Learn from the mistakes of others

Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Federal judge extends Microsoft antitrust settlement until 2009
Joe Shaulis at 1:32 PM ET

[JURIST] Microsoft [corporate website; JURIST news archive] must abide by the terms of its 2002 antitrust settlement [final judgment, PDF] with the US Justice Department [official website] through November 2009, a federal judge said Wednesday. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly [official profile] approved the DOJ's two-year extension request [JURIST report; joint status report], which Microsoft had agreed to, during a status conference in US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website].

The DOJ said the extension was necessary [press release] because Microsoft has been slow to improve the technical documentation it provides to licensees of communication protocols for the Windows operating system. As part of the extension, Microsoft has said that it plans to create an "interoperability lab" [press release] where licensees can test and de-bug their protocols with help from Microsoft engineers.

CNET News has more.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Federal judge extends Microsoft antitrust settlement until 2009
Joe Shaulis at 1:32 PM ET

[JURIST] Microsoft [corporate website; JURIST news archive] must abide by the terms of its 2002 antitrust settlement [final judgment, PDF] with the US Justice Department [official website] through November 2009, a federal judge said Wednesday. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly [official profile] approved the DOJ's two-year extension request [JURIST report; joint status report], which Microsoft had agreed to, during a status conference in US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website].

The DOJ said the extension was necessary [press release] because Microsoft has been slow to improve the technical documentation it provides to licensees of communication protocols for the Windows operating system. As part of the extension, Microsoft has said that it plans to create an "interoperability lab" [press release] where licensees can test and de-bug their protocols with help from Microsoft engineers.

CNET News has more.

[JURIST] Microsoft [corporate website] Thursday made a symbolic response to a new antitrust complaint filed with the European Commission [official website] by IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and six other companies by taking the unusual step of posting online its full 78-page defense [text; press release] against a Commission complaint that it had not complied with a 2004 EC antitrust ruling mandating the production of technical data. In its response, filed February 15 [JURIST report], Microsoft accused the Commission of contributing to the problem by not clearly stating its "requirements and concerns" and by not reviewing previous documents submitted by Microsoft.

AP has more.

Meanwhile a Microsoft spokesman dismissed the latest complaint to the European Commission by its rival, saying that it had anticipated the action and that the coalition of complainants under the banner of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems was simply a "front" for its business rivals.

The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Microsoft [corporate website] Thursday made a symbolic response to a new antitrust complaint filed with the European Commission [official website] by IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and six other companies by taking the unusual step of posting online its full 78-page defense [text; press release] against a Commission complaint that it had not complied with a 2004 EC antitrust ruling mandating the production of technical data. In its response, filed February 15 [JURIST report], Microsoft accused the Commission of contributing to the problem by not clearly stating its "requirements and concerns" and by not reviewing previous documents submitted by Microsoft.

AP has more.

Meanwhile a Microsoft spokesman dismissed the latest complaint to the European Commission by its rival, saying that it had anticipated the action and that the coalition of complainants under the banner of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems was simply a "front" for its business rivals.

The New York Times has more.

actually, the dominance largely negates the choice. most people are only familiar with ms products. they use them at work, used them at school, and most people they know use them.

being different is not what most people are into.

humans are social animals. they prefer groups over solitary, sameness over difference/change. most people will go with what they know, and what they are comfortable with.

purchasing is not a merely logical process of weighing up the competing options. even if they had the time, and the expertise, most people go with what they feel is the best choice.

otherwise marketing would not work.

when was the last time you was an advertisement that compared the technical features with alternative products and offered a logical reason for choosing x over y?

actually, the dominance largely negates the choice. most people are only familiar with ms products. they use them at work, used them at school, and most people they know use them.

being different is not what most people are into.

humans are social animals. they prefer groups over solitary, sameness over difference/change. most people will go with what they know, and what they are comfortable with.

purchasing is not a merely logical process of weighing up the competing options. even if they had the time, and the expertise, most people go with what they feel is the best choice.

otherwise marketing would not work.

when was the last time you was an advertisement that compared the technical features with alternative products and offered a logical reason for choosing x over y?

YOU RE ALL UNGRATEFUL!!
If it werent for MSoft's contued churning out of new products most of us
would be unemployed by now. A lot of us have been riding the
certification wave and mostly MS Certs. Now think if they stopped
bringing out new products......

9x% of pcs world over run MS OS
and that translates into employment being generated for us because MS
products are buggy and are prone to a lot of problems. From a business
point of view whats the point of having a stable OS like Linux which
you will never get called in to support. I have a family to support. So
all you stop wining and hating on MS coz they feed you and me. You have
made careers out of their products so show some appreciation.....

