Microsoft vs. Burst.com 410
rocketjam writes "Robert X. Cringley has an interesting story on one of Microsoft's many little-known legal cases. Burst.com is suing Microsoft, claiming MS negotiated in bad faith for over a year before stealing Burst's patented technology for increasing the efficiency of video and audio streaming. After Microsoft submitted all emails associated with the their dealings with Burst to the court, Burst's lawyers discovered a 35-week gap of missing mail during a critical portion of the negotiations. When the judge learned the Sun vs. Microsoft antitrust case had revealed that MS keeps backups of all emails on over 100,000 tapes stored offsite, he ordered them to come up with the missing messages."
Obvious... (Score:3, Funny)
Cross-Platform Paranoia?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cross-Platform Paranoia?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I do.
Re:Cross-Platform Paranoia?? (Score:5, Funny)
Never heard of it.
Oh.
Re:Cross-Platform Paranoia?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Though, technically, the mere fact of infringement may be enough, under many laws and precedents, "deliberate infringement" can be very important - as a practical matter, it certainly factors into the monetary judgment. I was once party to a potentially important (as a national legal precedent) verdict against a major organization, which caused the offender to draw up untterly revamped corporate practices... until the award phase (which came 4-5 months after the verdict). The court granted a mere $1 in damages. The written decision was clear that the big company was wrong beyond all doubt, but the judge felt it wasn't intentional or within the reasonable control of such a large outfit (a view he wouldn't have held for long, if he could have seen the tone of the policy revision documents generated after his verdict) The plaintiff promptly dropped all its plans to correct the practices the court had found "wrong". Apparently they felt the judge's decision gave them a few years of "yeah, we were wrong, but a court has found that it's not really our fault" leeway before some later case forced them to make changes they didn't want to make - and who knows what might change in the meantime?
Incidentally, this is a fundamental process in all 'History'. "History" is a matter of interpretation and extrapolation. We rarely have a smoking gun that tells us why a leader or governemnt does what it does. Almost always, we only know (a consensus view of) what happened, and can only guess "why".
Did negotiations fall through because Party A was intimidated or unimpressed by Party B's penis at the urinal during a break? Did Party A walk out of a party with a girl Party B had wildly fancied, but never got to the introduction stage with? Did Party A have an accent, or manner of speaking, that subconsciously reminded Party B of a much loathed stepfather or cousin? That kind of thing generally doesn't end up in memoirs or reports.
Letters of marque (Score:3, Interesting)
In exchange for their valuable services, they got official permission from their government to act in such manner: these were the "letters of marque [hmco.com]".
Maybe the Open Source community should do something similar? Yes, Burst's behavior may look like patent privateering. But it is directed against the enemy [www.adt.ru]. This can't be all
Why didn't Microsfot simply *buy* the company? (Score:3, Interesting)
(Well, they could still have been sued for anticompetitive behaviour, but not for outright theft...)
Destroying Burst is not in Microsofts interest (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uhm - guys, read the fine print! (Score:5, Informative)
Burst.com is the victim here.
Software patents would be a seperate discussion. The topic under discussion here is "Microsoft conceals evidence when sued by the remnants of acompany they had tried to destroy".
You did see the part about 35 weeks worth of evidence withheld from discovery and claimed to have been destroyed ? We'll see this again in a couple of weeks when Microsoft has to show up with the backups that Sun found out they were keeping.
I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Err...wait...that's the only thing they seem to be doing lately, aside from helping the feds bust 18 year olds for writing worms.
I don't believe it-Compete with THIS... (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot the bodies offshore, wearing the concrete shoes. There's a reason Microsoft's in Seattle.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:2, Funny)
Hey! Didn't he just RE-write the worm? Credit where credit is due... fixing bad code won't make him l33t will it?
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, MS employees probably wouldn't cc: burst.com on the most damaging emails, but just having the burst.com side of the threads during the period in question would no doubt provide the ammo needed to annihilate any claim by MS that the emails sent in the 35-week mystery gap were "uninteresting."
