09.03.08

Citibank Signs Deals with Microsoft, Deliberately Blocks GNU/Linux Users

Posted in Microsoft, Windows, GNU/Linux, SCO, FUD, Deception, Bill Gates, Security, America, SUN at 1:45 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Background

Patterns which are learned from history can be useful for the establishment of an hypothesis — in this case it being the hypothesis that Microsoft partners have implicit obligations which favour Microsoft and ‘punish’ its rivals. This can be harmful for many reasons and even cost lives at times.

The US Federal Aviation Administration seems to have gotten itself entangled after choosing Microsoft, but there are many other government departments which follow a similar route. The US Library of Congress comes to mind as a recent example of Exclusion Through Silverlight™ [1, 2, 3].

Just moments ago we attempted to show that the BBC’s deal with Microsoft seems to have resulted in exclusion of GNU/Linux users and even bashing.

Bank of America

In the case of the Bank of America, even Firefox was banned — until recently. To say more about this:

“As the usage of Firefox browsers has increased with our customer base, we will be initiating a full support model for Firefox version 2.x in the very near future,” spokeswoman Tara Burke told Networkworld.com.

Think “the very near future” will prove to be very soon? Don’t bank on it.

This was a case of merely beginning to support something other than Internet Explorer, despite its many known deficiencies and continued lack of adherence to standards. It’s stubborn snobbery. But what about GNU/Linux, the operating system level?

Welcome Citigroup

One reader, Jose, points out that Prince Alwaleed leads to just one link among others between Microsoft and Citibank (”Prince Alwaleed proposes Microsoft operation for Kingdom”). Bill Gates is mentioned there too. Remember where the SCO cash infusion almost came from and witness the many bits of circumstantial evidence.

According to Bill Parish, “[i]t is often forgotten that crown prince Al-Waleed saved Citicorp from going under a decade ago.” So a circle seems to be closing. Moreover, just watching old news, collaborations between Microsoft and Citibank are clear for all to view. Here are 3 examples:

1. Microsoft Business Solutions Joins Forces With Citibank Merchant Services To Offer Enhanced Retail Management System

Building on their strong relationship, Microsoft Corp. and Citibank Merchant Services today announced an extension of their collaboration to offer Microsoft® Business Solutions’ customers — specifically small and midmarket retailers — technology and services designed for the independent merchant. The agreement, announced at the National Retail Federation (NRF) 92nd Annual Conference & Expo, enhances Microsoft Retail Management System (RMS) by introducing a new payment processing module.

2. Microsoft Signs Citibank Indian Software Unit Deal

Microsoft Corp has formed an alliance with Citibank’s Indian software unit Citicorp Information Technology Industries Ltd (CITIL) to market the latter’s banking products world-wide. CITIL will use Windows NT and Back Office as its platforms of choice. Microsoft will sell the Indian firm’s banking industry products - Microbanker, Fundpower, and Finware - all over the world.

This pair seems to have gotten pretty close with a joint bill venture dating one decade ago:

3. Citibank joins Microsoft bill venture

Citibank has made an equity investment in MSFDC, a controversial joint venture of Microsoft and First Data for online bill presentment and payment.

Citigroup Snubs GNU/Linux

Blaming security, Citibank refuses to support GNU/Linux. Customers are furious. They deserve to be.

So you use that web browser to fill the application for a credit card at Citibank, and finally receive it. But when you start using that credit card and want to check you card usage on-line, the system won’t work when accessed with Linux. That’s exactly what has got Linux users furious at the banking giant.

Jason Antman, a techie and IT major at Rutgers University in New Jersey, got furious last week after realising that getting a card from Citibank using a Firefox is as easy as a walk in the park, but then checking his card activity on CitiCards.com using the open sauce browser was, well, as hard as a stone.

These complaints about Citibank are nothing new by the way. Here is one other rant from last year.

I hope they hear from enough people to take note. I think the Americans with Disabilities Act may be a powerful argument in favor of making web sites more standards compliant and accessible.

For its Web site, Citigroup deploys Solaris (UNIX), so it seems unwilling to run Windows on the server, yet it conveniently requires that customers do so on the desktop. Given the horrifying statistics which claim that one in two (Windows) PCs is a zombie, it’s a gamble, a Russian roulette. As Geer put it, “in zombie we trust.” What is Citigroup thinking?

