New Documents Shed Light on Microsoft's Tactics 614
Tigen writes "As the NY Times reports, even as MS prepares to face penalties from the European Union, testimony during the second week of trial in the consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota has revealed some embarrassing internal documents from Microsoft which were not disclosed in the 1997 federal antitrust lawsuit. Items include a 1990 letter from Bill Gates to Andy Grove, and Microsoft's illegal tactics against the Go Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup."
The Microsoft Damage. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a lot of 'high order' dreams in the computing science. The CS holy grail of pocket, portable computing is only now coming to fruition (thank you Palm), but has been on the cards since at least the 60's as a design reference/specification. Go could've given us this in the late 1980's, early 90's. Microsofts' machinations, however, prevented that from happening.
I understand now, why the Palm founders adopted their 'found and leave' strategy for PalmOS. In the light of Go, Inc's demise it makes sense to light 4 or 5 small fires that the enemy can't put -all- out, rather than making a very large target, like Go and Motorola did
I stopped using Microsoft products in 1998. They'll not get one penny of $ from this consumer, and not one item of code from this programmer. I tell all my Microsoft-using friends to fuck off with their self-made problems, too, and get real operating systems, from real software companies
Re:ENOUGH WITH THE ANTI MICROSOFT FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't need to find any more. Even if they are out there, somewhere in the ditch, buried
You should be marked "-1 Ignorant Buffoon", but alas thats
I'm a little suspicious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft Crimes (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is not anti-competitive, then what is?
Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.
Industrial Espionage.
Microsoft violated nondisclosure agreements with Go, and then used that information to build PenWindows, a competitor to Go's PenPoint operating system.
GO has loyalty rights for PenWindows. GO should sue PenWindows licensee's individually. This is what Microsoft is trying to do to Linux users through SCO. GO has more legal grounds to stand on that SCO.
Shortly after the letter was written, Intel reduced its planned investment in Go from $10 million to $2 million
Intel was held to ransom, and they paid it.
The advice read in part that the focus should be shifted from "killing the competitor" to "providing a better solution to the customer's problems."
So they did believe in Killing Competition. A tiger never changes its stripes.
I think some of these allegations could ammount to criminal offences. I do hope Mr. Gates does a time in a cell with No Windows
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Re:$1.5 billion..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$1.5 billion..... (Score:5, Insightful)
slashbot (Score:3, Insightful)
Please explain how pocket, portable computing would have been possible even ten years ago. The hardware was the limiting factor. Microsoft had nothing to do with it - the state of the semiconductor industry did. We didn't have CPUs that worked withotu sucking *lots* of juice. NMOS CPUs were very power hungry.
Today we have calculators [hp.com] with 75 MHz processors, powered off AAA batteries. Would that have been possible 10 years ago? perhaps, but the price would have been insane.
Companies are always free to develop their own embedded OS; some do. Back then the hardware wasn't available. So quit the microsoft bashing.
Typical slashdot groupthink [anti-slash.org]
Re:Andy Grove intimidation? (Score:1, Insightful)
Great Friend... (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely there's a way you can express your displeasure with MS products to your friends with a little more tact?
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the clearest demonstrator that Microsoft has held back innovation is PowerPoint. Because it is virtually installed as default on all business machines, everyone uses it. Microsoft has had little motivation to update it, so it still functions like a piece of software from ten years ago. But ask any graphic designer about it and they will free out about how impossibly sh*t it is for creating presentations, especially bearing in mind the amazing graphics computers are capable of these days. And yet where is the strong competition for PowerPoint? There isn't one, because it is impossible to compete with the kind of product bundling Microsoft can get away with.
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very interesting that as a consequence of Microsoft's domination of the market, people give you very weird looks when you tell them you don't use windows. Then they calm down, an idea hits them, and they ask, "Oh, so you use Mac, then?" The weird look, however, wrests itself upward from its grave where the pallbearers were finally resting with (they thought) the satisfaction of a job well done, and climbs back on to the poor user's face when you're forced to disillusion them.