I am really sick and tired of wanabee gurus who are always tearing down
MS. Yes their products can be s*** but they have come a long way. You
have to give them that.
From: SemmyD Date: 11/11/05

You have the cart before the horse here.

The IT/ICT industry does not exist *because* of Microsoft. It was quite alive *before* MS.

It would be *different* without Gates & Assocs, but it would exist.

And the idea that the IT industry exists so you can work in tech support is ludicrous.

Technical support has been around since the first tools.

Technology is not about being unreliable so people can be employed to fix it. And from a business perspective, most businesses would be more profitable if they didn't have downtime and expenditure directed towards keeping the tools sharp. They could employ you to actually do something productive, rather than merely reattaching the heads to shoddy hammers.

Something that galls a lot of people about Microsoft is that it did not get where it is by producing the best, or even necessarily good, products. It got here by controlling what most people got on their computer. Hell, they even got money from the sale of a computer without any of their products on it for more than a decade.

And even if you don't consider that monopolistic, the very fact that their OSs are on 90% or so of desktop computers means that most people assume Microsoft when they think of computers.

Even more insidious is that with most education institutions using MS products, few students know anything else. Having choice is meaningless if you won't consider alternatives because you're just barely familiar with the option you already know.

Computer software isn't like a car.

Many different manufacturers produce cars that operate on the same roads, but the basic technologies are similar if not identical across cars. The parts may not be interoperable, but they can all share the same road. And they all work in pretty much the same way. Learn to drive one car, and you can be confident of being able to drive one made by a different manufacturer.

Not so with computer software. The all important 'look-and-feel'™ is more than just prettiness. It controls how you operate the software - and therefore the computer. It also controls and defines how you can go about solving problems with the computer. In short, how you can think about solving problems. There is nothing more monopolistic than that.

Having choice is meaningless if you cannot make use of it, regardless of the reasons.

And before you go off at me, most of my clients use Microsoft products, particularly their OSs. I give advice in light of all of their requirements and needs - identify what needs to be done, before we address how. But then I have a background in programming, application management, and systems analysis as well as user support and systems administration.

YOU RE ALL UNGRATEFUL!!
If it werent for MSoft's contued churning out of new products most of us
would be unemployed by now. A lot of us have been riding the
certification wave and mostly MS Certs. Now think if they stopped
bringing out new products......

9x% of pcs world over run MS OS
and that translates into employment being generated for us because MS
products are buggy and are prone to a lot of problems. From a business
point of view whats the point of having a stable OS like Linux which
you will never get called in to support. I have a family to support. So
all you stop wining and hating on MS coz they feed you and me. You have
made careers out of their products so show some appreciation.....

I am really sick and tired of wanabee gurus who are always tearing down
MS. Yes their products can be s*** but they have come a long way. You
have to give them that.
From: SemmyD Date: 11/11/05

You have the cart before the horse here.

The IT/ICT industry does not exist *because* of Microsoft. It was quite alive *before* MS.

It would be *different* without Gates & Assocs, but it would exist.

And the idea that the IT industry exists so you can work in tech support is ludicrous.

Technical support has been around since the first tools.

Technology is not about being unreliable so people can be employed to fix it. And from a business perspective, most businesses would be more profitable if they didn't have downtime and expenditure directed towards keeping the tools sharp. They could employ you to actually do something productive, rather than merely reattaching the heads to shoddy hammers.

Something that galls a lot of people about Microsoft is that it did not get where it is by producing the best, or even necessarily good, products. It got here by controlling what most people got on their computer. Hell, they even got money from the sale of a computer without any of their products on it for more than a decade.

And even if you don't consider that monopolistic, the very fact that their OSs are on 90% or so of desktop computers means that most people assume Microsoft when they think of computers.

Even more insidious is that with most education institutions using MS products, few students know anything else. Having choice is meaningless if you won't consider alternatives because you're just barely familiar with the option you already know.

Computer software isn't like a car.

Many different manufacturers produce cars that operate on the same roads, but the basic technologies are similar if not identical across cars. The parts may not be interoperable, but they can all share the same road. And they all work in pretty much the same way. Learn to drive one car, and you can be confident of being able to drive one made by a different manufacturer.

Not so with computer software. The all important 'look-and-feel'™ is more than just prettiness. It controls how you operate the software - and therefore the computer. It also controls and defines how you can go about solving problems with the computer. In short, how you can think about solving problems. There is nothing more monopolistic than that.

Having choice is meaningless if you cannot make use of it, regardless of the reasons.

And before you go off at me, most of my clients use Microsoft products, particularly their OSs. I give advice in light of all of their requirements and needs - identify what needs to be done, before we address how. But then I have a background in programming, application management, and systems analysis as well as user support and systems administration.