06.21.09
Posted in Antitrust, HP, Hardware, IBM, Microsoft, SUN, UNIX at 5:45 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Blast from the past (via Comes vs Microsoft) shows how Microsoft attacked Sun’s SPARC and UNIX
THIS post presents a revealing memo from Nathan Myhrvold — one that we previously looked at very briefly.
Nathan Myhrvold’s explanation of Microsoft vapourware tactics has been seen since then on numerous occasions because Microsoft presently uses this tactic against GNU/Linux and against ODF [1, 2]. We have a prior court exhibit about it.
“We have already amassed quite a few ’smoking guns’ from Nathan Myhrvold.”The latest court exhibit is a narrative rather than a rundown though the history of Microsoft vapourware. It was written only by Myhrvold, who is currently Microsoft's main patent troll, which is backed financially by Bill Gates. Gates himself has a patent-trolling firm [1, 2. 3], but this is another story for another day.
We have already amassed quite a few ’smoking guns’ from Nathan Myhrvold. The list will gradually grow. In today’s exhibit he is shown writing to Bill Gates and Brad Silverberg, who once urged Microsoft to “cut those f*ckers [companies that didn't use Microsoft] off”. We showed what else he had done just a few days ago.
Here is the original exhibit, Exhibit plex_0411_a (1990) [PDF], which is extremely hard to read. We include it as plain text at the bottom and we also summarise some key points below, for those who are too impatient to read the whole thing.
As background, here is an expression of fear, due to Sun’s SPARC
Recent events show that we are in more danger than ever losing the key early ground to SPARC,
which Puts our long term systems business in serious doubt. Compaq is considering SPARC, as well as
friendlier options, and now Olivetti is too.
Myhrvold fears that “Sun will mop the floor up.”
They have a great reputation, but at present their plans are NOT in sync with ours - they are on a mission to clean up in the workstation market - and all signs are showing that if any cleaning is done, Sun will mop the floor up with them.
Compaq (now major part of Hewlett-Packard) was actually leaning towards UNIX at the time:
At present we are paralysed because Compaq is reluctant to take the kind of role that is required to push
our software and combat Sun in a reasonable way. They want to push UNIX (they’ll relent to giving us equal billing, but they will expend major effort in making UNIX successful), they are considering SPARC, and they are considering a number of ********* non-SPARC responses.
Here is Microsoft abusing the word “open” — something that Microsoft does to this very date (against “open source”, which did not exist at the time, not under this particular name/banner anyway).
2. The slogan for the hardware design will be “The First Open System”.
A nice mention of SCO in there (in a few places):
3. The MIPS camp, like the UNIX world as a whole, is divided between OSF and AT&T factions. We will not succeed in unifying this as we once thought, and I do not believe that we should even try. If MIPS and/or SCO offer a product - fine, but it is not a big deal to us and we would NOT expend huge effort to ram a MIPS UNIX standard down anybody’s throat. Oddly enough it is not a big deal to the UNIX market players themselves either - they will pursue their present fractured strategies quite happily.
Here is Myhrvold planning to announce vapourware:
- A major part of the message is that your investment in Windows is safe - we are going to address 32 bits, and beyond that we will address RISC. You can go ahead and ignore Sun and that crap because Windows has all bases covered.
Myhrvold says very explicitly “vapourware” and “PR offensive” (like the "NC is dead" offensive).
The purpose of announcing early like this is to freeze the market at the OEM and ISV level, In this respect it is JUST like the original Windows announcement. This time we have a lot better development team, so the time between announce and ship will be a lot smaller. Nevertheless we need to get our message out there.
One might worry that this will help Sun because we will just have vapourware, that people will stop buying 486 machines, that we will have endorsed RISC but not delivered. After thinking about this, I think that this is emphatically NOT the case:
- We answer the charges of “vaporware” by pointing at Windows, (after all, we are porting it). Windows is shipping a zillion copies an hour and that isn’t vaporware at all. Every Win 3 sold and every new Windows app is a nail in Sun’s coffin. We would go on a PR offensive with exactly that mission. The big news is that now that MIPS will have Windows, and gain all of the momentum that is building - how can Sun survive? So, Scott, do you really think you can fight that avalanche?