Re:I don't believe it (Score:3, Insightful)
Mostly setting up the stage for a powerplay for the jury
They're internal MS communications (Score:5, Insightful)
a) how impressed they were with the technology
b) how helpful the NDA documents were from Burst
c) how easy it would be to integrate the technology into MS products as soon as Burst was dead
d) how stringing them along and not signing a deal would lead to the necessary death.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Informative)
In the ASIC design industry, I'd say this is pretty common. All discussions between vendor and customer are under NDA, sometimes even before any discussions at all happen there are multiple NDAs in place. And lots of the business (even exchange of IP in source code attachments) takes place by email.
Other industries? I'm not sure.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually if they did (which I will guess they do) this is a great strategy. Basically if they can get Microsoft to-
1. Be paranoid about which emails to show, and which not to. (ie filter out the old emails that are bad)
2. Leave out important emails. (and therefore show intential deceit)
3. Edit some of the worse/damaging emails (and therefore prove fraud instantly)
Then they are in a good position no matter what... _especially_ if they have copies of all these emails.
One of my clients refuses to work with Microsoft at all, he said there's no way he's going to get burned by spending all the time and effort on debugging and bringing a project to fruition only to get burned my MS, he's seen too many companies go down trying to work with MS.
So, if Burst was smart knowing this, or even suspecting the possibility they may have had enough forthought (sp?) to make a paper trail of sorts... then if they did prepare properly for this eventuality, then IMO they are playing their cards well...
Re:I don't believe it (Score:3, Interesting)
How could Burst.com plan to have Microsoft conceal 35 weeks worth of emails?
Re:I don't believe it -Richard Nixon had a gap too (Score:3, Funny)
the second term that he probably wouldn't be elected a third term?
Interesting, but as there is no allowed third term, I think the actual process is more like keep the scandals down for the first term, then who cares. It isn't like they can run again.
Just wait until they find the tapes... (Score:5, Funny)
but that would be wrong!"
Lordy Be (Score:4, Funny)
A lawsuit against Microsoft. Geeze, I hope the company I work for issues a decree to install no more Microsoft products until this is worked out in court.
Oh, sorry, thats just for the SCO crap.
Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
What's even more amazing, in this case, is that it is Microsoft playing "oops, backups? whats that?"
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
Gosh, I don't know. Given their decidedly naive understanding of security and accessibility, I wouldn't hold them in such high esteem on backup policy.
Re:Amazing (Score:3, Informative)
hitech (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hitech (Score:2, Funny)
Re:hitech (Score:3, Informative)
Re:hitech (Score:4, Informative)
The emails are turned over in their "original" form. Well not really. In the case of Exchange, they would be copied to a PST file and delivered that way. A services firm then goes through the PSF, and creates indexes, TIFF, and maybe extracted text. Or they might OCR the TIFF files. From then on, everyone looks at the images/text. If there's any question about the authenticity, they can go back and find the original.
There's actually manuals of procedures for "electronic discovery", so most of this is standardized. A lawyer probably has limited ability to challenge the process.
Re:hitech (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hitech (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hitech (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hitech (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally not. Most of the time a contingency case is run on a strict percentage basis. If the plaintiff wins, the lawyer gets to keep something like 1/4 to 1/3 of the total proceeds. That's an awfully large amount in some cases, but on the other hand they get nothing if they lose, and next to nothing if they fail to get a big judgment or settlement. Lawyers working on contingency have every motivation to keep their costs down as much as they can without risking losing the case. Effectively, every extra dollar they spend comes out of their own pocket, win or lose, and every extra lawyer they bring on board is one more way that the money will have to be split. You could argue that this makes contingency a good thing, because it means that the lawyers' and clients' interests are perfectly aligned.
Clippy. (Score:5, Funny)
Clippy: "It looks like you're trying to sue us, would you like me to delete all of your files?"
The real problem with these cases... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's chump change to MS but lots of money to most smaller companies -- so MS just buys it's way out of these lawsuits until the cows come home.
Unfortunately, something like this isn't enough to really nail MS and make them change permanently. I almost yawn when I hear about it right now -- it's somewhat depressing that a strategy like this can work, but it makes great numbers sense.
Due to my own involvement in these kinds of things I'm posting anonymously, which sucks...