Using something other than windows is almost a stigma in some circles (circles the average slashdotter has little contact with, and avoids as much as possible), and it's the fact that most people only know and (ha!) understand how to use one OS that leads to this sorry state of affairs. A consuming fear of new ideas leads to stagnation, not innovation, and this fear is exactly what the Microsoft monopoly has led us into.
Re:slashbot (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to have forgoten what Wintel is...
OS writers are very much in a co-dependant relationship with the chip makers... the direction that the OS writers take their software and the direction the chip makers take their chips have to be in sync because one will not work without the other.
Thus, research into chip design was up until recently funneled towards keeping up with the Moore's Law pace of faster and faster clock speeds. Research into creating a chip that could run on low power just wasn't done because there wasn't much of a market for it.
In order to justify writing an OS for a handheld, you need to know what chip you're going to be running on. In order to build a chip geared for handheld use, you need to be sure somebody's actually going to make handhelds.... it's a classic catch 22, and Microsoft appears to have blocked the Go-Motorola partnership that would have made those advances a decade or so before they actually happened.
How History Repeats Itself (Score:5, Insightful)
A decision was made, but a lot of people believe that decision was just so much tepid crap. Courts have been overturned in the past; perhaps if enough new evidence comes to light, the case can be reopened.
Yes, it does serve a purpose. It serves to dig up more facts and evidence should someone in the judiciary ever get wise and reevaluate that case.
Even if the trial never reopens, the Court of Public Opinion is always open. The more people learn what kinds of jiggery-pokery Microsoft has been up to, the more likely Microsoft will gets its just desserts sooner or later, and the less likely anyone else will ever pull such stunts again.
Honestly. I'm trying to figure out your attitude. "Microsoft did it, they got away with it, and that's good enough for me!" Are you always this doggedly complacent?
Need something burned down in a big hurry? Then come on down to the Flamebait Market, for all your pyromaniac needs!
Re:$1.5 billion..... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the fine were the only issue microsoft would have paid it and said "sorry we wont do it again" before going off and doing it again.
The main issue in the EU case and the reason Microsoft is going to appeal it is control.
Making Microsoft remove media player (and who knows maybe others will happen later).
Making them provide *complete* specs such that other software companies can make totally compatible products.
Those are the real issues. Efforts to control microsofts future not make them pay for wrong-doings in the past.
The best thing that could come out of the EU case is the interoperability thing. Imagine if you could choose your html renderer and it slots itself into place so perfectly that anywher IE was used before your choice of renederer gets used now.
How about an NTFS implementation for Linux with complete read/write compatibility.
How about open office reading/writing all of Office's document formats perfectly.
That is what microsoft is scared of.
Microsoft might stolen IP (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time Microsoft goes on about piracy hurting them damaging innovation etc they should be reminded of this that they are IP thieves themselves and if SCO can ask for $1million from IBM then what can the former executives of Go sue Microsoft for? All hypothetical of course the documents have yet to prove this is the case.
Re:slashbot (Score:4, Insightful)
Go-Motorola partnership? The article talks about an investment reduction from Intel. Given that Intel and Motorola are competitors, maybe Intel just didn't want to indirectly fund their own competitor?
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, never mind that Windows gave computers some much needed unity. Never mind that computer ownership skyrocketed after Windows 95 came out. Never mind that nearly every household has a computer in it, now. Microsoft held back computing. Anybody remember the Commodore days? Having a computer was like driving a moped.
Re:ENOUGH WITH THE ANTI MICROSOFT FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
One man's flamebait is another man's insightfu.
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Same here. Only now I find people don't argue with me so much. While Intel has done a credible job of advancing the hardware, they probably would have done more had they not relied on the nod-nod-wink-wink relationship with Microsoft.
The true agent of change is the hardware, and now software technology moving off-shore. Sadly, the cost of overcoming the Microsoft bottleneck will be America's loss of dominance in computing. Emerging economies have no desire to pay top dollar for a mediocre operating system, and with fabrication of hardware all going on elsewhere the PC is becoming close to a disposable device which means the OS needs to be that way too.