He adds:
- The “Osborne effect” is not relevant here. A long term announcement for MIPS based Windows in 92 will NOT freeze the end user market. It is just an endorsement that Windows has a future - it is too far off to hurt immediate sales, and in fact it will help. The original Windows announcement did not hurt Dos sales because people decided to wait for it. The only time when you get into an Osborne effect is when you announce something near term that is a viable alternative.
We certainly do need to follow this announcement with a good demo in 6-8 months when the SDK ships, but preannouncement is going to give Sun a real problem.
“PR campaign” includes analysts, just like Microsoft evangelism so often suggests:
6. We would embark on the PR campaign mentioned above to reinforce the notion that Windows was the desktop API for the next 10 years, just as Dos was for the first 10 years. Sun and others that covet the desktop would have to beat Windows - and who can do that? This should be a real push - analysts, ISVs, etc. We would really go on the offensive about how strong Windows is, and how irrelevant Sun and others are as would be challengers.
Another noteworthy tidbit:
7. One potential sop to IBM would be to announce TWO binary standards for RISC for Win 32 and OS/2 3.0 - MIPS and RIOS. I think that the Austin guys would actually do this, and they would not even be mad about MIPS being the other one because it hurts SPARC so much. If we do this, then we would announce that we will not port to any othe architecture for 3 years (obviously non-binding) to really rub it in that SPARC is out. The way to position this to them is that we’ve seen Sun building steam and we need to support the MIPS world as a generic RISC. Ideally we would do this with a short enough lead time that they couldn’t mess around too long. All we would do is announce a long term statement of direction that the technology would be available ** RIOS - this is safe for them, and it makes Sun look bad, so we could probably make it an easy decision for them.
Some occurrence of the F* word in there is omitted, but here is an ugly one to check out:
First, the goal is NOT to make this machine sell zillions of copies in 1991 - it probably won’t even ship then. What we need to do is announce a long term direction for making high end Windows machines - and freeze Sun out of our OEMs, our ISVs, and from industry perceptions at large.
There is lots more in the full text below, including the following statement: “We would also talk about the OS/2 3.0 kernal that is underneath NT Windows, how it is an industrial strength kernal for servers etc and it will serve advanced desktops etc.” █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft - exhibit plex_0411_a, as text
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06.04.09
Posted in Deals, GNU/Linux, HP, Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 8:17 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft-Cisco tensions could lead Cisco further away from Windows
Cisco recently settled with the FSF/SFLC and some sources suspect that Cisco may enter the GNU/Linux market by acquiring Novell*, another company whose treatment of the GPL has been questionable in most arenas.
Having betrayed Cisco several times before, Microsoft turns out to be doing it again. [via The Inquirer]
Them’s Fightin’ Words: Cisco Says HP-Microsoft Alliance Cuts Out Partners
Cisco Systems called out Hewlett-Packard’s and Microsoft’s $180 million unified communications and collaboration alliance, saying it leaves partners out of the loop and that neither company has the networking chops to support the solutions.
More interestingly, as we showed a fortnight ago, this massive Hewlett-Packard/Microsoft deal came almost concurrently when (or after) H-P and Microsoft had signed another patent deal. Could this be a form of award or endowment?
Will Cisco lean more towards GNU/Linux as a result? Let us hope so. It cannot do much harm now that Cisco promises compliance and has an officer appointed — even fully committed — to the task. Cisco, unlike Intel, has not quite the reputation of an abusive bully, so it would make a decent ally. For PR purposes, Cisco has also just announced finalists in a Linux competition it initiated. Many people may not know this, but Cisco is at the moment one of the richest (if not the richest) technology companies. Oracle and Apple do pretty well too, whereas Microsoft is reaching out for borrowed money. █
______
* Speculations about Novell being bought are all too common now, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
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05.30.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, HP, Novell, Red Hat, SLES/SLED, Servers, Ubuntu at 6:24 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: SUSE news with emphasis on Moblin, where most of the activity persists
Moblin
SUSE was mentioned prominently only in relation to Moblin, so it’s probably a good place place to start.
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05.09.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, HP, Novell, SLES/SLED, Servers, xandros at 8:12 am by Roy Schestowitz
Desktop (SLED)
MACHINES with SLED 11 preinstalled on them are still appearing in some places, but it’s mostly old news. Here is a belated story about the ProBook for example.
