07.16.07
Antitrust Trailer and Making Money from Rivals’ Sales
I’ve just noticed that the Antitrust trailer was recently uploaded to YouTube. It’s a little off topic, but have a quick look.
This trailer contains some striking resemblances that are possibly deliberate. Also see this full antitrust documentary which isn’t the work of fiction or a tale. It happens to talk about Microsoft, but it also talks about tactics where a company collects revenue from sales made by its direct competitor. It happens to be history’s lesson and that sad history appears to be repeating itself.
Are (re)oganisational remedies looming? MarketWatch suggests this might be imminent and inevitable due to complexity, not just antitrust concerns.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Eric Gearhart said,
October 5, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Yes it’s been pointed out elsewhere that Antitrust itself and especially the CEO of NERV are direct jabs at Gates/Ballmer & Microsoft. MS will always be paranoid about “a kid in a garage” taking them out of business… or in a more real sense a bunch of Unix/Linux hackers taking them out of business.
I especially liked the “testimony in front of Congress” where they talk about abusive monopolies…