The article
referred to mentions it in several paragraphs, although it doesn’t
feature it. When more information becomes available, I’ll post it as
attachments.

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2146359,00.html

In a statement of the American Association of University Professors we find:

Society
is the beneficiary of unrestricted research,’ AAUP Counsel Jonathan
Alger says. ‘We all stand to lose if scholars are forced to disclose
confidential information,’ he reports, ‘because, as stated in AAUP?s
1990 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the common
good is served by the ‘free search for truth and its free exposition.’
Courts have recognized that research is protected as an element of
academic freedom.

You can find the full statement here:
http://www.aaup.org/pr102ms.htm

The
usual pro-Microsoft bias of the NYT is reflected in the “disclaimer” at
the end of the article that ascribes all the good of the software
industry to Microsoft.

See: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/10/biztech/articles/08microsoft.html

(You’ll need to register to gain access.)

Actually, Microsoft’s claims were rather ridiculous,
as they claimed that these notes were supposed to contradict the DOJ’s
case by showing that bad business decisions at Netscape are the root of
the falling market share. This is pretty much like calling in an expert
on cancer explaining that the smoking of the victim could have been
mortal, so we shouldn’t attribute his death to the bullet.

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27313,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh

See: http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/log/

This is what we see in several states at this moment,
where Microsoft is dumping its Office Suite through education officials
to gain market share at universities.

NetAction’s Nathan Newman (read his papers!) wrote an article about the matter: http://www.netaction.org/monitor/mon35.html

Jesse Berst refers to several alternatives in his “Why breaking up Microsoft is hard to do — and stupid too”:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2634.html
Note that one of his arguments is that breaking up takes too long.

One of his references is a reprint of the SPA proposal (now where did I have the original):
http://www.zdnet.com/sr/breaking/980406/980408c.html

What
is most notable is that more voices are heard in the press that at
least something must be done. Microsoft’s claims that its competitors
were the driving force behind the whole antitrust case is beginning to
lose its credibility.

You can find Microsoft’s article here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/10-7pricing.htm

My annotation is here: http://main.billwatch.net/annotated/price_critics.html

The reason
why this side allows one to attach quotes is the following: they are
relatively simply to retrieve when requested. When the government went
to court with its request, Microsoft’s spokesperson Mark Murray’s
comment was:

“We have cooperated 100 percent in the government
investigation and we will continue to do whatever we can to assist
because we think the facts are on our side.”

Given judge
Jackson’s evaluation of what Microsoft’s “cooperation” consisted of, we
can say that Mr. Murray misinformed us about the degree of cooperation
that Microsoft gave to the government. The reflects negatively on the
credibility of Mr. Murray.

You can find the article at:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2147440,00.html

First of all, four
gigabytes is the amount of harddisk storage that is available on my
personal computer. One can get it for some $150. I guess the
$200,000,000,000+ company is not complaining about that.

What
remains is inability. Perhaps the documents are scattered and Microsoft
is unable to write search scripts to retrieve them. Or they are unable
to port the databases and/or the access programs to a new harddisk.
Anyway, Microsoft’s present claim implies a claim that they are not up
to the task of handling enterprise data. If they can’t deal with 4Gig
data despite their “100% cooperation” one had better not believe that
they are ready to deal with enterprise level databases.

See: http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/msftdoj/TWB19981009S0014

We
are told that Mr. Gates is returning to his “programmer-geek roots”. It
doesn’t strike the New York Times as odd that Mr. Gates has had the
financial opportunity to do this for many years now and that this move
coincides with the present antitrust lawsuit during which Microsoft
seeks to create the image that they are so obsessed with product
quality that they don’t notice the market.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gates’
“geek-thoughts” seem to center on the destruction of the last
independent software companies in the world: IBM, Oracle, Sun and
Netscape, actually companies that aim primarily at hardware and
services. Mobile phone companies that don’t subject themselves to
Microsoft in a market in which it enters as a new player are considered
a “threat” by Mr. Gates.

And do we find the slightest indication
that Mr. Gates will actually focus on technology? Nope. Apparently, the
New York Times is a very gullible publication.

See: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/docs/076526.htm

What
is interesting is not so much the filing or the gist of the matter, but
rather Microsoft’s opting out of the English language:

“This
is just the latest confirmation that the government is walking away
from the case it filed and seeking to expand that case by introducing
extraneous issues.”

To me “walking away” seems like
“abandoning”. What is so strange is the Microsoft is at the same time
claiming that the government is “walking away” from its original case
and “expanding” it. The latter implies that they maintain their earlier
position which contradicts the “walking away”.

From the fact
that two new witnesses were added to the governments’ case, Microsoft
concludes that the case is expanded and that they should therefore be
granted another delay until 2 November. This is a strange argument: if
the witnesses have nothing to say that is pertinent to the case, their
testimonies will be without value to the DOJ. On the other hand, if
their testimony is pertinent to the case, Microsoft could have prepared
for them without knowing who they were, as they were able to prepare
for everything that is pertinent to the case. What could Microsoft
gain, except the delay that allows them to continue their monopolistic
abuses?

See: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/10-12objects.htm

(The
navigation is non-intuitive: there are no “next” buttons so you’ll have
to use the “menu” - if it is too long to you taste, make sure that you
don’t skip the last page.)

