Reasons to Avoid Microsoft

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Monopoly

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• 1,187 pages of final filings for Microsoft remedy - Software firm, attorneys general mostly rehash points for judge (SF Chronicle, 2002.Jun.11)
  'The fundamental issue,' [an attorney] said, is that 'Microsoft still doesn't recognize, acknowledge or in any way deal with the fact that both the district court and the appeals court found that they engaged in anticompetitive actions to stifle new technologies that had the potential to undermine their monopoly power.'
  

• States Call Microsoft Out on Music (Yahoo! News, 2002.May.07)
  A Microsoft official acknowledged Tuesday that the company uses a new feature in its Internet Explorer Web browser to play digital music files even if the user has already chosen a different music player. ... [Companies] such as RealNetworks have complained that Microsoft frequently overrides user preferences. ... RealNetworks also complained that the search feature in Microsoft's Windows XP ... fails to find RealNetworks files.
  

• Court Is Told Microsoft Kept Strategy Even After Ruling (New York Times, 2002.May.07)
  [Microsoft] bundled more multimedia features into Windows XP even after a judge ruled the company had illegally integrated extra functions into the operating system to protect its monopoly... The states say that Microsoft designs such dependencies purposely to make it difficult to comply with court orders to unbundle functions from Windows.
  

• Microsoft Denies RealNetworks Charge (Yahoo!, 2002.May.06)
  Microsoft says that if the media player was removed, the broad scope of the states' proposals would mean that Windows would not be able to play any sound or video at all - which would break many multimedia programs.
  

• More embarrassing Microsoft e-mail - Memo: 'Streaming media ... likely to follow a similar pattern' (CNN, 2002.May.03)
  The memo declares, 'Winning in streaming media is likely to follow a similar pattern to how the Web evolved.'
  

• Microsoft, RealNetworks battle - MIT professor takes stand again after fumbling answers as states' attorney grilled him Wednesday (CNN, 2002.May.02)
  Microsoft is 'clearly trying to mislead the court,' Sheeran [vice President of RealNetworks] said in an interview. ... A computer expert testifying on behalf of Microsoft Corp. in the ongoing antitrust action stumbled several times while on the stand Wednesday.
  

• Microsoft Tried to Buy Nintendo (Gamers.com, 2002.Apr.26)
  Following last month's rather shocking revelation that Microsoft had originally tapped Sega to develop the Xbox, it's now been revealed that at one point Microsoft was dealing with Nintendo too. In fact, Microsoft was all but set to outright buy the company.
  

• Microsoft's $40 billion bet (CNN, 2002.Apr.15)
  No other nonfinancial firm has more liquid money at its disposal, and only a handful of banks do. It's more cash than Ford, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart have combined, and nearly four times as much as Intel, the tech company with the next largest cash balance. It is enough to buy the entire airline industry -- twice. Or all the gold in Fort Knox, four times over. It is enough to buy 23 space shuttles or every major professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey team in America. It is an enviable stash. Who wouldn't love to have a bank account like that?
  

• Microsoft prohibits GPLed work via licensing of CIFS standards (Advogato, 2002.Apr.04)
  Microsoft is trying a new tactic, a combination of patent claims and licensing of technical standards. ... This attack is clearly aimed at the successful GPLed CIFS implementation, Samba.
  

• Xbox Revelations: Sega Paid Off, No Square Support, MGSX Cancelled? (Gamers.com, 2002.Mar.26)
  Sega proudly supports the Xbox with several titles, but the secrets behind how this arrangement came about are shocking. Back in 1999, Bill Gates forged an agreement with Sega's late president Isao Okawa that would have handed the Xbox hardware design and manufacturing duties over to Sega.
  

• Gateway bows to Microsoft's power (ZDNet, 2002.Mar.26)
  [Microsoft] can still use Windows licensing agreements and other contractual provisions to extract concessions from PC makers. ... Gateway also faulted another provision of the new licensing agreement, which requires PC makers to pay a Windows royalty on every PC shipped, even if it didn't include Windows. To top it off, to qualify for market development funds, PC makers have to put a Microsoft OS on every PC. As a result, trying to sell non-Windows PCs, or even PCs without software, is a financial loser for computer makers.
  

• Update: IT execs say Microsoft harmed their companies (Computerworld, 2002.Mar.21)
  Microsoft's software-licensing terms are 'severe and onerous,' said ... RealNetworks' vice president of consumer systems. ... Hardware makers told RealNetworks they could no longer set its software as a default because of new terms in Microsoft's licensing contracts for Windows... [Microsoft removing Gateway from AOL's list of approved vendors] was Microsoft's retaliation for Gateway's decision to use the Linux operating system on its Connected Touchpad Internet appliance.
  