Windows in ATMs

Citibank is in no position to brag about security. Here is a recent incident:

The alleged thieves made off with about $2 million between October 2007 until March of this year. Officials believe they remotely broke into the back-end computers that approve cash withdrawals and grabbed the PINs as they were being transmitted from the ATMs to the transaction processing computers, which increasingly use Windows, the report says.

From the comments:

Windows should not be used, nor shout OS X or Linux if it is running a GUI. While Windows can not be striped to a secure level and OS X is a bit of a challenge, Linux is very easy to run with a very minimalistic build.

Check out the NSA version of Linux.

Those PIN hacks seem reminiscent of the disaster which is Windows on ATMs. Here are some references that are relevant:

1. Windows-based cash machines ‘easily hacked’

ATMs, or automated teller machines, today face the Internet-born threat of worms and denial-of-service attacks, as well as being at risk from malicious applications that can harvest customer data or hijack machines.

2. Madness: ATMs Running Windows XP?

3. Pictures of ATM Machine Running Windows XP Crashing

The other day I pulled up to an ATM and it was in the middle of crashing and so I was able to shoot these pics during the crash and reboot. The ATM never did come up fully so I was unable to get some cash.

4. ATM using un-activated Windows

Ok, so lets be realistic for a moment here, first off, is ‘Hackers Best Friend” MS Windows really the optimal choice for an operating system that spits out cash?

5. ATM with Pirated Windows

In Russian you can sometimes meet pirated copy of Windows even on ATM. It warns that this copy of Windows need activation and the work of ATM gets interrupted.

6. Why not Embedded? ATM’s Running XP Professional…

This time, I happened to be there when it suddenly BSOD’d and began a reboot cycle. Obviously, to BSOD it needs to run Windows, and moments later, that was confirmed. But that’s not the story here — believe it or not, most ATMs run Windows nowadays, and there’s absoloutely nothing wrong with that.

[…]

There’s a million reasons why an ATM should must be RTOS, be it Linux or VxWorks or Windows CE, but even if you don’t go with RTOS, Windows XP Professional most certainly isn’t the answer. Especially if it’s not even SP2.

7. ATMs hacked using MP3 player

A criminal gang in the U.K. was able to steal confidential banking data by bugging ATMs with an MP3 player, The Times of London reported in its online edition Thursday.

Only Windows seems to reinterpret device insertion as a call for execution of arbitrary and untrusted contents. NASA recently saw its laptops out in space getting infected in this way (computer viruses passing via USB drives in Windows). With that in mind, how can Citigroup promote Windows for security reasons? Brazil seems to have stepped up to the plate and voted for change.

Brazilian banking giant Banco do Brasil this year is preparing to start a massive migration of one of the world’s biggest ATM fleets to the GNU/Linux operating system.

This is one among many migrations to GNU/Linux in Brazil. It includes hundreds of thousands of voting machine, so no wonder Microsoft is scared and resorting to FUD over there [1, 2]. █

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08.29.08

How Much Did Novell Fool Wall Street This Time Around?

Posted in Microsoft, Finance, GNU/Linux, Novell, Deception, Servers, SUN at 8:03 am by Roy Schestowitz

Net loss at $15 million, claims Novell

Novell may have already had financial trouble before. Then came the deal with Microsoft. In the previous fiscal quarter, Novell’s financial issues were already impossible to hide, despite cooking its own books (Microsoft does this too by the way).

In more recent months, Novell began buying its own shares in order to keep up appearances just like Microsoft does [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Yesterday’s financial figures, however, reveal that Novell is unable to keep this up. Novell reported bigger losses.

Here is the press release from Novell (also available from The Earth Times, which might improve future retention in case the former link breaks).

Market Watch summaries thusly: “Novell posts widened third-quarter loss”

Network World (IDG) covered this too.

Novell Thursday posted a net income loss of $15 million for its fiscal third quarter fueled by a charge related to its “auction-rate securities.”

Here is a reminder of the fact that Novell has already slashed its staff to reduce expenses. Apparently, this was not enough for a turnaround.