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05.02.09
Posted in Europe, GNU/Linux, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Review, Scalix, Servers, xandros at 5:22 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another glance at H-P’s embrace of SLED 11; other notable news about SUSE and Xandros
SLED
SOME days ago we commented on H-P's support of SLED. Further to that, all the following items mention Novell and SLED in the same context:
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04.29.09
Posted in Dell, GNU/Linux, HP, Microsoft, Patents, Red Hat, SLES/SLED at 5:02 am by Roy Schestowitz
Illusion of choice
Summary: Hewlett-Packard supports and offers only the Microsoft-taxed version of GNU/Linux to prospective users
H-P is repeating its older mistakes. For a little bit of background (as this has become repetitive) see:
It’s a little similar when it comes to Dell, albeit nowhere as severe. H-P is still playing for Microsoft and now it gives an illusion of choice, whereby Microsoft gets paid no matter what operating system the buyer chooses.
Reuters was probably first with this report which soon circulated.
The ProBook offers users a number of new features, including an optional Linux-based operating system pre-installed — Novell Inc’s SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 — for those seeking an alternative to the dominant Microsoft Corp Windows platform.
This was also covered in some other sites which neglect to mention the fact that SLE* 11 is a Microsoft-taxed distribution, which is obviously filled with Mono and other Microsoft-like software.
According to InfromationWeek, this is unprecedented for the following reason:
The laptops are available with Windows Vista, which can be downgraded to Windows XP. In addition, buyers can choose Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 as an alternative to the Microsoft platform. It’s the first time HP has offered preinstalled Linux on a mainstream business laptop.
OStatic claims:
Notably, HP is offering SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 as an operating system choice on the ProBooks, in addition to Windows Vista and XP. HP’s arch-rival Dell is also continuing to ship portable computers with Linux installed, and is seeing many users satisfied with Linux. Can Linux remain a fixture on portable systems?
But this is not “Linux”, it’s Ballnux. It’s what Microsoft wants GNU/Linux systems to become — just another cash cow for Microsoft. Even if one erases and replaces SUSE, the Microsoft tax still exists; and moreover, support from H-P is probably then voided.
“Novell takes the role Microsoft requires and segregates the crowd (”legal” versus “illegal”).”To Microsoft, SLE* is to be used where Windows has already lost for sure (e.g. mission-critical Red Hat servers or GNU/Linux desktop loyalists), so they try to shove SUSE in these niches. Then, they indoctrinate the public, call vendors like Red Hat “patent pirates”, and try to fill that area with ‘IP’-riddled SUSE.
If there is anything to be learned from the copyright cartel, it is that their common strategy (e.g. more recently against a book reselling Web site) goes like this: they first call it something evil, then they attack, and they also offer a so-called ‘legal’ remedy (like SUSE in this case, offering “peace of mind”).
Microsoft is essentially trying to change the rules of the market it competes in. It’s basically Microsoft spin to the extreme. Rather than describe its practices as inherently anti-competitive it daemonises GNU/Linux, describing it as some kind of a “criminal”/”thief” and then attacks it. Novell takes the role Microsoft requires and segregates the crowd (”legal” versus “illegal”).
One of our regulars who agrees said that he “meant to focus in on that particular point. The idea that Novell — who relies on the Microsoft vouchers entirely — to remain profitable is going to act in any way that Microsoft does not want is ludicrous.”
We did some rough calculations to arrive at an estimate that Microsoft paid Novell’s wages for half a year about 8 months ago. That’s how dependent Novell has become. █
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
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04.19.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, HP, Microsoft, Virtualization, Windows, Xen, vmware at 6:06 am by Roy Schestowitz
Company CEO: running a company or taking orders from another?
Summary: Companies promote Microsoft’s agenda after accepting Microsoft executives as CEOs
IT IS hardly deniable that Microsoft has — to an extent — hijacked the agenda at VMware. It put no less than three of its employees at the very top of the company. VMware was very hostile towards Microsoft prior to that; in fact, it was going to take it all the way up to the top with antitrust complaints. In 2007 Microsoft used a similar strategy against XenSource, which probably began with the Redmond relocation, a special deal, an the involvement of former Microsoft employees (Ignition Partners). The Linux Foundation is already willing to take Xen to the cleaners.
A longer-term ally of Microsoft is H-P. To give just a couple of examples (although there are many more), H-P lobbied for Microsoft OOXML and it also promotes Silverlight through a toolbar.