History will lay a large part of the blame at Bill Gate's feet. Having squandered our technology lead for his own personal gains and ego is a distinction he well deserves.
Lets wait for groklaw shall we? (Score:5, Insightful)
IF it is true then it just goes once again to show how fucking rotten the legal system is. Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth eh? So will these be grounds for a new case? Wasn't Martha Stewart found guilty of lying to an officer instead of insider dealing? Can they get MS on withholding evidence? Perhaps even going after people who can be jailed? I personally don't believe for a second that this could be accidental (IF of course it is real)
Some posts seem to mention that attempting to create or abuse a monopoly is a felony. Doesn't this mean that MS is a criminal? So how exactly is it still allowed to do business as usual? Companies seem to want all the perks of being treated a real people but none of the bad stuff like oh say being punished for committing crimes.
Oh well at least we can snigger at all the microsoft apologist trying to wriggle out of this one. This must be one of their worst weeks. Embarrising papers, being fined and if you look at groklaw yet more hypocrasy by claiming that the EU has no right to tell it how to behave while MS itself is asking the EU to tell Lindows how to behave.
I almost pity the MS fans. Almost.
Re:slashbot (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain how YET ANOTHER example of MS using dubious business practices to stiffle competition is not hurting progress.
You alledge that it is not to blame MS for not being able to use AAA batteries 10 years ago, and you are right.
That is however not the issue.
The -issue- is how MS is illegaly extending its monopoly into other markets, and how this IS NOT promoting innovation, if only simply because if your new innovation gets eyeballed by MS, you basically lost.
remember drdos?
remember netscape?
remember stack?
remember Citrix?
remember real? Oh well Ill ask that one in two years.
So why start in the first place? THATS what software devolpers are thinking, and I alledge that this is the reason for the lack of innovation in the past 15 years.
I alledge this is another reason for the dotcom bubble burst. I alledge this is the reason for the general dubious image ICT now has world wide.
And I -know- it has cost many Office Automation specialists lots of lost happiness.
"/Dread"
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:2, Insightful)
Powerpoint is at least a stable app which I, a linux user, need. I cannot get around it because presentations are often done on someone elses computer.
Re:good morning slashdot!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps if companys where less like Microsoft and Enron Etc. and the senior managers actually punished when do act like that then you wouldn't see so many go down in flames.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:slashbot (Score:5, Insightful)
An odd statement to make given that the main article is about proof of anti-competitive and illegal activities of Microsoft, not to mention their recent European fines for similar activities.
What exactly does Microsoft have to do wrong before you'll consider "Microsoft bashing" reasonable. Perhaps if they clubbed some baby seals?
Re:Andy Grove intimidation? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have (personally) NOT seen proof of Andy Grove keeping IBM employees in a cellar, and I would damn well like some evidence of it if I'm expected to take that seriously.
Re:slashbot (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. I actually learn computing on one of those (TRS-80 model 100) in 1983.
Life about 20 hours on 4 AA batteries
A4-size
Full size keyboard
8x40 chars LCD (64x240 pixels) (The 200 had 16x40, IIRC)
32Kb ROM: Basic (microsoft), Text Editor, Address Book, Scheduler and Terminal
Integrated modem and compuserve account
32 Kb RAM
80c85 processor (sort of dumbed down 8080)
This machine just rocked. It still work.
If microsoft did not destroy the computing landscape in the last 20 years, we'd have incredible machines right now. (of course, chips would be much slower, memory would be smaller, as the unification of the market around wintel put all the efforts in that direction, but I beleive that we would have 5 times less [techinally] powerfull machines that would be 20 times more usefull. Come on, we don't really need a P4 3GHz to edit text documents)
A desensitized public? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$1.5 billion..... (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be pointed that the complete disclosure clause under dicussion by the EU Commission is of client-server application formats and APIs. That is, it only applies to stopping Microsoft leveraging control of the desktop into control of the server market. So neither of your examples would actually be covered by this penalty, but some other very useful things (SMB stuff, all the IE-only hacks which bad html authors constantly abuse, asp; this is not an exhaustive list) will be covered.
