____/ Linonut on Saturday 20 October 2007 16:49 : \____
> October 19, 2007 8:42 AM PDT
> More states join call for extra Microsoft policing
> Posted by Anne Broache
>
> Updated at 4:00 p.m. PDT: In something of a surprise move, four state
> attorneys general who previously praised the effectiveness of
> Microsoft's antitrust settlement with the feds said they're not ready
> to see five years of oversight wind down just yet.
>
> In a nine-page court filing with U.S. District Judge Colleen
> Kollar-Kotelly on Thursday, officials in New York, Maryland,
> Louisiana and Florida said they were joining a group of six states,
> led by California and the District of Columbia, in calling for
> dragging out oversight on Redmond until 2012.
>
> Also mentions some Microsoft Ass-Dragging:
>
> At issue is a 2002 consent decree with the Bush administration, most
> of which is scheduled to expire next month. One small portion,
> related to a communications protocol licensing program that has
> encountered numerous delays since its inception, has already been
> extended through November 2009.
>
> This is funny:
>
> The latest filing discusses what the attorneys general call the
> "indisputably resilient" monopoly that Microsoft holds in the
> operating system realm. They say they are "mindful" that Windows'
> approximately 90 percent market share in client operating systems is
> not the only test for how successful the antitrust agreement has
> been. But, they add, "the absence of meaningful erosion in Windows'
> market share is still problematic for the public interest."
>
> Because of those concerns and Microsoft's "well-known difficulties"
> in complying with other portions of the consent decree, specifically
> a server protocol licensing section, it's appropriate for the
> oversight period to cover a full decade, as is typical of antitrust
> consent decrees, the New York group argues.
>
> I wonder if there's a patent on Microsoft ass-dragging?
>
> Or maybe it has already been patent by the Bush-driven Justice
> Department.
>
> I find it very strange that the vast majority just don't seem to care
> about a desktop-computing monopoly, even in the face of extraordinarily
> shoddy products.
The Bush Admin can turn a blind eye, but the Dutch are fed up.
Leaked price information about Windows Vista: 'only' 723 dollar...
,----[ Quote ]
| Today Microsoft leaked information about the upcoming Vista release
| in Europe. Windows Vista Ultimate Edition will be sold for 'only' $ 723
`----
http://digg.com/tech_news/Leaked_price_information_about_Windows_Vista_only_723_dollar
Months later:
Dutch Consumer Association declares war on Vista
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/10/13/dutch_consumer_association_declares_war/
For completeness (Bush link):
Microsoft Paid Lobbyist $160,000
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Paid Paid Bingham McCutchen $160,000 to Lobby Federal Gov't in
| First Half of 2007
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070905/microsoft_lobbying.html?.v=1
Why Microsoft deserved to lose the OOXML standards vote
,----[ Quote ]
| 1. Lobbying is legal. But certain lobbying tactics are not. Microsoft
| officials admitted that one of the company’s employees behaved
| inappropriately in Sweden,
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=694
Microsoft Finds Legal Defender in Justice Dept.
,----[ Quote ]
| Nearly a decade after the government began its landmark effort to break
| up Microsoft, the Bush administration has sharply changed course by
| repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad
| against accusations of anticompetitive conduct, including the recent
| rejection of a complaint by Google.
|
| [...]
|
| In the most striking recent example of the policy shift, the top
| antitrust official at the Justice Department last month urged state
| prosecutors to reject a confidential antitrust complaint filed by
| Google that is tied to a consent decree that monitors Microsoft's
| behavior. Google has accused Microsoft of designing its latest
| operating system, Vista, to discourage the use of Google's desktop
| search program, lawyers involved in the case said.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/business/10microsoft.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Software rivals say Microsoft's Vista illegal in Europe
,----[ Excerpt ]
| Software manufacturers, citing 2004 European Commission finding,
| contend the operating system violates server laws in Europe.
`----
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/26/news/international/bc.vista.microsoft.eu.reut/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote
US politicians go to bat for Microsoft
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/26/microsoft_eu_political_lobbying/
Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
,----[ Quote ]
| E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often
| with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt
| status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build
| support among conservatives for legislation or government action
| sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company
| DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman,
| maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.
`----
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889.html
http://tinyurl.com/y2rbpu
Politicians in Microsoft's Pocket
,----[ Quote ]
| Continuing on the theme of which politicians are receiving money from
| who. Here is a list of candidates who took money from MSFT.
`----
http://www.fonz.net/blog/archives/2007/06/04/politicians-in-microsofts-pocket/
Politics and tech companies: follow the money
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft took first place with $651,100 given out, while
| Hewlett-Packard gave only $185,550, and Gateway gave a paltry
| $2,000. Microsoft's donations certainly illustrate well the true
| size of the company and the extent of its political concerns.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061110-8194.html
Latest INCITS Voting Results on OOXML; JTC1 Vote Begins to be Stacked
,----[ Quote ]
| The government decided to vote together, and to follow NIST (Homeland
| Security had voted in favor of approval in the previous ballot), so DoD fell
| in line as well. NIST, you may recall, is an agency of the Department of
| Commerce (as I reported Steve Ballmer personally called the Secretary of the
| DOC to urge this result). GS1is a technical association.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2007082413463944
Microsoft Looks for the Big Guns in OOXML In-Fighting
,----[ Quote ]
| Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense
| and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards
| Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote "yes" on
| ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in
| competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.
|
| Gates reportedly picked up the phone when the last INCITS ballot failed by
| one vote to support Microsoft.
`----
http://xml.sys-con.com/read/419573_p.htm
,----[ Quote ]
| "Sadly, many of these brilliant people have been blinded by the stock
| price and unable to see that Microsoft is also the key architect of
| the greatest financial pyramid scheme this century.
|
| It is not uncommon for participants in pyramid schemes to lose their
| emotional bearings. My close friends who work at Microsoft are
| particularly upset over my work and it is possible that even Bill
| Gates and Steve Ballmer do not realize the implications of their
| financial practices."
`----
http://www.billparish.com/msftfraudfacts.html
,----[ Quote ]
| "As with all pyramid schemes, it is important to get as close to tier
| 1 as possible. From a practical standpoint, usually only tiers 1 and 2
| will derive significant long-term economic rewards from such schemes."
|
| "Microsoft has clearly entered a phase of self destructive behavior
| that began with the "tissue paper campaign" in 1995. This report will
| document this campaign for the first time."
`----
http://reactor-core.org/microsoft-pyramid.html
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Roughly 2% of your keyboard is O/S-specific
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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