Novell Inc., the second-largest US seller of Linux software, reported a wider third-quarter loss because of a charge related to investments.

The net loss of $15.1 million, or 4 cents a share, compared with a loss of $3.68 million, or 1 cent, a year earlier, Waltham-based Novell said.

Novell slashed about 10 percent of its workforce last year, moved costly consulting tasks to partner companies, and started selling more products online and over the phone. The company blamed the third-quarter loss on a $15 million impairment charge related to its auction-rate securities.

Fox News had this report.

Novell Inc. (NOVL) posted a widened fiscal third-quarter loss, citing a $15 million charge related to auction-rate securities. Waltham, Mass.-based Novell said its net loss in the period ended in July grew to $15.1 million, or 4 cents a share, from $3.7 million, or a penny a share in the same period a year earlier.

A long-time Microsoft talking point, Ivy Lessner, annonces that “Novell’s Quarterly Loss Widens.”

Same tune in Associated Press, which does not permit quoting. The Microsoft-obedient New York Times may have cherry-picked a Reuters article, which spins this news positively.

Like a few others, Eric Savitz, of the Microsoft-obedient Barron’s, had his eyes on the forecasts before he finally reported without saying much. The effect on the stock was minor.

After hours, NOVL is unchanged at $6.01; the stock rose 10 cents in the regular session.

Street Insider has offered some coverage too.

Over at iTWire, just prior to Novell’s disclosure of these latest results, Sam Varghese predicted trouble for Novell. A company which becomes so dependent on Microsoft cannot be in a healthy state of affairs.

The extension of the deal indicates one thing - all the money which has been pumped into Novell so far is not yielding the returns which either company hoped for and it is now time to further subsidise SUSE Linux.

Yes, subsidise SUSE Linux. That is the main game from Microsoft’s perspective - the subsidising of a GNU/Linux distribution which Microsoft is slowly infiltrating and trying to control. All this talk about interoperability is so much window (pun intended) dressing.

[…]

As Novell is finding out, and will continue to discover, such deals are counter-productive to the bottom line.

Novell has already tried to diffuse several points of backlash [1, 2, 3]. Judging by the ratings of Sam’s article, the the ‘Novell squad’, if it exists at all, might be working overtime.

Here is another new article from Server Watch.

Then remember that the company [Microsoft] isn’t subsidizing SLES to all and sundry — only to customers (including potential ones.) If Microsoft can’t stop them from moving some of their workloads to Linux, it can at least try to control them by herding them to a Linux from a company it has a strong relationship with. Since the two companies have agreed to collaborate on interoperability, and since Microsoft is paying Novell a quarter of what it’s receiving for its Linux business, it’s not a huge step to imagine Microsoft is calling the collaboration tune and Novell doing the dancing.

But Microsoft will also get something else of value from the deal: a better idea of what its customers are up to when it comes to Linux. After all, it must dearly like to have a clear understanding of the areas in which its customers are abandoning Windows for Linux, why they are doing so, how much it costs and the difficulties they face. It’s a case of heeding the advice of Chinese military strategist Sun-tzu: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

[…]

The deal has a darker side to it as well. Subsidies have a habit of distorting the market, and in this case it’s Red Hat and other competitors to SLES that have to struggle against the advantage Microsoft’s greenbacks give Novell. If Microsoft tries to use the knowledge it gains from customers to stifle the growth of Linux in the longer term then that’s altogether more sinister.

Albeit not exactly surprising.

As far as the public if aware, more layoffs are on their way. Novell is meanwhile becoming more of a prime target for an attractive acquisition. It increasingly embraces Microsoft technologies. Yesterday we showed what Novell’s CEO had said about Novell and Microsoft mixing and combining at a technical level. It’s bound to triple in scale.

There are a few speculations out there about Sun Microsystems getting acquired. According to the following, Sun’s FOSS assets could move to Novell, which would make sense for OpenOffice.org, but not for a crown jewel like Java (Novell is a .NET supporter).