Putting two and two together, who would have guessed that a Microsoft-dominated VMware management may join forces with H-P to advance Microsoft? Watch this news report. It’s all about Windows, probably competing against GNU/Linux-based thin clients.
HP is adding three new thin-client devices to its family of systems that will support Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard. HP also is incorporating software enhancements to improve the overall user experience in VMware View environments, and is working with VMware to enable improved performance for remote desktop sessions. In adddition, HP is offering its Client Automation management software as an option with the new thin clients.
Hewlett-Packard is expanding its thin-client offerings with new devices, greater collaboration with VMware and enhanced manageability.
Here is a way to put it more clearly, in the words of Dana Gardner: “HP teams with Microsoft, VMware to expand appeal of desktop virtualization solutions”
“It sure seems like another new alliance which is hostile towards GNU/Linux.”Wow. It sure seems like another new alliance which is hostile towards GNU/Linux. Is anybody surprised?
The new article which is titled “Virtualization: VMware vs. Microsoft vs. Xen, 2009″ neglects to point out that all three options are now pretty much controlled by Microsoft (through its allies, partners, and/or former employees).
There’s more in this week’s news however. Remember Juniper Networks, which had a Microsoft executive put in charge of it? The following was published some days ago by Associated Press and it is serving as a reminder that Microsoft’s Kevin Johnson is now the CEO of Juniper.
Juniper Networks Inc. Chief Executive Kevin Johnson received a compensation package for 2008 valued at $36.1 million, according to an Associated Press analysis of figures released in a filing last week.
Look what they are doing right now at Juniper, becoming defenders of Windows.
It is important to realise the dangers of Microsoft employees landing in other companies. A European government delegate compared this company's methods to "Scientology cult". █
“He [Bill Gates] is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry.”
–Gary Kildall
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04.09.09
Posted in Apple, Courtroom, GNU/Linux, HP, IBM, Kernel, Microsoft, OIN, Patents, SUN at 3:53 am by Roy Schestowitz
THIS is the latest part in an endless series which explores our software patents landscape. As Jose X put it in last night’s post, “software patents [are] poised to cripple the industry and shut out real innovation.” This affects not only Free software, but as usual, we choose to focus on GNU/Linux.
Microsoft and GNU/Linux
In what came as somewhat of a surprise to many, Microsoft may be forced to pay $388 million for patent infringement. It’s a surprise because this decision was not widely anticipated.
News Analysis. Some court rulings are just rich with irony. Today, April 8, a jury found that Microsoft infringed on Uniloc patents for product activation. Microsoft uses the technology to protect its software from theft. Who’s stealing from whom?
I expect to read lots of comments on this blog praising today’s jury verdict, which ordered Microsoft to pay Uniloc $388 million. Gauging from comments on past posts about product activation, many of you don’t much like it.
This sum of money and the nature of this case is somewhat reminiscent of the Alcatel-Lucent case (involving MP3 support in Windows). It has been a long, fierce battle [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
In other important news, there are more confirmations of the claim that OIN may strike back at Microsoft pretty soon (within weeks).
Indeed, Rooney quotes OIN CEO Keith Bergelt, who was interviewed by our sister site, LinuxDevices, shortly after the Microsoft lawsuit was filed, as saying that there could be a “response” to Microsoft from the open source community in the coming weeks. “It’s Newton’s law. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” Bergelt was quoted as saying. The story goes on to quote Bergelt’s assertions that the settlement “says nothing about the validity of the patent.”
Another report (or opinion) suggests that the TomTom case may indeed be used against Microsoft:
So in the short term, Microsoft didn’t gain very much by picking on TomTom. And in the long term, the company’s decision to sue could explode in its face.
TomTom may have stepped aside, but some much bigger and better-funded open-source players are now stepping up to the plate. The Open Invention Network, for example, is already pondering a counterattack that could include legal action designed to invalidate Microsoft’s FAT patent.
The next few weeks will be interesting. Microsoft opened a Pandora’s box.
Apple
Slashdot has just brought back what is old news (but still new to some) about Apple polluting the Web with its patents. The company has a formal response to that and it doesn’t sound too good: “While the current draft patent policy does state a “preference” for royalty-free standards, the ready availability of a RAND option presents too easy an alternative for owners of intellectual property who may seek to use the standardization process to control access to fundamental Web standards. A mandatory royalty-free requirement for all adopted standards will avoid this result.”