~cHrisRe:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:5, Insightful)
My point, such as it was, is this: The oblivious and the clueless are capable of causing (or being used to cause, same effect) great damage to the 'Net as a whole. Almost invariably, those people are using a Microsoft Windows product as the base of their computing experience.
In the US, just about everyone has a car. Even our poor people do. They are ubiquitous. That ubiquity has led to subsidies which lower the cost of vehicles, fuels, roads, and the like. And yet, we _still_ demand that people be licensed because if they get onto the public infrastructure without some basic skills they can cause enormous harm.
Granted, getting your box pwn3d because you think someone you've never heard of sent you a calculator attached to a message consisting of random nouns doesn't quite rank up there with driving an 88 Buick through a preschool playground, but it has a cost. The burden on the infrastructure thanks to Windows machine is estimated to be billions of dollars. Identity-theft stories frequently involve vulnerabilities in IE or IIS.
All I want is to see some basic skills. If you're the kind of person who clicks attachments from strangers then goddammit, you do not belong on the Internet with the rest of us. And yes, that extends even to your parents, who I am sure are delightful people and don't actually do that sort of thing because you know what you're about and they'd certainly listen to you.
If a company invented a circular saw that was so "intuitive" that no one read the user's manual, indeed no manual came with the saw, there'd be a lot of injury. And no one would applaud that company for bringing circular saws to the masses, or for leading to a price drop across the board on power tools.
Now I'm going to conclude with an admission that I've been awake for about 52 hours so if my initial message or this one are more incoherent than usual, it's not alcohol's fault.
Re:slashbot (Score:3, Insightful)
remember netscape?
remember stack?
remember Citrix?
remember real?
Citrix is doing fine. MS adding Terminal Server into Windows doesn't remove the market for what Metaframe does.
In the era of DRDOS, I was using an Apple IIe, but I suspect its failure had more to do with it not offering any clear advantage over MSDOS.
Netscape killed themselves by not adding anything significant to their browser for years after they first released Communicator. Communicator was better than IE3, but not IE4, and included a whole bunch of extra junk (like that incredibly bad WYSIWYG HTML editor) that increased the download size for every update to ridiculous amounts for a dialup connection.
Real is even worse than Netscape - their player is mediocre to begin with, but it also tries to assimilate your entire system, is covered with ads, and has a download and install process that tries to trick you into buying premium features.
MS has certainly done some bad things, but I don't think that blaming them for the failures of companies like Netscape is fair. Netscape tried to base an entire corporation on selling what is a basic internet utility that should be included with every OS, just like a text editor or FTP client.
I alledge that this is the reason for the lack of innovation in the past 15 years.
There are plenty of companies making genuinely innovative products - look at Adobe, Alias, Discreet, Cakewalk, Steinberg, or Macromedia. They do well because they make powerful, complex products that fill specific needs. They don't try and fund major businesses by selling a single piece of software that should be included for free when you buy an operating system, then start complaining when someone else *does* give it away for free.
Re:slashbot (Score:3, Insightful)
But is it really illegal? As others have touched on, is Intel required to fund Go just because Microsoft officials tell them not to in order to avoid a monopoly lawsuit? That seems to have been the point of Microsoft lending money to keep Apple up and running. It helps to have a competitor if one is trying to prove there's no monopoly.
Really the whole thing is silly. The gov't here in the US has a habit of doing this sort of thing: building up an industry empire and then tearing it down. To most of us it looks like a horrible cycle. To the people who know what company is next on the government launch list, however, it's a great way to invest and make millions.
If only I had known that AT&T would be propped up, and then known when it would be torn down.
If only I had known that Bell would be propped up, and then known when it would be torn down.
If only I had known that Microsoft and Intel would be propped up, and then known when they were going to be torn down.
