New Microsoft Dirty Tricks Revealed

Conrad Mazian writes "Robert X. Cringely has an article on the Technology Evangelist web site where he claims that Microsoft destroyed evidence in the Burst vs Microsoft case. Specifically Burst's lawyers had asked for certain emails, Microsoft claimed that they couldn't find the backup tapes the emails would be on, and while this was happening the tapes were in a vault at Microsoft — until they mysteriously disappeared. It's a fascinating story, and even names one person at Microsoft."

Not completely right...

[physicsboy500]

Microsoft didn't loose the tapes, it's just that the backup server was being run by Vista!

names

[gEvil (beta)]

It's a fascinating story, and even names one person at Microsoft.

Oooh! It names someone at Microsoft. I'll tell you, but you gotta keep it a secret, okay? Bill Gates. Shhhh, don't tell anyone I told you...

the irony

[troll -1]

Microsoft was saying that it couldn't find the tapes and that it would take millions of man-hours to search for them ...

And Microsoft wants to be number one in search?

Re:How convenient

[Anonymous Coward]

'Microsoft server ate my hard disk.'

Far more believeable then "the dog ate my homework", no shortage of historical evidence for Microsoft crashes, the only evidence I ever saw of a dog eating someone's homework was the neighbor's daughter feeding her Home Economics mistakes to their dog.

Re:Jesus Christ!

[Joebert]

What can you expect when it's a story about Microsoft allegedly doing something bad though?

The corraborating evidence comes up missing ?

Re:Jesus Christ!

[kestasjk]

I heard, from a second hand but reliable source, that evidence destruction goes all the way up to Steve Ballmer.

He's mostly just in charge of the destruction of chair evidence though.

I swear I had no choice to hide the tapes!

[alexandreracine]

Ballmer duck tape me to the wall, and told me "I'LL f**king kill you!" and threaten to throw a chair at me!

Re:Not completely right...

[RAMMS+EIN]

``it's just that the backup server was being run by Vista!''

And the DRM wouldn't let them access the content?

You can do no wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

as long as a stockholder in your company has a Slashdot account. OJ should have hired Bill Gates to do the murders; then not only would he have hordes defending him, but there'd be an effort to convince the public that Nichole never existed in the first place.

Sneak Peak

[nevillethedevil]

Microsoft DirtyTricks

The codename for the sucessor to vista?

(I know it's offtopic but it's funny so go ahead and nuke me)

Re:How convenient

[sumdumass]

I had a dog eat my home work once. Actualy is was more then once but i finaly figured out the problem. We used to put peanut butter in the dogs chew toys as a reward for doing something good like not tearing anything up when we left him along or comming when called.

Well, long story short, When I would eat a peanut butter sandwich while doing my homework the dog would seem interested in my backpack that night. When I left the zipper open or worse yet, it broke fro shoving too much stuff in it, the dog went in and ate the papers I was working on while eating the peanut butter sandwich.

Re:Oh, NO!

[TommydCat]

Wasn't that
"Schlemiel, Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!" [wikipedia.org] ??

Of course they are.

[noamsml]

They're also white and shiny. I want one!

Re:Oh, NO!

[Paradise Pete]

Microsoft must be the very first to EVER do this.

A fine counter-argument. I'm surprised it isn't used more often.
"Come on, Your Honor, it's not like I'm the first to EVER commit this crime!"