Re:The real problem with these cases... (Score:5, Insightful)
- It becomes more tempting for smaller companies to sue (based on track record of MS losing or settling similar cases)
- Judges will find it easier to trust the evidence based on the fact Microsoft has done
similar contract infringements (etc) previously
I don't believe they really get out totally squeaky clean; although in theory settlement with "no acknowledgement of wrongdoing" is what it says, in practice it gives impression of just saving your face from actually losing the case. It may not be admissible as any kind of evidence (ie. in court one can not directly use dismissed cases to support a case), but don't think for a moment they have no impact indirectly.On the other hand, most all corporations nowadays seem to concentrate on short term prospects, so perhaps I'm wrong in assuming companies would think along above lines. Perhaps Microsoft thinks short term benefits of unfair play and potential later settlement make sense.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
re:Digital Research, Stacker, Intuit... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The real problem with these cases... (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is Microsoft already has a bad reputation and nobody cares. If IT mgmt was half as jittery over Microsoft as they are about the SCO/Linux thing after each lawsuit, there would be an industry-wide, massive nuke and pave movement to rid itself of everything MS.
So, yes, Microsoft has a reputation and a conviction record, but they are a "known", so mgmt. doesn't worry about it.
Re:for large values of n... (Score:5, Informative)
At $50M per settlement, 100 settlements leads to $5B. $50B - $5B = $45B. So, 100 settlements will lead to a reduction in total cash and equivalent assets of $5B / $285B of net worth (or less than 1/50 of their net worth). Of course, empirical evidence shows that market capitalizations have less to do with total assets and more to do with total discounted expected future earnings. So losing $5B in cash would reduce their stock market valuation by more than $5B.
It's all pretty bad for Microsoft, but not the end of the world for them. But the math quoted in this post (and most of its children posts) are pretty horrible.
Re:The real problem with these cases... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that Microsoft's legal history follows them (note the way they referenced a prior Microsoft legal battle to show that Microsoft really hadn't lost their e-mail), which will only make it easier and easier to successfully get concessions from Microsoft.
And this doesn't even consider the bad reputation they're making for themselves among the federal judges presiding over these cases. With tactics like this, while the settlements may be small, what happens when fines from being found in contempt of court start to rack up?
Re:The real problem with these cases... (Score:5, Interesting)
Remind me again how many fines MS had to pay for the whole anti-trust case (and please don't count software since the marginal cost $0 *and* it strengthens their monopoly).
Shades of Watergate (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shades of Watergate (Score:4, Funny)
*rimshot*
Re:Shades of Watergate (Score:2, Interesting)
now, picture Bill Gates, standing on
Re:Shades of Watergate (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe 30 years from now they'll be recalling it.
Re:Shades of Watergate (Score:3, Funny)
Nixon tapes gap = 18.5 minutes
MS Emails gap = 35 weeks
That's a factor of almore 20,000.
Looks like Moore's Law might apply here, too.
Re:Shades of Watergate (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing can go wrong. . . go wrong. . . go wrong. . . go. .
KFG
As much (Score:2, Insightful)
If software patents were legal at the turn of the century, Ford would be the only car company in the world.
Re:As much (Score:4, Informative)
the patent office has been around ALOT longer than
you think
http://techweb.ceat.okstate.edu/ias/firstpatent
Also as to your statement concerning ford and cars,
a 15% change in form or function of a patented device
is grounds for a new patent
Intellectual Property gets more into the abstract
thought ownership, and is the current source of alot
of discontent
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
>As much as Microsoft is likely wrong in this situation.... it shows >more of the woes of software patents. It's too late for us in the >US, but for those of you in Europe.... write your... uhhh, Europie >Congressperson....
>If software patents were legal at the turn of the century, Ford >would be the only car company in the world.
Patents since 1450s (Score:5, Informative)
The modern concept of the patent was established in England where, in 1449, King Henry VI awarded a patent to John of Utynam for stained glass manufacturing.
"Beginning in 1552, a series of "letters patents" was issued by the Crown. The monarchy began a trend of issuing patents for its own benefit and for the benefit of officers and friends of the Court.4 Patents were issued on entire industries, not just inventions. For example, the Stationers enjoyed complete control over the publishing industry in England. The balance of power soon shifted towards those whom the monarchy decided to favor. Reform began with reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Francis Bacon commented that the Queen would grant patents for any invention that she deemed useful to the country. In an effort to curb further abuses of power, Parliament, in 1624, passed the English Statute of Monopolies, which outlawed all royally sanctioned monopolies. Realizing the importance of protecting inventors and the economic benefits associated with encouraging innovation, an exception was allowed for patents of "new manufactures." These patents were awarded to the inventor as long as their new devices did not hurt trade or result in price increases. Additionally, a statutory limit of fourteen years was imposed on English patents."