There are lawmakers making deals with Wall Street people who _do_ know these things. They're the ones who are holding all of your 401k money.
Re:Media BS (Score:5, Insightful)
And how do you sell your soul to a book? That just has some mightily amusing implications depending on one's literary choices...
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:4, Insightful)
For those of you who are too young to remember, Microsoft's marketing people destroyed the market for GeoWindows (a far better GUI), DRDOS, WordPerfect Suite, OS/2 and many other far superior packages by either buying them or forcing them out of business with whatever tactics they chose to use. My gut feeling is that threats were part of that equation but alas, I have no proof other than what people inside a couple of companies have told me.
There are resources on the 'net for a list of companies that Gates has purchase or "acquired" over the last 20 years and if you look at it closely, it's scary. I can't find the link, maybe someone else can.
Yes, I hate Microsoft and everything it stands for. For the past 15+ years I've watched them devour everyone around them save a few early pioneers. If IBM hadn't failed so miserably at marketing OS/2 I think we'd be using that instead. But I have to use Windows for my job, much as I hate to. I can't even use a Mac because the software I have to use won't run on it. Virtual PC used to be an option but M$ bought that too. Linux isn't ready yet. It's close, but not quite there. I actually prefer that but again, not enough software.
So until there are lots more packages that run on a web server that are easy to use, fast and reliable (and don't forget inexpensive) we're stuck.
Bill Gates has accomplished something no one else ever has, and most likely never will again. He controls (or is close to controlling) most of the world's technology from computers to broadband to automotive to cel phones and is only getting bigger and stronger. Until our government does something to stop Microsoft from some of its illegal activities and other companies are able to stand up to them with legitimate, cost effective programs and hardware it will continue. As long as Washington is run by corporations, that will not happen.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:slashbot (Score:2, Insightful)
Wha? Are you sure you're talking about the same company here? MS was established years before they acquired the rights to QDOS. They were already a successful company before the DOS licenses, certainly not as large, but successful. The US government can hardly be accused of "propping up" MS simply because they bought a product from them that they deemed useful. Certainly, at that time MS was hardly in control of anyone's destiny. Are you telling me I need to look out for the next world dominating commode corporation because the government might purchase some new toilets?
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:2, Insightful)
Errmm... Remember, today's 50-yr old codgers are many of the same ones who got a start playing with Godbout S-100 kits and the like in the late 70s. Link [njcc.com] for those of you too young to remember hand-translating assembler mneumonics to write Z80 device drivers.
And, as a bona fide 50+ fossil, I've had a lot of fun searching out and installing Linux distros. Even to the point of sprinkling a few Knoppix disks around the office to dazzle the unwashed masses with how fun (and easy) running Linux can be. (I don't mention things like Slackware until they're hooked...)
Re:A desensitized public? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue that you overestimate the majority, and underestimate the minority. I think most sheeple still do look up to Bush, and simply assume that America MUST be right to do what it's doing, because well, we're America. (Look at all the US flag stickers on all the cars around you...) But I think those of the public who are still thinking, reading, researching and really paying attention are hurt WAY more than any numbness could negate.
I do, however, agree about the role models. I have no doubt that there is a Benjamin Franklin, a Jimmy Hendrix, and a Marie Curie among us, but the climate is very inhospitable to them right now. It's impossible to rise to any sort of power or recognition unless the government tells the media conglomerates to LET you (for whatever reasons they have). Real radical thinkers and revolutionaries are in hibernation, and all we have to look up to are basketball rapists and Vin freaking Diesel.
I think I feel my breakfast coming back up...
Re:Article (Score:4, Insightful)
As if this doesn't make it obvious what M$ was doing! They were only in the game to keep somebody else from innovating new technology. As soon as a potential competitor closed down, they stopped attempting to "provide a better solution for the customer." What a bunch of hooey!
Re:The Microsoft Damage. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm... You don't think that maybe the skyrocketing computer ownership had something to do with that World Wide Web thing that was exploding right around the same time?