• Microsoft, States Debate Remedies (eWeek, 2002.Mar.18)
  Microsoft's [allegedly pressured] on Compaq to 'meet demand but not help create demand' for Linux.
  

• States Say Microsoft Still a Bully (Reuters, 2002.Mar.18)
  Citing internal Microsoft memos, the nine states also said that in 2000 and 2001 Microsoft pressured Dell Computer Corp. into dropping plans to offer the open-source Linux operating system on some machines it sells.
  

• Ruling questions protected use of the name 'Windows' (Seattle P-I, 2002.Mar.16)
  Windows, one of the best-known trademarks in the world, may not be a name Microsoft Corp. can own and use exclusively, a federal judge ruled yesterday. [The judge] wrote that there are 'serious questions regarding whether 'Windows' is a non-generic name and thus eligible for the protections of federal trademark law.'
  

• Microsoft's lobbying efforts eclipse Enron (ZDNet, 2002.Feb.12)
  [Microsoft's] budget for its Political Action Committee (PAC) increased from about $16,000 in 1995 to $1.6 million in 2000... Roeder said that his review of the available documents has led him to conclude that over the past five years, Microsoft has engaged in political influence peddling 'in many ways unprecedented in modern political history.'
  

• Microsoft Reveals Anti-Disclosure Plan (SecurityFocus, 2001.Nov.9)
  A chief objective of the group is to discourage 'full disclosure,' the common practice of revealing complete details about security holes, even if publication might aide attackers in exploiting them. ... [But] the notion of limiting disclose of security information was controversial, and critics were not appeased by the added details. 'What's being created here is an information cartel ... It actually benefits security vendors to have limited vulnerability information, because it makes them look better in the eyes of their customers.' ... the coalition was formed for the commercial advantage of its members, rather than the well-being of the Internet.
  

• Official: Microsoft is a monopoly in Israel (Ha'aretz, 2001.Nov.9)
  Antitrust Commissioner Dror Strum has informed Microsoft that he has formally classified the software giant a monopoly in Israel...
  

• Tim Berners-Lee on Microsoft's Latest Browser Tricks (SiliconValley.com, 2001.Oct.26)
  'I have fought since the beginning of the Web for its openness: that anyone can read Web pages with any software running on any hardware. ... When I see any Web site claim to be only readable using particular hardware or software, I cringe... Amaya, the browser which W3C [itself] develops ... and which arguably has the best W3C compliance, is blocked from www.msn.com.' What has Microsoft learned from its antitrust experiences? 'I can't answer that one.'
  

• MSN.com shuts out non-Microsoft browsers (CNet, 2001.Oct.25)
  Using the most recent browser from Mozilla.org to reach MSN brings a message from Microsoft saying it has 'detected that the browser that you are using will not render MSN.com correctly.' ... 'Microsoft is actively keeping our browser from accessing MSN.com,' said [makers of Opera web browser]
  

• Consumer groups blast Windows XP in report (CNN, 2001.Sep.28)
  Four consumer advocacy groups say Microsoft's upcoming Windows XP operating system will cause 'significant harm' to consumers. ... Windows XP's integration with other software and its licensing terms 'not only mimic Microsoft's previous violations of antitrust laws, but also significantly add to them,' say [the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and the US Public Interest Research Group], in [the report 'Windows XP/.Net: Microsoft's Expanding Monopoly']...
  

• A Punitive Puppeteer? (InfoWorld, 2001.Sep.17)
  While we're on the subject of license enforcement, let me throw in a term one alert reader just spotted in the license for FrontPage 2002. 'You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services ...' the license reads in part.
  

• Microsoft lobbying campaign backfires; even dead people write in support of firm (Seattle Times, 2001.Aug.23)
  [Reprint of following]
  

• Lobbyists Tied to Microsoft Wrote Citizens' Letters (LA Times, 2001.Aug.23)
  Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of [the Utah Attorney General] ... imploring him to go easy on Microsoft Corp. for its conduct as a monopoly. The pleas ... are part of a carefully orchestrated nationwide campaign to create the impression of a surging grass-roots movement. ... The campaign ... goes to great lengths so that the letters appear to be spontaneous expressions from ordinary citizens. ... 'This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries.'
  

• Microsoft drops eleventh hour app blocking into WinXP (The Register, 2001.Aug.02)
  'If Microsoft got into the business of deciding which programs you may run on your system, that's a pretty scary thing. Most companies don't have the time or resources to go through the 'Microsoft certification' program.'
  

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