HP and IBM would need to see certain mid-term and long-term value in whatever bits of Sun was left after they stripped out the poorly performing parts. IBM could take the open source stuff, like MySQL. It would have trouble taking the Open Solaris software stack on board and would surely regard the Solaris base as conversion material to AIX (less likely) or Linux (more likely). It might sell the open source part of Sun to Novell. The SPARC chip business would have to go, IBM already having PowerPC and not wanting another chip technology. Again Fujitsu is the obvious candidate.

The above is merely speculation, but it’s also possible that Novell will be acquired. Its market cap is very low ($2.13 billion compared to $6.83 billion in Sun’s case and $148.98 billion for Google) and it probably keeps dropping. █

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08.20.08

Microsoft’s Darkest Crimes Remain Undiscovered, Unavailable

Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, SCO, Novell, SUN, Antitrust, Interoperability, IBM at 8:47 am by Roy Schestowitz

“[Bill Gates] is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry.”

–Gary Kildall

An extensive list of Microsoft offenses is something that we already have, but it does not go very far back. One reader brought this oldie to our attention, adding: “Here’s an item that I considered to be one of the key aspects of the Microsoft-SCO cooperation.”

The Caldera antitrust lawsuit included some of the most damning evidence of Microsoft misconduct; breakware, black propaganda, all was there, the potential embarrassment being such that there was good reason for Microsoft to settle, then try to pretend it never happened. Now, however, maybe it didn’t ever happen - because the evidence is being pulped.

AP reports that the 937 boxes of court-ordered documents, which have been in store since the lawsuit, are currently being destroyed at the behest of SCO, their owner and - surely coincidentally - Microsoft’s new friend. Some 40 boxes have been temporarily hijacked by Sun, which is busily scanning them for use in its own antitrust suit, but after it’s done so they’ll be off for pulping too.

“The rest is a pump-and-dump scheme repurposed for FUD,” he says

The same reader has also warned us that stuff like this keeps popping up in people’s faces: “Microsoft Corp.’s unlikely alliance with Linux software vendor Novell Inc.” This was covered some moments ago, but it’s outweighed by articles from unsuspecting journalists, who continue to just parrot Microsoft and Novell. The Register is a bit of an exception because it says: “Novell doesn’t mind, though. In fact it thinks selling its soul to Steve Ballmer was a tremendous idea.”

Our reader adds: “I suppose the goal is to repeat the myth enough times that people start to believe it. Bill really got his panties in a twist over Novell in 1988 when DR-DOS 5, as well as years before that.

“So, where have these journalists been the last 20 years that they haven’t noticed that Bill Gates has been gunning for Novell since the 1980’s.

“And from 1988 found in Case No. 2:96CV645B, in Caldera’s finding of facts [PDF]:

“You never sent me a response on the question of what
things an app would do that would make it run with MSDOS
and not run DR-DOS. Is there any version check or api
they fail to have? Is ther feature they have that might
get in our way? I am not looking for something they cant
get around. I am looking for something their current
binary fails on.”
Bill Gates, September 22, 1988

There’s a lot more here and here. There’s more about Gary Kildall’s legacy in this page. For background there’s also Wikipedia.

Gary Arlen Kildall (May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur who created the CP/M operating system and founded Digital Research, Inc. (DRI). Kildall was one of the first people to see microprocessors as fully capable computers rather than equipment controllers and to organize a company around this concept.[1] He also co-hosted the PBS TV show The Computer Chronicles. Although his career in computing spanned more than two decades, he is mainly remembered in connection with IBM’s unsuccessful attempt in 1980 to license CP/M for the IBM PC.

“And then,” says our reader, there’s this.

He continues: “Just for the record, QDOS which became MS-DOS when Bill later bought it, was a clone of CP/M and by version 4 sucked so badly that competitors like DR-DOS hopped over 4 in their own versioning to avoid being associated with MS-DOS 4. The market that Gates wanted was dominated by DR-DOS with graphical shells Desqview and GEM. On technical merits, MS-DOS under Windows 2,3,95,and 98 could not compete.” █

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08.18.08

ISO Pegged Its Own Vote to Shelter Microsoft OOXML

Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Novell, Deception, Mono, Standard, OpenDocument, SUN, Java, Open XML, IBM, ISO at 4:52 am by Roy Schestowitz

Details begin to surface about ISO’s decision to give countries in search of justice… well, the finger [1, 2, 3]. ISO has come to the point where its goal is to give OOXML a thumbs-up and pretend that all that corruption never existed.

