the company appears to have tried
to declare victory long before the battle, scaring everyone with bogeyman
tactics and a Windows centric attitude.
128, EPIC Complaint, 38, 47-51; Lohr, Steve, “Privacy Group Is Taking
Issue With Microsoft,” New York Times, July 25, 2001.
129 “Microsoft: How It Became Stronger Than Ever,” BusinessWeek, June
4, 2001,
Because of the software maker’s incredible distribution power,
opponents fear that Microsoft will be able to turn it into the ubiquitous
payment and identity-authentication system on the Net. Microsoft already
boasts 160 million Passport accounts. Although many of those are
duplicates, this base of 32 customers will only get bigger, since 160
million new Windows PCs are expected to convince Web-site owners that they
out to accept Passport. That, in turn, will trigger more consumers to sign
up – the type of powerful cycle that winds up creating monopolies.
130 Tribble, Bud, Smart Partner, April 24, 2001,
Think about single sign-on and the Web. To play in .NET, who has to
have a contract signed with Microsoft? The end user does, the service
provider probably does. It puts Microsoft in a very central point of
control.
131 Gardner, Dana, Network World, April 16, 2001,
Microsoft is injecting its own service between corporate Web sites and
their customers. The question is, if I run a Web site, do I want Microsoft
to be between me and my customers?
132 Le Tocq, Chris, Forbes.com, April 10, 2001,
Microsoft wants to be the driver’s license issue of the Web. They
want everyone to pay them $10 per month to drive. And with this [.NET]
architecture, they are rewriting the Internet in the way they feel it
should have been written in the first place
“Microsoft: How It Became Stronger Than Ever,” BusinessWeek, June 4,
2001,
That puts Microsoft in the position, if it wants, to charge online
merchants a fee for its Passport service. Although the company now denies
that’s the plan, its executives in the past talked about collecting fees
for every e-commerce transaction.
The goal of collecting on every transaction had been articulated early on
in Microsoft’s thinking about the Web. Wall street Journal, June 5,
1997. “Nathan Myrhvold, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, confirms
Microsoft’s hopes to get a ‘vig,’ or vigorish, on every transaction
over the Internet that uses Microsoft’s technology, though he says in
some cases Microsoft’s share could come from a one-time licensing
fee.”
133 “Wired, March 21, 2001,
By definition, if they are saying the operating system will become an
online service, they are leveraging their OS monopoly into brand new
areas. They will take control of the consumer, from the moment he turns on
his brand new computer shipped to him by an OEM, and will be hand-in-hand
with that consumer through every action he or she takes on the Internet
forever.
134 Buckman, Rebecca, and Julia Angwin, “Microsoft, AOL Battle on
Windows XP, Talks on Online Deal Falter As Software Maker Plans
Instant-Message Feature,” Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2001,
America Online and other Microsoft competitors have also complained
about Windows XP’s connection to Passport, an online-identity service
that Microsoft wants to use s a gateway to a raft of other, planned
Internet services. New users of Windows XP will be prompted to sign up for
a Passport account; if they don’t they will be asked two more times,
Microsoft Product Manager Greg Sullivan said. Users must have a Passport
to use Windows Messenger, the new instant-messaging service that will be
bolted to Widows XP.
135 EPIC, Complaint, 40; Coursey, David, “.NET Demystified: What You
Must Know About MS’s Software Scheme,” ZDNet, March 20, 2001,
Microsoft Wants to Know Everything: the information in you user
profile, address, and applications settings, what devices you use,
what’s in all your documents; your favorite Web sites; where you are at
any given moment; your credit card numbers and payment information; the
content of your personal calendar, contact list, and e-mail box; and
probably a few things I’ve left out.
136 Building User-Centric Experiences: An Introduction to Microsoft
Hailstorm, Microsoft March 2001.
137 Rosenberg, Scott, Salon.com, March 28th, 2001,
The Microsoft “control room becomes a classic “single point of
failure” – an Achilles heel that, once pierced, would give an
electronic trespasser uniquely comprehensive access to your pre-assembled
data profile.
Stiennon, Richard, Seattle Times, April 8, 2001,
They’re the most attacked infrastructure there is on the Internet;
they’re the No. 1 target for hackers. For Microsoft to take the step of
having a centralized repository of information, a login or whatever it is,
is something that Gartner clients won’t be advised to do.
[/quote]
Hailstorm is the code word for ".NET". IMHO, the anti-competitive acts
continue, even through the thin veneer of Linux suppliers signing peace
treaties. You will not see Microsoft providing Office 2007 for Linux.
The EU has not been impressed with this behemoth's continued practises
that affect the European software industry.
--
HPT
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