Well, RAND and Free software don't work together. Apple ought to know this.
Victims of Communication
One recent patent victim which was mentioned a few days ago is Hewlett-Packard. According to this report, it bailed.
Hewlett-Packard has cashed out of a four-year-old Wi-Fi patent lawsuit from Australia’s national science agency that’s targeted a who’s-who list of big tech vendors with wireless products.
Communication is an area where the patent thicket has always been notorious and now there is another massive lawsuit:
Dallas-based 7-Eleven Inc. and Circle K Stores Inc. were two of nine companies named in a lawsuit filed by Emsat Advanced Geo-Location Technology LLC and patent licensee Location Based Services LLC, alleging the defendants of infringing patents covering enhanced 911 services in cell phones, Law360.com reported.
[...]
The suit claims the telecommunications companies infringe patents titled “Cellular telephone system that uses position of a mobile unit to make call management decisions,” issued between 1999 and 2007, and covering location services for 911 calls, allowing for increased accuracy in determining the location of a cell phone user who has placed a call to an emergency operator, the report stated, citing the complaint. It also alleged the companies infringe a patent application filed January 2008, titled “Cellular telephone system that uses position of a mobile unit to make call management decisions.”
Why are such patents granted in the first place? It’s truly an embarrassment to the practice of patenting.
Turnarounds
As an update on the situation in India [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12], someone who is trying to legalise them wrote this article which explains where the system stands. [via Digital Majority]
In India, for administrative convenience, four patent offices are located in metropolitan cities. However, the offices are inconsistent in their practice with regard to software inventions, mainly due to the lack of clear guidelines. While the Indian Patent Office largely relies on the practice of the European and UK patent offices, there have been instances where inventions claiming software methods with a technical effect that have been allowed by the European or UK patent office have nonetheless been rejected by Indian Patent Office officials on the following grounds:
• The term “technical effect” is not defined in the Indian Patents Act.
• The Draft Manual is not binding on the examiners, as it is only in draft form.
• There are no Indian precedents in respect of software inventions.
As a side note, here is another call for a “global patent”, which is somewhat of a euphemism (think globalisation, like Community patent, harmonisation or centralised court for increased damages, software patents, and so on).
Here is another new editorial about the proposed patent deform[sic] bill in the United States. It addresses the wrong questions and dodges common criticisms like those relating to software patents.
It isn’t often that you see heavyweights in the tech world duking it out in a high-stakes match, with Congress as the referee. It’s happening today over proposed reforms in patent law, which pits the software and information technology giants against their counterparts in biotech. The issues are as fascinating as they are thorny — and while each side paints the choices as black and white, there’s enough gray here to cover a fleet of battleships.
[...]
One reform everyone agrees on is the need to expedite patent applications. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has just over 5,000 underpaid and overworked examiners to review more than 400,000 new applications each year. It would take them two years just to catch up on the current backlog if no new applications arrived. This, too, is stifling innovation. The office needs the money for more staff.
One person opines that software patents, just like network neutrality, suffers from serious misconceptions.
Software patents may be going the way of network neutrality: an arcane policy problem once the preserve of a small circle of wonks is becoming a politicized slanging match. In both cases an esoteric but important research question has become a point of leverage for certain interest groups. In both cases the subject (“network neutrality”, “software patents”) is at best poorly defined, typically has multiple possible meanings, and at worst is so vague as to be useless. And in both cases, the poster child is the small-time innovator, while the sugar daddy is a big money player minimizing costs (e.g. content providers who love net neutrality, and VCs who hate software patents).
Assuming that it’s true and software patents are standing on their last leg, why can’t the Bilski test be invoked? Sun Microsystems has just heroically attempted this but failed due to some federal judge.
A federal judge has shot down an attempt by Sun Microsystems Inc. to use the Bilski test to invalidate two patents for product configuration software held by Versata Software Inc. that Sun is accused of infringing.
Here is an interesting new essay titled “Ten Reasons the Supreme Court Should Take In re Bilski.”
Erika Arner is the co-author of the Bilski petition for certiorari challenging the Federal Circuit’s limits on the patentability of method claims. She handles patent prosecution and litigation at Finnegan Henderson in DC. I asked Ms Arner to write this post.
The thing to look forward to at this stage is OIN’s response to Microsoft, but all in all, this only legitimises software patents rather than challenge them. IBM would not mind. █
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