See: http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,358663,00.html

Another
article reports that the EU is still looking into Microsoft’s contracts
with ISP’s and is most certainly not going to look beyond that anytime
soon. See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27465,00.html?st.ne.ni.lh

Don’t waste your time on these articles, expect if you are European and starved for news.

Of
course, I started reading Linus Torvald’s comment first and found him a
wise analyst of the present. Second I read Mitch Kapor’s and found him
a profet I pretty much agree with.

Well, I haven’t read the rest of the comments so far.

See for yourself: http://www.sjmercury.com/columnists/gillmor/docs/dg101198.htm

What
is strange is not that the DOJ seems to entertain such thoughts but
rather that so little of it is entertained. Why bother about the
lawsuit if no remedies are thought of? After all, if nobody can think
of a way to improve the present situation, then what is the lawsuit
good for? It’s about time that many minds consider how the structure of
the industry can be improved, if only to be able to appreciate its
present state.

Anyway, see:http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2148805,00.html

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2148075,00.html

Wrong.
Mr. Gates is presently touring the US to gain political support for
Microsoft as it is engaged in its antitrust case. Just like any other
politician he isn’t greeted with undivided acclaim.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctd639.htm

A
member of the public asked him to name the three most important
Microsoft innovations. Gates’ answers were rather bleak: Microsoft
decided to develop software according to common industry standards
(that is, they were chosen by IBM to represent the “industry
standard”); Windows NT was the first commercial software system
designed from scratch (is that why it is an innovation, how is Be
faring today?); furthermore, Microsoft seeks to let NT handle
high-volume transactions.

When Gartner analyst Scott Winkler
answered that all Microsoft was apparently doing was to use existing
technology and apply their own business model to it, Gates answered
that Microsoft pours a lot of money in the recognition of speech and
handwriting.

Results? No, but they pour money into R&D like mad.

See: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/docs/043659.htm

The reason why I mention this article
anyway is that it shows an important change of attitude in the press:
writers take the trouble to check on the facts to verify Microsoft’s
claims.

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_rc_display/0,3443,2148858,00.html

Microsoft’s request for yet another delay of the trial has been denied. See: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/docs/008672.htm

I think that these
conclusions are corroborated by Compaq’s intention to migrate Digital
customers to Windows NT, its unstated intention to fade out Digital’s
fast alpha processor, and HP’s move to Intel plus Microsoft. Actually,
HP is moving a research facility in Redmond. These companies are surely
not going to compete with Microsoft, so, who is?

See: http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19981013S0008

Microsoft also has developed an add-on to NT, NT Services for Unix, (SFU) that makes NT systems look more like Unix ones.

I say, if Microsoft is in the UNIX/NT integration business, are they not a direct competitor to Bristol?

See: http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/news/0,4538,2149485,00.html

——
Gates: “We
think it was a pretty obvious thing to get the browser capability built
into the operating system,” Gates said. We’re very confident that kind
of innovation is a great thing.”
Observation by James Jones: “Hmm, how can something obvious be innovative?”

They never
volunteer to give an explanation, so we must do our own research.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to look far as Boycott Microsoft’s
Mitch Stone has already compiled “The (nearly) whole Microsoft
Catalog”. Roy Bixler converted it from HTML to SQL and thus it ended up
in the database powering Billwatch.

The catalog gives us some
insight in the ways in which Microsoft obtains and markets its
products. Many products were simply purchased from startup companies
and looking at the list one can believe that WebTV and Windows CE are
going to make it through Microsoft’s investments in cable companies.

Mitch Stone wrote in his introduction to the catalog:
“Some
high technology companies may be burdened with the ‘not invented here’
syndrome, but Microsoft is obviously not one of them. Less the toiler
in the field, Microsoft may be more accurately pictured as playing the
part of the plantation owner, reaping a harvest based on what others
sow.”

You can find the page of “MS investments” under the
“Background” menu on the left. You might prefer, however, to look at
the Boycott Microsoft pages containing the catalog: they have a better
introduction, a list of credits (oops here), and are split in four
pages.
See: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog.html

Updates and rectifications are invited.

“Microsoft
counsel has continued to refuse to permit plaintiffs to see or retrieve
information in the specific databases identified in Plaintiffs Third
Joint Requests relating to certain core issues in this case — sales,
shipments, and pricing of Windows and Internet Explorer — if that
information does not happen to be labeled as “OEM transactions” in the
database.”

The media has been very low-key on the important
topic of database access. Therefore you are encouraged to read the
legal briefs instead (good reading actually):
The present emergency motion can be found at: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f1900/1989.htm

If you want to track what was requested in the first place, see: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f1900/1979.htm

And so it went out to
talk to just about every company that is labeled “OS vendor” to talk
about the criteria for integrating new features in operating systems,
specifically about integrating internet related features.

See Mary Jo Foley’s: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2150958,00.html

(Perhaps I should make a menu-button that leads to a “Mary Jo Foley” search at ZDNET.)

Ridiculing
their month-long resistence against access, Microsoft spokesperson Tom
Pilla told the press that access to these documents is “standard
procedure in these kinds of cases”.