ISO seems to have done something similar to what Novell and Microsoft did in order to equip their marketing departments and Microsoft did to promote Windows Vista. They conduct surveys or polls that are hugely biased. It’s almost as though they are rigged by design. Watch what they did this time around:

I have now received the actual voting results for the IEC vote, and an indecipherable screenshot of the ISO votes. I’ll hope to add the ISO votes later on when I get more comprehensible information, but in the meantime, here are the IEC results.

In each case, the questions included in the ballot were the same:

a) Not to process the appeal any further

b) To process one or more of the appeals, which would require setting up of a conciliation panel

Rob Weir has seen this by now and he is angry because it’s clear that they asked the wrong questions with the intention of cleaning up the mess and sweeping the abuse under a rug.

So the results in the SMB ballot are highly tainted by a poorly written ballot question, given to them by the Secretaries General, which clearly caused confusion among the SMB votes, and which had a material effect on the voting results. My analysis of IEC/SMB shows that like ISO/TMB’s vote, the results are nearly equally divided, and IEC/SMB should hang their head in shame if they persist in denying a hearing to these four appeals because of ambiguous results from a poorly written, botched ballot.

Where have we heard this before?

“This was horrible, egregious, process abuse and ISO should hang their heads in shame for allowing it to happen.”

–Tim Bray

ISO drips bias. Its goal was to defend its reputation through denial. It’s a pattern [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and it’s hugely appalling.

Meanwhile, the news gets filled with disinformation like this:

Posted by Zealot on 08/17/08 in Microsoft

[…]

Typically Microsoft, rather then settling on the readily available OpenDocument standard developed by Sun…

It is not developed by Sun! The critics, in this case an author called “Zealot”, keep trying to put a company name on the face of ODF. It’s disinformation, period. It’s intended to make it seem like a battle between peers, as opposed to one company (Microsoft) against the entire world, which includes companies, independent developers, academic institutions, businesses and home users. OpenMalaysia once wrote: “what is the point is that we have collectively, globally, bore witness to an awesome display of power by a single corporation. Awesome. Ruthless, even.

To set the record straight on ODF, from an Indian perspective comes (fresh off the news):

On the other is the Open Document Format (ODF), supported by the likes of IBM, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Google, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), National Informatics Centre (NIC), CDAC, IIT-Mumbai and IIM-Ahmedabad.

Microsoft technologies are exclusionary and isolative by design (see this for details). In that respect, OOXML and .NET have something in common.

Java was cross-platform. Microsoft could not permit such ‘abomination’, so it tried to ‘extend’ so as to ruin it or make it Windows-reliant. Failing that, .NET, along with the illusion de Icaza helps create that .NET will work on other platforms (as a second-class citizen under the patent sword, of course), Microsoft tried to replace Java, somewhat of an analogical equivalent of ODF. █

“That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with).”

“If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).“

A Memo to Patrick Durusau

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08.06.08

More ODF for Macs, Trouble for the Already-Embattled ISO

Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Apple, Standard, OpenDocument, Europe, SUN, Open XML, OpenOffice, ISO at 3:46 pm by Roy Schestowitz

It should be no secret that Apple is somewhat of a Microsoft buddy when it comes to office suites. Just watch this old video and recall what software is preinstalled with Macs nowadays. Remember what formats are supported and why. It is therefore good news that StarOffice 9 is coming to Mac OS X, along with OpenDocument format (ODF) support.

StarOffice is based on the same underpinnings as the open source office suite OpenOffice.org. It provides an alternative to Microsoft Office using applications that support the XML file format. Individual components of StarOffice include a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, drawing tool, database tool and formula generator.

It’s worth emphasising that Microsoft Office for Windows is not compatible with Microsoft Office for the Mac.

The only conclusion one can reach is that OOXML is too messy for anyone to handle, including Microsoft which is unable and disinterested in getting the job done. So, why is it being rushed through? Andy Updegrove has something to say on that matter and he responds to questions from the very same Redmond press that admitted Microsoft’s foul play in the past and even took pride in it (”Return of the Champ”).

