11.19.08
More Information About Microsoft’s and Intel’s Crimes Against Customers
“LH [Longhorn/Vista] is a pig and I don’t see any solution to this problem. If we are to rise to the challenge of Linux…”
–Jim Allchin, Microsoft
AT RISK of seeming repetitive, here is some new information about the collusion that we previously covered in:
- William Poole of NComputing (Formerly Microsoft) Blamed in the Big Collusion
- Might Steve Ballmer be Deposed for Collusion After All?
- The Return of Vista Collusions: Will Ballmer be Deposed Soon?
- What We Can Learn About Novell from Intel-Microsoft-Dell-Hewlett-Packard Collusions
This is not a sole incident. A recent (and therefore more memorable) example is the OLPC fiasco. Here are some more unsealed correspondences where Microsoft’s nervousness is showing.
E-mails show Microsoft’s internal reaction to Walt Mossberg column
[...]
“You also won’t have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer’s Macintosh computers, which don’t run Windows,” Mossberg wrote. “Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger, is better and much more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista.”
Steve Ballmer is trying to distance himself from this crime, but he and his company seem to have granted Intel billions of dollars at the expense of consumers (and maybe OEMs). This was done knowingly and deliberately.
What did Ballmer know and when did he know it?
That’s arguably the biggest question in the Microsoft “Vista Capable” class-action lawsuit being heard by a federal judge in a Seattle court. Documents unsealed last Thursday imply that the Microsoft CEO was in on the decision two years ago to lower technical requirements for its Vista operating system as a favor to chipmaker Intel, which pressured the software giant to slap “Vista Capable” stickers on PCs with Intel 915 chipsets, hardware that lacked the firepower to run the full Vista feature set.
Intel allegedly stood to lose “billions” of dollars if Microsoft stuck to its original specs because the chipmaker would have been stuck with a whole bunch of the Vista-inadequate 915s. And while Microsoft’s concern for Intel’s quarterly earnings results was touching in that corporate bottom-line kind of way, the impact on consumers was less than heart-warming.
Over at Groklaw, Pamela Jones adds: “You know what I can’t help wondering about? Does this in any way impact the EU antitrust investigation of Intel? If I were AMD, I’d surely be paying close attention.”
By selling people the false impression that Vista 7 [sic] is lighter than Vista (it’s not [1, 2]), Microsoft may be setting itself for similar lawsuits in the future. Vapourware can be crime. █
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.
twitter said,
November 19, 2008 at 9:42 am
A more interesting anti-trust question that should be raised here is why Vista did not work with Intel’s 915 graphics chip sets. Intel released GPL’d driver code for their graphics chips and they work reasonably well with free software. That they don’t work with Vista is most likely a deliberate sabotage of Intel and free software. I see this as attempt to drive Intel out of the market for daring to do once for free software what everyone is forced to do for M$ all the time. That billions of dollars worth of hardware that would not work with Vista was sold to unwitting victims is a smaller piece of the Vista rip off because almost no hardware worked with Vista on launch and they still have up to 10% install failure rates.