I find access to the
AT&T case especially interesting, as AT&T’s lawsuit was similar
to that of Bristol Technology. AT&T settled with Microsoft on
conditions that were kept secret, but were rumored to be that AT&T
left the business in exchange for a sum of money.

Bristol’s lawyers will have to hurry as the trial is scheduled to end next Monday.

See yet another Mary Jo Foley article:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2150648,00.html

“I’d argue that the
Justice Department’s actions over the past several years have already
had a small but perceptible effect. Microsoft is as arrogant as ever in
responding to its critics, but it has been forced to modify some of the
more outrageous practices. More and more people are learning how
brutally the company conducts its business, meanwhile, and skeptical
public scrutiny is only just beginning.

Despite the torrent of
leaks in recent weeks, the antitrust trial is all but certain to
produce additional evidence of Microsoft’s core values — a culture of
brilliance that has been irreparably disfigured by casual disrespect
and skewed ethics, all emanating from the top of the organization
chart.”

When the press resumes its critical function like this,
I’ll happily close down this site and move to things that give me more
satisfaction.

For the full editorial, see: http://www.mercurycenter.com/columnists/gillmor/docs/dg101898.htm

The
first two sites had several articles but little news. ZDNet had Jesse
Berst’s brinkmanship of speculation, supporting Microsoft and at the
same time bargaining for freedom from Microsoft.

Cnnfn is the
best polished pro-Microsoft source that you will find. Unlike e.g.
ZDNet, Cnn’s technique consists not of spawning opinions, but of
selection and focusing. It writes its opinion pieces not by making
claims but by choosing which information to show and what to ignore.

So,
here is my little piece of advice. Don’t bother with the “middle man”.
Go to the sources directly, that is, the DOJ and Microsoft.

The most salient new
component of Windows98, the one thing aside from some driver updates
and bug fixes that differentiates it from Windows95, is Microsoft
Internet Explorer.

Will the ladies and gentlemen of the press
please note that - according to their own claims on OS pricing -
Microsoft is charging money for this MSIE “component” instead of giving
it away for free.

Similarly, nothing much will happen if Microsoft can no longer force OEM’s and ISP’s to ship their software exclusively.

The
antitrust suit might be a necessary condition for restoring the market,
but it will do nothing to actually change market shares. For that to
happen there must also be alternatives.

The following Salon Magazine article touches this topic:
http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/rose/1998/10/16straight.html

It is
surprising to see Microsoft in court defend regulatory measures against
Netscape’s formerly monopolistic market shares. Of course, market share
per se is not damaging to competition, so there was no call for
regulation. Microsoft’s strange logic suggests that competition in the
OS market could be stimulated by forbidding OEM’s to pre-install
Windows on their machines.

Microsoft’s less-is-more arithmetic saying that consumers are given more choice is choice is limited is outrageous.

So
how is Microsoft going to win this case if their lead attorney utters
plain absurdities? Well, by playing the martyr, by saying that the bad
boys say that they are the “great Satan”.

Well, go find yourself some context to put the above in perspective. I got this information from: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/trial/breaking/docs/mstrial102098.htm

After a stimulating discussion, the panel adjourned without specifying when they would make a decision.

See: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/trial/breaking/docs/depositions102098.htm

In English I found only a very short Computerworld announcement:
http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/CWFlash/9810121msoft

The
mentioned “expected” date has meanwhile passed and it seems that the
suit is indeed filed. I can’t read Italian, but the following page
seems quite serious about “IACT-Italia vs Microsoft”: http://www.ogcs.com/iact-italia/sources/iact-ric.html

Richard Barton, the general manager of Expedia, says: “It’s very disconcerting. How can we compete?”

After
some lobbying “Microsoft and others” got the Department of
Transportation to investigate whether or not they suffer from
heavy-handed competition.

The Air Transport Association
commented - among other points - that these online booking services
compete directly with the websites of some of the airlines. Why would
they raise the commission to the competition?

I was clueless on how to
start, but CPT’s James Love wrote the following to a mailing list and I
guess it would suit his purpose if it is reproduced:

“If someone
lives in Europe, they can make a written complaint to Directorate
General IV in Brussels, asking for an antitrust action. There is a
formal proceeding that DG IV has to follow. The web address for DG IV
is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg04/index_en.htm

These guys are supposed to work for the public. File a complaint and ask that they work for you.”

MS announced record profits of $1.52 billion for the most recently ended quarter, and predicts stronger 2Q earnings.

More here:
http://www.zdii.com/industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE203195

See the article in the “features” menu with the title “Intentions without incentive”.

Of course, the comparison is
invalid as one element is excluded: Microsoft’s Windows monopoly.
Netscape merely sought a monopoly to leverage it, while Microsoft
actually has one to leverage.

Netscape’s market share has
meanwhile dropped below the monopoly mark so no antitrust action is
necessary against them. Windows’ market share is only growing while it
is being used as a means to acquire increasing shares of other markets.

Microsoft’s
present questioning of Mr. Barksdale is not relevant to the matter for
which Microsoft is in court: they have a monopoly and leveraged it to
gain market share in several other markets. Nothing that Netscape did
or did not do can undo that.

Even in court, Microsoft’s strategy to victory seems to be to give rude names to anybody who disagrees with them.

