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[News] [Rival] Microsoft's Gangster Behaviour Puts It in Top 10

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Top ten unlucky IT incidents

,----[ Quote ]
| Iain Thomson: In 2001 things looked good for British firm Sendo.
| 
| The company was doing development on mobile platforms and signed a contract 
| with Microsoft to build the first handset for Microsoft's upcoming smartphone 
| operating system. This looked to be a cash cow.  
| Advertisement
| 
| Microsoft bought a stake in the company and a seat on the board and the two 
| worked on the development of the Stinger' Z100 smartphone, which was eagerly 
| awaited by press and public. But then deadlines got missed, then missed again 
| and the company announced the deal was off.   
| 
| Shortly afterwards HTC announced it would produce the first Microsoft 
| smartphones and Windows Mobile was born, albeit with some major revisions 
| along the way.  
| 
| Microsoft and Sendo got into a legal battle over the ins and outs of the 
| situation and signed a deal ending the affair in 2004 and the Brummie boys 
| and girls were shortly swallowed by Motorola.  
| 
| A friend of mine still has one of only two Z100 Stringers that ever made it 
| into private hands. It worked perfectly for many years and was a favourite 
| phone of his before being superseded.  
| 
| I just can't help feeling that Sendo's staff might have wanted to bolt the 
| doors when Microsoft came calling. 
| 
| Shaun Nichols: We could probably build a top ten list just from the names of 
| companies that have been done in by Microsoft. This one is also an example of 
| just how unforgiving the IT industry can be, particularly a fast-growing 
| market such as smartphones.   
| 
| Sendo is also an example of how some of the coolest products can often be 
| sent to the scrap heap through no fault of their own. Sometimes politics, 
| bean-counting or just plain bad luck can do an otherwise promising technology 
| in.   
`----

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2236488/top-ten-unlucky-incidents?page=1


Recent:

Microsoft and Salesforce bounce open-source competitors from events

,----[ Quote ]
| At last year's EduCause conference, an inside source tells me, Microsoft
| refused to sponsor the conference unless the conference organizers denied
| Zimbra the opportunity to take a big, prominent booth at the event.
`----

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10083672-16.html


Related:

"Then, they fight you"

,----[ Quote ]
| I asked the organizers if our Free Software Group could hold a short session
| about the benefits of FOSS in education, with references to Ubuntu, Edubuntu
| and Kiwilinux and we were given a slot after the ones which had already been
| planned a while ago - those of Microsoft, Cisco and a local company that
| sells education software for Romanian schools.
|
| [...]
|
| That was two days ago but yesterday we were notified that the Microsoft
| representative in charge with the education strategy had requested the
| organizers to pull the Ubuntu presentation because it is ‘unfair competition’
| to hold such a presentation at an event sponsored by them. They are indeed
| co-sponsors but the conference is organized by the Ministry of Education and
| its local office, and is being held on the premises of a public University.
|
| It is sad to know they are resorting to this sort of coercing and that they
| have such influence over the educators but looking on the bright side of it,
| and that's how I perceived it after thinking a bit about it, THEY ARE
| SCARED :)
`----

http://janimo.blogspot.com/2008/05/then-they-fight-you.html
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