Updegrove seems very polite and restrained here because the target audience includes Microsoft employees. He puts the very severe issues very gently.

Obviously you feel these appeals have some merit. What arguments in those appeals have traction?

Updegrove: A couple items come to mind. One, were the judgments made by ISO/IEC valid under the rules? For example, allowing O-Members to vote. The CEOs say that this was in their discretion, and that there’s therefore no basis for an appeal. But why shouldn’t the limits of that discretion be eligible for appeal?

Two, have the reputations of ISO and IEC been damaged by the way in which the process was conducted? The CEOs didn’t even bother to address this one, even though it’s mentioned explicitly in the appeals, and even though the directives explicitly call out “matters of principle” and effects on “reputation” as being valid reasons for appeal.

[…]

Do you think we’ll see structural changes to the ISO fast-track approval process based on the OOXML experience? Or does ISO seem focused on moving on?
I think that ISO would like to just move on, but that a meaningful number of vendors aren’t going to allow that to happen. But how would anyone know? One of the things that I fault ISO on is for being so secretive. We haven’t heard a word out of them about reform other than public statements that “we’re always looking to improve.”

In fact, I know that there have been private conversations going on behind closed doors about reforms ever since the BRM, if not before. The latest I’ve heard, however, is that these talks have been put on hold until the appeals are resolved.

Here is Microsoft and the BSI [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] getting a little cozy in a new press release. It’s pretty much the same with ISO. █

From the Campaign for Document Freedom

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08.01.08

Yankee Group Again Attacks Paymaster’s Competition

Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, SUN, Virtualization, FOSS at 7:12 am by Roy Schestowitz

“Open source is not a movement; it’s a religion. It is a set of principles and practices that let everyone share non-existent or semi-existent intellectual property. Remember the Communist Manifesto: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” It is this generation’s Woodstock.”

–Howard Anderson Framingham
Founder of The Yankee Group (2007)

Several months ago there was a Yankee-VMWare confrontation (later mentioned in [1, 2]). For the uninitiated, the Yankee Group is one of the more notorious groups of people hired by Microsoft to publish ’studies’ — however flawed they may be — against GNU/Linux and Free software. They are now on a warpath against VMWare. One of their recent ’studies’ they were forced/pressured to take off the Web for being utterly false. Guess who still had a copy up for display to the public? That’s right, Microsoft.

If you thought this Big Scam was over, think again.

Research firm Yankee Group Research Inc. released two separate reports Wednesday on the virtualization market that asserts that the industry’s dominant player, VMware Inc., is facing tougher competition from rivals.

Palo Alto-based VMware (NYSE:VMW), a subsidiary of Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC), is “under siege” from rivals such as Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Citrix Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) and Novell Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL).

What about Sun, Oracle, Virtual Iron, KVM and a few others? No, the Yankee Group only mentioned the Microsoft partners as a risk to VMWare. This smells like a self-fulfilling prophecy, trying to create the illusion that the market leader is in danger because of Microsoft, which stood at about 0% market share at the time. Might they try to kick-start adoption on behalf of a long-time funding source? █

“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

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07.31.08

Sam Ramji, the Man Who Wants to Politely Steal from GNU/Linux

Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Ron Hovsepian, Steve Ballmer, Office Suites, Mono, OpenDocument, SUN, Open XML, OpenOffice, FOSS, xandros at 4:59 am by Roy Schestowitz

Novell still leans towards Microsoft, too

Gavin Clarke is at it again. He does yet another Ramji/Microsoft glorification piece. This time, for a change, he adds this:

“We need to engage with Windows administrators - this stuff runs on Windows,” Ramji said.

For more from Ramji on how Microsoft surrendered sovereignty to the Open Source Initiative, on chief executive Steve Ballmer’s apparent rapprochement with open source - just don’t mention the “L” word - and how Microsoft won’t be open sourcing Windows, you can download George’s 11 minute podcast here.

Remember what Microsoft has in mind. As Steve Ballmer once shouted (and even damaged his vocal chords in the process), it’s “Windows Windows Windows”.

The Ramji/Clarke-like series isn’t an isolated incident and it never stops. Remember how Microsoft raves about its control of the press and its ability to push so-called (pseudo) ‘open source’ figures into the headlines. It even says so in a job description.