Microsoft
claims that these agreements make up an increasing percentage of their
revenues, “though not a meaningful percentage”. This seems to be their
way to refer publicly to one third of their revenues, that is, more
than they get from the shrink-wrapped packages you find so prominently
in every computer store.

See Mary Jo Foley’s: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_rc_display/0,3443,2153066,00.html

Computer
magazines have no special competence for dealing with the economical
vocabulary and are therefore not the place to look for good coverage of
the antitrust case.

As I was earlier presently surprised by
Businessweek’s ability to analyse matters, I can now warmly recommend
the following Red Herring article by Owen Thomas. Some emphasis is
placed on Microsoft’s ability to pre-empt market decisions by buying
startups and deciding what technologies will be further developed to
become the “standard”.

See: http://www.redherring.com/insider/1998/1021/microsoft.html

Mr.
John Warden, Microsoft’s lead attorney in the antitrust case, holds all
these claims in court and he thereby shows that logical consequence is
either something beyond his abilities or something he prefers to ignore.

If
the government is indeed holding back Microsoft but not its
competitors, Mr. Warden’s own claims of the competive environment
Microsoft operates in, should lead him to believe that technological
development can perhaps be delayed for - supposedly slight - gap
between Microsoft and its competitors, but most certainly not stopped
or destroyed altogether as the claim of government Luddism implies.

Given
the PalmOS follow-up I find nothing particularly unlikely about the
notes. Information about Microsoft’s undocumented API is something one
can’t buy on the market, it is available only through “partnership”.

You can download it in PDF format from: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2000/033.pdf

Microsoft’s
chief financial officer, Greg Maffei, mentions that Microsoft’s result
is not alone, because many other companies also reported better results
than estimated. Although this does show that Microsoft’s results are
“not unique” wrt being better than estimated, it doesn’t show - as
claimed - that Microsoft’s are generally “not unique”. Actually,
several companies did merely better than the bad estimates.

It
is quite interesting to see how IBM posted better results than expected
due to better PC sales and IBM is not mentioned in the list of “six
largest software companies” mentioned by Mr. Maffei. Clearly, IBM is
more of a hardware company, on a par with the rest of the OEM’s than a
competitor to Microsoft in the software business, as Microsoft
spokespersons have been claiming lately.

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27849,00.html

Apparently, when the government
seeks to present more data aside from those “watercooler conversations”
in the email medium, such as information from databases on the sales of
Windows and Internet Explorer, or the deposit of Mr. Gates, Microsft
sees fit to hide it.

Given that Microsoft has often claimed that
such-and-such will change hir mind when zhe knows the facts, it is
unlikely that critics ever will change their minds given Microsoft’s
prevention of facts being represented.

I wonder when someone in
the media is going to have sufficient sense and decency to call
Microsoft’s claim RIDICULOUS that Netscape’s giving away their browser
away for free since January 1998 was a followup of Mr. Andreessen’s
email that they would do so in 1994, even though they charged money for
it in the intermediary period.

For more on these topics, see: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27918,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh

Believing that everybody is
always plotting against oneself is a basic characteristic of paranoia.
Off topic, it reminds me of Roman Polanski’s film “Repulsion”. Given
that associaton, I’d say that paranoia is dangerous.

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2154975,00.html

See: http://www.cnnfn.com/digitaljam/9810/25/bork_intv/

The interview is mostly about the
validity of the methods ms Rohm used to obtain her information on the
one hand and present them on the other. Microsoft calls this “fiction”,
but ms Rohm contends that it is standard practice for non-fiction
journalistic practice.

See: http://www.techweb.com/internet/profile/wrohm/interview

As
far as possible given the restraint of keeping the identity of sources
secret she has now released more information on her sources.

See: http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/981026msfile.htm

Also they ridicule John Warden’s
claim that “One person in Helsinki can quickly write the core of a
sophisticated operating system.” Remember this one the next time
Microsoft tells that the government is not competent to judge
technological matters.

See: http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/rose/1998/10/23straight.html

EU Competition Commissioner Karel van
Miert noted that the EU’s actions against Microsoft w.r.t. ISP’s
preceded that of the US and that “We will examine any other complaints
if any. It’s not because the United States are handling Microsoft that
we should sit around idly.”

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27980,00.html?st.ne.ni.lh

The problem with
the first theory was that evidence that was according to the DOJ
subpoenaed for the MSN icon case - and therefore not part of the
evidence that had to be handed over to Microsoft now - showed that the
meeting actually did take place and that both the DOJ and a Netscape
lawyer were informed shortly after the meeting.

Microsoft’s
problem now is two-fold: 1. the notes of Andreessen really seem to be
real so they have to explain what all this talk about drawing lines
meant, and 2. Microsoft claimed that the collusion proposal was a
“concoction” - which effectively means that a.) the notes might well be
written at the time, but they didn’t truthfully represent what was said
during the conference b.) the Microsoft employees present at the
meeting were not asked about what took place by Microsoft’s attorney,
c.) these employees all lied to Microsoft’s attorney, or d.)
Microsoft’s attorney chose to misrepresent his knowledge that the
meeting actually took place.

