On Aug 10, 2:43 pm, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> "Microsoft is well-versed in the use of vaporware tactics
> to dampen interest in the products of its competitors.
> Microsoft’s use of vaporware traces back to the very origins
> of the company, when Bill Gates informed MITS the
Vaporware is a polite Euphemism for fraud. Telling someone that you
have a product for sale, which you don't actually have, for the
purpose of getting them to commit to a product other than the one
advertised or announced, is fraud.
It's also referred to as "Bait and Switch".
Microsoft evades FTC scrutiny because their customers, at least 99% of
them, are OEMs and large corporate IT departments. The FTC presumes
that these corporate interests are intelligent enough to make their
own decisions. For the most part, consumer protection laws only kick
in for licenses purchased directly by consumers through retail or
direct order (mail order or web order) channels.
> When Microsoft
> entered into the Consent Decree with the DOJ in 1994, Judge
> Sporkin refused to enter it based on the DOJ’s refusal to
> address Microsoft’s rampant vaporware practices. See United
> States v. Microsoft, 159 F.R.D. 318, 334-36 (D.D.C. 1995),
> rev’d, 56 F.3d 1448 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (finding district court
> to have exceeded permissible scope of review)."
IIRC, there were three attempts to get judges to accept toothless
agreements with Microsoft, and it was eventually Thomas Penfield
Jackson who accepted a DOJ/Microsoft settlement, only to find out 4
years later, that he couldn't enforce a contempt order, because
Microsoft decided to present new "facts" during the appeal process.
Even though the appeals court should not have accepted the new facts,
or should have remanded to the district court, they decided to, in
effect, nullify the entire settlement, permitting Microsoft to bundle
with impunity, and still protecting Microsoft's sealed testimony. In
effect, the Appeals court legislated from the bench to give Microsoft
Carte Blanche.
> http://boycottnovell.com/2008/08/10/injuries-to-industry-vaporware/
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