John Fontana does Ramji another glorifying piece, calling him a “guru”. And then there’s this:

Then it turned ugly.

The first questioner from the audience wanted to know what it would take for Microsoft not to claim patent infringement violations in open source code.

His inquiry was followed by whoops, whistles and thunderous applause.

The next question was about trust, as in why should we trust you this time? And the next referenced what the questioner called the “Office Open XML debacle” and accused Microsoft of using its power to buy international standards.

To explain what has happened here, consider this: Microsoft attacks Free software at the back and uses people like Ramji as a punch bag to absorb criticism and make critics of Microsoft look ugly (because, hey, Ramji didn’t say anything to aggravate, did he?). For similar reasons, female representatives are sometimes used to mitigate a verbal assault. It was a similar situation in OSBC 2008 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Here is what Pamela Jones wrote recently about Microsoft’s attempts to bury memories of the OOXML fiasco:

Now, when it looks like the world really does want ODF instead of OOXML, surrogates are sending a dual message — first, that ODF has won, so OOXML isn’t worth fighting any more (and anyone who does is an “extremist” anti-Microsoft whiner), and two, that OASIS isn’t able to do a good job with ODF, so the same folks who brought you OOXML should take it over.

In the same vein, the message Microsoft delivers to us now is that Microsoft just loves open source and if someone complains about it (or — God forbid — insults ‘poor Ramji’), then that someone is “an “extremist” anti-Microsoft whiner,” to repeat the wording used above. It’s a moral shield which used to ensure that the Trojan horse can penetrate the very centre of Open Source City and then change its governance.

There is actually a lot more of the same in ODF/OOXML. Alex Brown [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21], for instance, played innocent a while ago by issuing an apologetic press release. Microsoft pulled the same type of stunt. The purpose was to shut up critics and make them look bad by pretending that Microsoft had already lost.

“The purpose was to shut up critics and make them look bad by pretending that Microsoft had already lost.”As Groklaw showed some hours ago, Microsoft lied. It was self-serving double-speak. Pamela Jones wrote: “If you believed the story put out that “ODF has won”, you may be in for a surprise. ZDNet Asia has some quotes from Oliver Bell, Microsoft Asia-Pacific’s regional technology officer, a CompTIA person, and a sales guy there, all touting OOXML as the dominant choice, due to it allegedly being the default format in Word. I’ll show you one example, but you’ll find it all of interest. Of course, what is available in Word is not the ISO format OOXML, despite what this article says.”

“CompTIA,” eh? Does it not matter who pays the wages there?

Also on the same subject, Novell continues bragging about its own version of OpenOffice.org. It won’t say out loud (with rare exceptions that it’s only for Novell’s paying customers. for whom it claims to have paid Microsoft for ‘protection\. Remember that this thing is filled with Mono hooks, VBA, and OOXML. Novell even makes the Windows version better than the GNU/Linux version. It was a promise made in the agreement between Ron Hovsepian and Steve Ballmer. Sun has many reasons to be displeased. Novell is with Microsoft. Novell supports Microsoft technologies like .NET and OOXML and nothing will change. █

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07.29.08

Bruce Perens’ “Sun Buys Novell” Hypothesis

Posted in Microsoft, SCO, Novell, SUN at 11:52 am by Roy Schestowitz

Far fetched until one looks closely

The Novell/Sun/SCO situation was last mentioned over the weekend. The value of Novell, as a technology company, is surprisingly low. Its market cap is so low that the ever-stagnating Sun Microsystems could buy it (if only it made sense despite the overlap in products). Here is how Bruce Perens put it the other day:

So in the article Bruce says “If pressured, Sun could buy out Novell without a problem, which would be the best end for Novell anyway.”

So could this be a mouse that roared scenario? Make war on somebody in the hope that they will win and have to support you?

The main assets of Novell are perhaps considered to be software patents — a legacy of its part glory. Other assets are less tangible too.

Microsoft’s stock value took another dive yesterday and one person suggests that the company has lost over 100 billion in value over the past year alone. Bloomberg estimated the loss at $90 billion just over a week ago, but things have changed, and not for the better. █

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