Strangely, Mr. Warden seems to grab
the first option only insofar as he claims that Microsoft was “set-up”.
From the information I could find, I did not find an indication that he
fights the reality of the words. Apparently, the notes are correct and
Mr. Warden attempts to raise a smoke-screen to hide that one of the
last mentioned three options must be true. This casts a highly
unflattering light on those involved with this case at Microsoft’s side.

Also
discussed is Netscape’s inability to live up to Intuit’s stated
demands. Good, I like some real information. Of course, Netscape’s
apparent incompetence does not imply that Microsoft did not leverage
it’s OS monopoly to get the order.

My source is: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27935,00.html

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2155796,00.html

Microsoft’s
claim that AOL chose MSIE exclusively for technological excellence
implies that AOL was not interested in having a place on the Windows
desktop. Highly unlikely.

For the article and some interesting
quotes (including a very stupid one by a Netscape executive - well, I
am not here to defend Netscape but to promote competition):
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28017,00.html

Ah, all this “throwing mud” by showing email messages from “junior staffers”.

Mr. Warden’s defense consisted of changing the meaning of win32.

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/1,4586,2156160,00.html

Note
that several repositories of legal documents are directly available
from the menu on the left. I hardly ever check Microsoft’s own list,
but I trust that the media will keep me up to date in that regard.

Assumptions of the report are:

1. Those who pirate copies would alternatively pay the full price of that same copy.
In
other words, re-evaluation of “buying” decisions on the basis of
pricing without the “piracy-option” is not included in the calculation.
(Of course that would be too difficult, but then, don’t draw
conclusions if you can’t support them.) So if 98% of the software in
Vietnam is pirated the report counts Vietnam being able to pay for all
of it.

2. When twice as much money flows to the software
industry, the job structure will be copied: same percentage working on
development, on shipping-and-handling, training and technical support
etc.
Thus the report assumes that those using the pirated copies do
not use training and support, that the number of jobs in
shipping-and-handling will double if twice as much packages are
delivered and that twice as many copies sold will lead to twice as many
software developers being employed (anyone know where to get them?).

3.
Jobs that are created as the result of payments by employees and
businesses in the software industry and taxes paid by them should be
included.
This is a very charming idea, but it doesn’t show a net
effect: if the money doesn’t flow to the software industry it flows
elsewhere and taxes are still being paid.

4. An extra $10
billion dollar payment to the software industry will have no negative
effect on the sectors of the economy on the paying side.
This is ridiculous.

Furthermore,
no account is given of “giving-away” actions, e.g. how many jobs were
lost as the result of Microsoft’s giving away MSIE instead of letting
people buy Netscape’s Navigator? Much software in general use is free
and for many expensive packages such as Windows free alternatives
exists. Would replacing payware with free software have detrimental
effects on the economy?

Well, see for yourself: http://www.bsa.org/statistics/index.html?/statistics/global_pwc98_c.html

(I am not defending software piracy, I am fighting misleading information about it.)

Key parts of the code were developed for Apple by
a third party and this sold the same code to Intel shortly thereafter.
By this way Microsoft got hold of it and put in into Windows95. Good
reason for Apple to sue Microsoft and good reason for Microsoft to
settle out of court for the well-known $150 million non-voting stock.

Anyone remember Stack? There is a pattern to Microsoft’s “innovation”.

See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/981029-000002.html

WebTV will not support java until its boxes will run WinCE with Microsoft’s proprietary non-standard java version.

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28136,00.html?st.ne.fd.gif.d

Fortunately, I
have my own store of goodies since last night, fetched by the terrific
“fetchdoj” shell script that invokes “wget” to mirror the info at the
DOJ’s site. Now I can read this 30MB of stuff at my own pace without
paying my telco while doing so.

The exhibits - PDF files
displaying paper versions of e-mails - give a far better idea of
Microsoft’s activities to get rid of Netscape than the press is willing
or able to convey. An index on this stuff would help as the DOJ tells
you nothing but the numbers of the exhibits. Any volunteers?

If you are happy enough to have GNU software installed on your system the script might do you some good too:
http://main.billwatch.net/background/fetchdoj

These topics are all touched in the testimony. You can read Dan Goodin’s account of it: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28164,00.html

or get the real thing:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2000/2010.htm

Incidentally, Microsoft shot back that:

“The
allegation that Microsoft threatened to withhold Macintosh Office 98 in
order to force Apple to make Internet Explorer its default browser is
another example of how the government deliberately twists facts to
support its distorted allegation. Rather than walk away from millions
of Microsoft customers who use the Mac, Microsoft worked with Apple to
resolve a number of issues between the two companies.”

One
should ask then why it was still such an outstanding result to have
Office for the Mac that it had to be mentioned in the joint press
release on the Apple/Microsoft partnership in August 1997.

I
heard rumors that Microsoft dropped Encarta and the GUI library MFC for
the Mac. I welcome more information about Microsoft stopping to support
key content, application and development programs for these “millions
of customers”.

Speaking of the exhibits, I made a minor change to the “fetchdoj” script (http://main.billwatch.net/background/fetchdoj
) to make sure that the PDF files that contain the testimonies are
fetched, not just the HTML pages that introduce them. A new problem is
that the DOJ makes available the testimony’s in parts too. Right now
the script fetches both the whole and the parts. As “fetchdoj” flattens
the directory structure, the links in the HTML files won’t work.
Anyway, I wanted to get the PDF files and I don’t care much about the
HTML wrappers.

