06.27.08
Microsoft: Interoperability? Us?!?! Come Back and Try Again Next Year… or Decade
Some things never change. Such is the nature of the serial monopoly abuser, whose compliance with government orders is likely to be come roughly a decade late — at which point the output becomes outdated and irrelevant anyway.
Microsoft promises to deliver interoperability documents by March 2009
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Whatever. It has taken Microsoft many years and it still can’t - or, rather, won’t - provide documentation that it must already have internally?
Microsoft also promised to deliver Longhorn (Vista) in 2003. This endless, tedious game which involves Microsoft and the United States government is one of a scorpion and a frog. Guess which one is the frog? The complaints just keep on coming.
Microsoft Corp was criticized on Tuesday for being slow to resolve problems in the technical documentation it was required to provide to rival software makers as part of its 2001 antitrust settlement.
“2001 antitrust settlement,” eh? Well, if Microsoft’s procrastination-riddled schedules are anything to go by, then “March 2009″ might as well mean “March 2011″. Only a decade to comply? Not too bad, if that ever becomes a reality at all. █
“I am convinced we have to use Windows – this is the one thing they don’t have. We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more — Windows integration.”
–Jim Allchin, Microsoft
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.