Here's some prior art to pre-date that :) (Score:5, Informative)
cathedral, won the world's first patent for a technical
invention in 1421. Brunelleschi was a classic man of the
Renaissance: tough-minded, multi-talented and thoroughly
self-confident. He claimed he had invented a new means of
conveying goods up the Arno River (he was intentionally vague
on details), which he refused to develop unless the state kept
others from copying his design. Florence complied, and
Brunelleschi walked away with the right to exclude all new
means of transport on the Arno for three years.
That Florence acceded to Brunelleschi's demands is hardly
surprising. The Italian Renaissance city-states, locked in a
struggle for wealth and power, habitually gave monopolies to
those who would build a needed bridge or mill, or who introduced
some useful craft or industry. They would issue "letter patents"
public declarations that openly (patently) announced the
privilege. What distinguished Brunelleschi's bargain was
invention - he was awarded the exclusive use of his own creation.
(more on Brunelleschi can be found in "Brunelleschi's Patent", Journal of
the Patent Office Society 28 (1946), page 109.
(credit to Greg Aharonian, who used to run a patent industry newsletter mailing list)
DISCLAIMER: I work at a Patent Attorneys firm, but IANAPA.
money v ethics (Score:2, Insightful)
unsurprising... (Score:2, Redundant)
rrm**bullshit**mm (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news from the future (Score:5, Funny)
A spokesman for Microsoft will say "its unfortunate" without a hint of irony.
Surprised?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Surprised?? (Score:3, Interesting)
"[Burst] found lawyers willing to take the case on contingency in exchange for a healthy chunk of any damage award. The lawyers are assuming all the financial risk, but they also have a chance to earn a payday worth hundreds of millions of dollars..."
You are exactly right, usually the company with the most money wins, as legal fees are hugely expensive. This seems to be kind of a special case; with only two employees, I bet they don't really need any net income to keep the company afloa
Re:Surprised?? (Score:4, Funny)
MS has more money than GOD
No, you are wrong. However, by GOD if you mean Linus, as in Linus "The God" Torvalds, then you are probably right...
History (Score:2, Insightful)
Penalties? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Penalties? (Score:2)
It all depends on who you own.
Re:Penalties? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean all that Microsoft is accused of doing is committing software piracy. Stealing another companies pattented technology and embedding it within one of their own products.
Surely this doesn't rise to the level of a felony or anything do you think?
[/sarcasm]
-Rusty
Re:Penalties? (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth is, until this country recognizes that we can not treate corporate entities as if they were private citizens, you will continue to see this kind of hypocrisy.
Re:Penalties? (Score:2)
microsoft behavior is that same as everyone else (Score:5, Insightful)
Even listening to the most amazing stories about what happened to huge amounts of moeny, the Federal bankruptcy agent doesn't even look up. He's heard it all before so many times, it's the same old shit. Everybody lies.
I don't suppose you read about any Enron executives going to jail recently, did you? Of course not. What Enron did is no different than what every big corporation does. Some are just better than others and if you steal too much at the wrong time, the house of cards can fall down. Executives don't go to jail for stealing. Can you imagine a trial of executives by their peers -- other executives? "Well, Kenny, you should have used my guys to set up your fake accounts. You wouldn't have been found out for another couple years and you could have paid Ashcroft his cut and moved the rest of the money to a good bank in Grand Cayman by then."
Maybe these standards of culpability that you are referring to only exist in your head? There is certainly not much evidence in the real world of anything that resembles "business morality". Almost every business in the USA is crooked. With a giant overbearing government that has a bloodthirst for taking your money and then returning less than 4 cents on each tax dollar, would a rational being expect anything else? If it's okay for the government to lie, cheat, and steal, why should a small business, big business, investor, or anyone else do different?