Not
exactly adding to the public’s trust in the veracity of the statements
of Microsoft spokespersons, Mr. Chardon set himself to the task of
blackening Linux without respect for facts. The “Association
Francophone des Utilisateurs de Linux et des Logiciels Libres”, wrote a
reply that painfully shows the inadequacy of Mr. Chardon’s
presentation. (http://aful.org/presse/chardon.html ) You can find an english translation of the reply here: http://lwn.net/1998/1029/a/aful-trans.html

One
of Mr. Chardon’s claims was that Linux lacks a wordprocessor with
on-the-fly spell-checking. The following screenshot shows how
WordPerfect 8 under Linux performs exactly this task by underlining
some very dirty words:
http://www.zork.net/suite.html

To
get a better impression of Microsoft’s involvement with the cable
industry you are encouraged to visit “The Whole Microsoft Catalog” (http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog.html )at “Boycott Microsoft” to get an idea of Microsoft’s investments in this area.

Even if the memo is not real (but I made a copy of it
in case it is, and MS forces esr to retract it) it gives at least a
good estimate of how Microsoft considers OSS today. In other words,
questions of verity aside, the document gives us a good idea of the
tension between Microsoft’s urge to drive up prices and keep technology
proprietary and the OSS drive to open up as much as possible to attract
as many new entrants as possible and drive prices down to zero.

See: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html

What news could the Gates’ video have
in store? The tenacity with which Microsoft sought to stop the show
indicates that they have something very definite to fear.

Anyway,
the following article tells that showing the video is for the moment
limited to those parts relevant to the Apple testimony and also
includes the interesting quote from Microsoft’s senior vice president
Paul Maritz:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28184,00.html

See:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28184,00.html?st.ne.ni.lh
(upgrade of the article mentioned in the previous item)

If
you check the list of articles under the previous item (by following
the “discussion” button) you will find a pretty damning quote. The
statement was addressed to Gates, but during his deposit it seems to
have slipped his mind.
After trying to stop the complete showing of
the video, Microsoft’s William Neukom is now complaining that Gates is
taken out of context. Always eat the cake and have it, Bill.

(I
can’t keep up with the exhibits. If you happen to know the right
exhibit containing this quote, please make a link to it by pressing the
article button under the discussion of this item and filling in the
form or mail me.)

Mr. Bennett introduces the excerpts with:

The overall testimony seems to reveal two things:
(1) Gates cannot recall–or claims not to recall–how his company views its dealings with its major competitors.
(2) Gates is generally able to read his own emails when a copy is placed in front of him and he is asked to examine them.

Apparently,
Gates has been instructed by his lawyers to say that he has forgotten
all about it when in doubt. It doesn’t reflect well on him that he
forgot all about particular e-mails that speak of “threats”: Is he so
used to this language that it doesn’t strike him as odd and something
to be remembered? Also it doesn’t reflect well on Microsoft’s internal
communication that Gates doesn’t understand much of what is written to
him, as was made clear when the DOJ asked him things like: “Do you
have an understanding of what Mr. Bradford means when he refers to Mac
Office as “the perfect club to use on” Apple?'’

http://www.essential.org/listproc/am-info/msg07751.html

Given the number of articles mentioned on http://www.linuxtoday.com/
on the “Halloween memo” that was leaked from Microsoft it seems that
Microsoft’s attention for Linux is a big boost for its wider
acceptance.

You can find “Linux cogne aux fen�tres de Microsoft” at: http://www.liberation.fr/multi/actu/semaine981102/art981102.html

Enjoy!

Microsoft seems to have gone pretty far down the
reseller channel to make sure that their browser - which they now claim
is part of their OS - was brought as a separate unit to consumers,
rather than Netscape’s browser.

Most laudably, Ms Foley provides the numbers of the exhibits she is basing her article on.

See: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/1,4586,2158717,00.html

See: http://208.16.54.204/index.html

1.Are you willing
to bet that Microsoft is going to corner the Internet worldwide? Will
it really be safe to go with the Microsoft Web?
2.Are you willing
to bet that Microsoft won’t drop the hammer and start charging big time
for products that today are free or nearly so?

See: http://cgi.chicago.tribune.com/tech/frontpage/0,1714,3,00.html

Some blame is
cast on the government’s bureaucratic procedures, but let’s not forget
how Microsoft fought display of the video with Gates’ deposit and
decent access to its sales databases.

http://www.callaw.com/stories/alm1102.html

Why
did my company have to pay for Windows and Office? Because such are the
deals with the OEM that delivers our computers and the OEM is regulated
to make such deals by Microsoft.

This regulation has cost my company unnecessary money and is therefore to be considered harmful.

(I once wrote a little piece about this matter called “Regulation through taxation” - http://main.billwatch.net/features/tax.html )

Dan Peterson has his own story about being harmed by Microsoft’s company policies. You can find it at Boycott Micrososft, see:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/harmed.shtml

So, when are we going to get the answers on the questions that Gates’ couldn’t answer because his memory failed him?