Oh, and don't suggest for a minute that the Web grew because of Windows95 (or NT), MS had a microscopic Web Server presence in those days. The content was all on Unix servers and people wanted to get to it. You had to buy a computer to get to it. Windows95 computers were the cheapest available.
Accidental empires, indeed.
Re:Newsflash! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh. The whole point here is that they destroyed innovation by wielding their influence as a major player in the industry to starve potentially competitive emerging technologies of support by threatening companies (like Intel in this case) that were otherwise inclined to support it.
You can't "destroy innovation with subpar crap." You can certainly flood the market with crap, but that has relatively little effect on someone else's ability to create something better. Market dominance can certainly make it more difficult for someone to overtake you, but it's not impossible.
The point many of us make is that Microsoft has, in fact, done relatively little to "advance us." (Exactly what has it done, by the way?) Instead, it has abused its relationships with other companies to obfuscate and intimidate, stifling emerging technologies until they (MSFT) can move into the space. Every time it is successful at this, it gains even more power to throw around the next time.
Take a closer look at Go. They chose to build a new platform in part because they judged that they could create a more effective pen-based experience by starting from scratch around a new design center. Rather than tolerate an emerging new platform, Microsoft intimidated potential partners and, according to the emerging evidence, made and violated agreements with Go to take their ideas for Pen Windows. Now, years later, people will point to pen computing as one of the many things Microsoft supposedly did "to advance us."
Microsoft created nothing here; they just bullied and destroyed.
Re:slashbot (Score:3, Insightful)
"Released in 1993, the Newton was one of the first PDAs (personal digital assistants) on the market." [wired.com]
Re:Media BS (Score:3, Insightful)
For the former accusation, that could be said of any (ANY) media organization. For the latter, to whom are you referring? Surely not Jayson Blair, he left the paper in disgrace long ago.
(a poorly written book at that)
You want to talk poorly written, talk about your own post here. You seem to care about Kevin Mitnick quite a bit, but can't bother to spell his name correctly even once?
Re:Most destructive "innovation" from microsoft.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you need to revise your comment, as it is totally bogus.
You want to know what is funny? When I ran Linux, it would 'crash' every now and then...but that was cuz of shitty hardware / drivers...not the OS.
Don't blame MS here, most of the time when a computer hangs up or whatever it is becasue of the hardware or drivers...not the OS (at least now-a-days...this probably doesn't apply to the Win 95 or 98).
Re:slashbot (Score:2, Insightful)
Other evidence presented by the plaintiffs' lawyers at trial yesterday gave an account of how Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.
So Microsoft stole product documentation. They either snuck in themselves and started pulling stuff of desks, or they paid someone to do the same. Or, perhaps they used a known vulnerability in their own software to steal it off a hard drive.
What isn't illegal about that?
Re:Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I wish Slashdot would append [&partner=] to the links by default.
When YOU abuse their lax partner system, the NYT isn't going to waste their time. When a company, OSDN, or its officers abuse their lax partner system, it is (1) a potential legal liability on the part of OSDN, and (2) going to make NYT change their whole system, probably for the worse.
Re:A desensitized public? (Score:2, Insightful)
Kids watching grown men run at each other and violently push one another around or tackle eachother into the ground for hours? Perfectly fine. Show a nipple for 2 seconds? Public outrage and a exploritory commision.
There seems to be a very large, unnatural fear of sex.
Re:Microsoft might stolen IP (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if you read Kaplan's book "Startup" (and it's been a few years since I revisited my copy), you'll see that they were very worried. So much so that they signed agreements with Microsoft to allow them to see the technology only if they wouldn't copy the feature of GO in their Windows OS code.
IIRC, Microsoft pulled the extremely sleazy trick of sending the specs to the application division and called Pen Windows an application built on top of the Windows OS.
If you look at the dead corporate bodies that litter the foundation of the MS monopoly, you'll find that the fatal wounds have come from a knife to the back.
Once again (Score:3, Insightful)