If you unplug from the morality that is taught to worker units so they are obedient and efficient, you'll be in for a major wake-up call. Your job is to work and pay your taxes, that is all. And good workers are moral workers. Keeps costs down and profits up. All around you, the country is being looted. The workers are going to wake up one day and realize they are fucked because they've been robbed blind while they've had their faces glued to their television sets, absorbing the latest disinformation from the media and the government.
Re:microsoft behavior is the same as everyone else (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of communism what I think is worth looking at is Adam Smith's original vision of capitalism. As you likely know, Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations" which laid out the core principles of a capitalist system. However, Adam Smith's vision was not contained in this one book. Rather, Adam Smith always maintained that to build a sustainable and socially beneficial economic system that you needed the basic capitalist system ("Wealth of Nations", 1763) together with the moral system which he detailed in "Theory of Moral Sentiments", 1759.
Because Adam Smith was never able to integrate the two systems of theory that he laid out, morality and capitalism, into one integrated system, there has always been controversy on how to build a sustainable moral economic system. In "Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith emphasizes that it is sympathy that is a fundamental human motive, while in "Wealth of Nations", Smith instead says the motive is "self-interest". Obviously there is much ground between these two sides of human nature.
Business places a large emphasis on having a strong legal system. As without such a system, many business transactions would cost more, or simply be impossible. It was the Common Law, and strict adherence to it, that enabled a new era of business to flourish. And the Common Law is based on a moral system, much of which was laid out in religious teachings. Thus we can see that morality is the foundation of easy, low-cost, flexible human collaboration and exchange. Put another way, without a strong legal system, based on our moral system, there is no foundation for a mutually beneficial society.
The world has seen how a ruthless amoral company like Microsoft has flourished in a societal and business environment that has no underlying moral foundation. No matter what the cost to the individual and to society, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we are forced to pay the Microsoft tax. Not merely do we have to pay the tax, but in our brief lives, we also suffer the cost of the dearth of innovation that exists under the shadow of a monopoly. And it is not just Microsoft, but nearly all companies that extract money from their customers and deliver far less value than was promised. And today's governments deliver just a miniscule fraction of every tax dollar back to the people in the form of tangible goods and services. The rest disappears because of corruption.
Needless to say, we see in today's world that there is an ever increasing growth of corruption. This increase is due to the fact that the business world and legal system [massnews.com] have dropped nearly all adherence to a moral system. Everything is amoral money-centric self-interest. And thus we end up with a corrupt system, an inefficient system, large-scale society ills and the widespread looting that is going on today. Ever wonder how Microsoft is accumulating cash so fast? Immoral monopoly pricing certainly helps. And the energy companies make Microsoft look like a beginner. Furthermore, because there is no care for the welfare of our fellow human beings, nor even any care for Nature herself, we have created vast environmental problems that have a profound negative effect on th
Wasn't M$ Forced to archive mails? (Score:4, Informative)
*scratchs head* maybe I'm getting senile...
35 WEEKS? (Score:5, Insightful)
35 hours, What? Frigging Veritas... Damnit Bill get them on the phone!
35 Days, OH THAT IS IT! I want the back up guy fired... jeez fellas we're really sorry
35 WEEKS? Yes your honor we were trying to pull one over on you....
Re:35 WEEKS? (Score:2)
So you never heard of the 18 minute gap [about.com]?
Software Patents vs Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Software Patents vs Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. Software patents take away fundamental personal freedoms and are inherently unjust no matter what company holds them. Microsoft is just an unethical monopolist that will pass into obsolescence as technology and the Open Source movement evolves. In other words, the market will see to it that Microsoft gets what's coming to them, but software patents threaten to slow this from happening.
I like it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I like it! (Score:3, Interesting)
what amazes me most (Score:2, Flamebait)
Coincidentally... (Score:5, Funny)
Coincidentally a large shipment of magnets were just shipped to the address of a S. Ballmer...
Why Emails? (Score:2)
If they havnt done in the past, such communication today probably happens via something like their corporate instant messenger.
Re:Why Emails? (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially when they are attempting to sell just that service to companies in the financial industry who are required by law to keep track of just such information so that they can show that they either have, or have not been communicating insider trading information within the company, or to clients outside of the company?
Somehow with their legal history they would understand that they are just as culpable for this information as their customers may be.