Something
different, according to the now familiar pattern Microsoft is not
answering to allegiations in the testimony of Apple’s Tevanian, but
instead launching an attack on Apple’s own business practices.
Interestingly, they claim that Apple wanted $1.2 billion from Microsoft
in the patent-issue. Now compare this one to Mr. Gates’ statement that
as far as he knew the deal with Apple was about “a patent cross-license
of some kind.” Microsoft claims at the same time that $1.2 billion was
at stake and that Gates didn’t know the details. Very credible.

It is also amusing to see, at
the end of the article, that Microsoft’s attorney Theodore Edelman made
the DOJ’s point for them by demonstrating to the judge just how
confusing it is to a novice to change the default Internet browser. The
article is at “http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/1,4586,2160108,00.html”.

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28367,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh

Here are some excerpts from his letter:

At
bottom, the Open Source movement is an expression of the Western
academic tradition, innovation and discovery through the free exchange
of ideas. You rig that system at your peril. You have only to look at
the stagnation of Soviet science and industry under a centralized
autocratic system, versus the innovation that happened in our free
markets, to see what fate you have in store for yourselves if you
succeed.
(..)
Instead of trying to crush Open Source, you should
follow the lead of companies like O’Reilly, IBM and Silicon Graphics,
who are supporting various Open Source communities while finding ways
to build commercial added-value products on the open platforms these
communities provide.

See: http://oreilly.com/oreilly/press/tim_msletter.html

Well,
I am not laughing. It seems to me that much of the major press has no
problem justifying the increasingly powerful system of regulation by
Microsoft, while they work themselves into a fit when a suggestion of
some form of government regulation is given. Bah.

No link to the Forbes article here. I just wanted to say that I often like articles on Microsoft’s adventures in http://www.salonmagazine.com/ and that I was very pleasantly surprised by the special of the French paper Liberation:
http://www.liberation.fr/microsoft/

I welcome links to other European newspapers having specials on Microsoft.

They can both be found at http://www.opensource.org/halloween.html .
There
is much here that would be interesting for technically inclined people,
but the two main points of interest are the memos bring up the ideas of
subverting standard Internet protocols with Microsoft-specific
extensions and of making more use of copyright and patent laws. In the
latter, Microsoft is accusing Linux of taking ideas from NT but this
position seems the height of hypocrisy given the number of ideas
Microsoft has taken from other places.

Not really important for Microsoft
to make a few more bucks, but interesting to get a stronger hold on the
web development software choice of hundreds of thousands of webmasters.
The way to get people to give up standards for proprietary technology
is to move them all at once. Windows and Office are the main vehicles
in this process, but acquiring a company like LinkExchange may help too.

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28425,00.html?st.ne.fd.gif.f

(This
somewhat reminds me of Microsoft acquisition and later selling of
SoftImage, in the process the company was transformed from being SGI
focused to being Windows focused. Buy a company, transform their
technology to Windows and then sell them for stock to the company that
is your next aim.)

You can get a taste of the book at “Information Rules - the website”: http://www.inforules.com/

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28465,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh

The part of the Mr. Decker’s deposit
that Microsoft published at its “PressPass” pages seems to be aimed to
show that this particular statement was not made by Mr. Decker. I read
and annotated the deposit and found that Mr. Decker’s answers could be
compatible with Mr. Schiller without perjury on either side.
Furthermore, Mr. Schiller’s and Mr. Tevanian’s statements tells us that
Compaq felt threatened by Microsoft, not that Microsoft actually used
“pressure tactics” against Compaq. Thus Microsoft’s statement that
Decker’s deposit “refutes” Apple’s claim that Microsoft in fact used
“pressure tactics” to force Compaq to drop QuickTime is unfounded.

You can read the annotated deposit at: http://main.billwatch.net/annotated/quicktime_compaq.html

I hope it will remain up for at least another 40 days now.

-cjr

If you read French, you can find the article at:
http://www.liberation.fr/chroniques/gassee.html

A lengthy discussion of the article can be found at: http://slashdot.org/features/98/11/08/006219.shtml

See: http://reports.guardian.co.uk/articles/1998/11/8/p-32026.html

(Unfortunately, an article in the Boston Globe on the Halloween papers didn’t get it.)

The report is titled “People who challenge Bill Gates”.
Somewhere the report says: “The Open Linux spirit makes Linux
undefeatable. Bill Gates can buy or destroy a company, but he is unable
to buy or destroy a spirit. More importantly, under the Open Linux
flag, it collects the most talented people in the world. These people
are not only computer gurus, they are warriors who will fight for Linux
to death. They are the people who challenge Bill Gates.”

Well,
that’s not quite the language one expects in a “survey report”. Anyway,
the report is not only interesting as a phenomenon, but also because of
the demography of Linux users it presents.

See: http://www.webcmo.com/linux/report/report1.htm

See: http://www.performancecomputing.com/opinions/unixriot/981106.shtml

Today
they announcement that “Microsoft and three independent Microsoft and
three independent software labs today confirmed that the
interoperability problems reported by Apple’s Dr. Avadis Tevanian Jr.
in court are in fact the result of errors in Apple’s software design,
not the result of “sabotage” as Apple has claimed.'’ In the refered to
article we read that Microsoft *gave* the solution and that Mindcraft,
one other party and not three, *verified* it.

Why do they say
“three” and mention only one? According to Microsoft Apple didn’t
follow *Netscape’s* instructions for plug-ins. Why doesn’t Microsoft
address the allegation that Apple sought support from Microsoft in July
1998, but got directions only on how to rewrite the QuickTime plug-in
using Microsoft’s proprietary ActiveX. (Tevanian’s testimony, pages
35-36)

In its article Microsoft does not relate Mr. Tevanian’s
statements to its alleged fix for the QuickTime problem. That is,
Microsoft hasn’t answered the allegation of selectively not supporting
Apple, an ISV that happens to compete with Microsoft. And yet Microsoft
considers to have answered it by providing the bug fix and telling us
that Apple could have done so itself by following Netscape’s
instructions. This throws a very strange light on the allegation that
Apple sought help in July but got answers directing only to Microsoft’s
proprietary ActiveX. Given Microsoft’s present claims it seems that
they deceived Apple when it sought help, instead of giving it support.

I
am not claiming that one party is right and the other wrong - I don’t
have sufficient data to do that, but I see that Microsoft is not
addressing the matter honestly and that raises my suspicion.

Well, fight your way throught the “connection reset by peer” messages (as I did) and read for yourself:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/Nov98/applefinpr.htm

First, antitrust laws were always
especially applied at the forefront of technology. Railroads and oil
pipe-lines may look stale now, but they were at the technological edge
at the times of their powerful monopolies.

Second, Microsoft and
its defenders make much of the antitrust case against IBM having come
to nothing. Actually, this was the third such case against IBM: the
first was won by the government and the second ended in a settlement.
It should also be observed that the EC continued when the DOJ dropped
off. The EC forced IBM to observe certain guidelines for opening up
their technology.

Enjoy: http://www.mercurycenter.com/opinion/perspective/docs/antitrust08.htm

See: http://www.linux-hw.com/~eric/fud101.html

Intel’s
Steven McGeady, Intel’s vice president for content, has now be placed
in the “disgruntled” category. He claims that Gates threatened to stop
supporting new Intel chips or chip extensions, which, given the present
market situation, would effectively turn Intel’s inventions into junk.

See: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28497,00.html

See: http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/981109740E

The issue is highly
important as Microsoft seems to be looking to replace open standards
with proprietary technology that is protected by the law. This is the
way to “deny entry into the market” both to software that is free and
to small competitors, thereby removing competition from the industry
which traditionally leads to high prices and little development.

Anyway, open source protagonists sense the danger. You can read Bruce Perens’ idea on countering the danger in:
http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1998-11/lw-11-thesource.html

We
have seen this with RealNetworks last summer and now with Apple’s
QuickTime. The pattern isn’t received well and people are now taking
the trouble to investigate the correctness of Microsoft’s claims.

A most excellent start is given by Robert di Cosmo. You can find his detailed account of Microsoft’s reply to Apple’s claims (http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/news/quicktime.htm )
at:
http://www.essential.org/listproc/am-info/msg07951.html

Incidentally,
Roberto di Cosmo is the author of a book on Microsoft, “Le hold-up
planetaire”. For the time being it is available only in the French
language. If you want more info (or the archives of a forum on it) you
can find it through the link to Liberation in the side-bar.

(I
wish Microsoft’s press release had contained a link to this more
informative page - it would have spared me the trouble of reading the
press release in the hope of finding some real meat.)

According to this post “http://lists.essential.org/am-info/msg06616.html”
from Microsoft’s Tod Nielsen, Microsoft just wants developers to “write
great Windows apps.” He repeats the claim that RealAudio and Apple
engineers made mistakes in their programs. According to Tevanian of
Apple’s testimony at the anti-trust trial, the answer Apple’s engineers
got from Microsoft when they brought up their problems getting the
QuickTime plugin to work was “You should really be writing ActiveX
plugins instead.” Since Apple had no interest in doing that, they
interpreted that to mean that no help would be forthcoming from
Microsoft. To me, it’s rather funny how Microsoft suddenly gets
cooperative once a developer’s troubles working under Windows are
widely publicised.

Read here “http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/10/cracked-ms.idg/”
how registration is required in the Office 2000 beta. If the user does
not register, the program will stop working at 50 launches. Microsoft
claims this will “help customers register and take better advantage of
updates and features.” But it seems a rather transparent attempt to
curb piracy. At least, tacks like this should give competitors a boost.

Much the
same is happening today. Innovations that don’t fit into the scheme of
the monopoly are banned by “killing” the innovators.

But now a
second Reformation has been started. People fight to break the central
power over software as they once fought against that over knowledge.

Agreed,
I’m a bit lyrical. I thought about working out this topic when I had
some time available, but now Salon Magazine beat me to it:
See: http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1998/11/12feature.html

Another item that is abstracted from is marketing. To a
Dutch ISP alone they paid $400,000 marketing if they would embrace
MSIE.

Clearly, Microsoft must jump through hoops to show that
they didn’t offer MSIE at predatory prices: giving money with the
product most definitely constitutes a very extreme example of going
“below” marginal cost.

For an article, see: http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1998/11/11feature.html

Well, aside from getting to know that it was McGeady
who leaked the Maritz quote on cutting off Netscape’s air supply to the
Yew York Times, I didn’t learn much from the article mentioned here,
but I guess its about all there is:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28692,00.html