Additionally all that it would take to blow their cover is for one disgruntled former employee to come forward and show that the reason he was fired was because too much of what the company found in his IM history had nothing to do with work (except that he was hitting on a woman who works at the company, and that the evidence of such was from the server, and not his or her PC.
Then again I could be wrong.
-Rusty
"Hard Drive" (Score:4, Informative)
Not worth keeping? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's Anne Grabowski's birthday! Ice cream cake in Bldg 4-R break room!
Last chance to sign up for this year's Secret Santa/Hidden Hannukah Harry! RSVP with Roger McGillicuddy before December 12th.
Just wanted everyone to know that Bill and Valerie Trammel had a beautiful 8lb, 7oz baby girl at 8:30 last night at Cyprus Creek Memorial Hospital. So let's all welcome little Hortence into the world! Yay!
And so on...
"Yes, your honor, we felt that those e-mails were important enough not to erase from Microsoft's permanent record, but the ones relating to the negotiations for which we were under a legally-binding non-disclosure agreement were just, so, pointless, you know?"
Notation correction (Score:3, Informative)
That would be Burst.com vs. Microsoft, not, as used in Slashdot's article title, Microsoft vs. Burst.com.
Legitimacy of this evidence.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, they've pruned 37 weeks of related emails from their employees' computers and their mail servers, so what's to stop them doctoring the emails recovered from backups?
I guess there would be a possible problem if an employee had printouts or had forwarded certain emails to another address for whatever reason. Then again, what motivation would that employee have for exposing the cover up?
I don't know how things work in the USA corp envioronment, but would something along the lines of monthly backups duplicated, sealed, and dated, only to be opened in the event of litigation, help in these cases at all? This would both protect the legitimate accuser and the wrongly accused... or perhaps it's not that big a deal, and tampering isn't a logistically attractive proposition.
Now where's my tin-foil hat.
Running total of MS damages? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's see, $1B or so to AOL for damages to Netscape. About .5B for another recent patent suit. There was a CA consumer class action they tried to settle by "donating" software to schools.
They seem to be on a real losing streak, legally. What am I missing? What's the total for legal damages in court cases to date?
But with $50B in the bank, losing law suits seems just a minor cost of doing business.
Best,
-jimbo
Re:Running total of MS damages? (Score:3, Interesting)
Burst and SCO (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Burst and SCO (Score:3, Interesting)
bogus patents remain bogus patents (Score:5, Interesting)
that needle in the hay (Score:3, Funny)
Re:that needle in the hay (Score:3, Funny)
Post the entire article, in bits annd pieces, across several posts.
Get moderated up by everyone that didn't read the article.
Rinse, Repeat.
Rules of Acquisition (Score:4, Funny)
Doesn't suprise me. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Microsoft was trying to patent technology that we had been shipping for 3 years.
2) Microsoft had "evaluated" our product for a year before filing for a patent.
3) We had implemented the technologies straight out of textbooks, giving concrete evidence of prior art. (That's one reason we were not foolish enough to try to patent it ourselves.)
The patent application was rejected. The most interesting note about the incident was that it all happened within 2 months - amazingly fast.
In a word, Predatory. (Score:3, Insightful)
The wild thing here is that Bill Gates thinks people will never wise up.
These corporate horrors are propped up by all the money they make, and people imagine that only a giant company like that can do big business. You need a big oil company to do oil exploration, and so on. But you don't *really* need a big company to make good software, a medium size one would do it. You only need a really big software company to dominate.
Cynically, I personally believe that Microsoft uses the size of its firm, and its cash flow to dominate the software world economically, while the U.S. government uses Microsoft's ability to dominate this area for the purposes of spying. Just for argument's sake, how much of the intelligence used by the War on Terrorism, the War on Drugs, or any other policy is actually derived from intentionally engineered holes and spyware associated with Microsoft products? Seems a word processor, a spreadsheet, and an email program ought to be a good place to put a keylogger..
To me this is the only possible reason Microsoft could still exist. I mean, their lawyers are only human. There is nothing occult going on here. It is just a superpower that has developed a nasty addiction to software solutions from the same company that makes consumer operating systems.
Call me paranoid, but then again I expected the wars in the middle east for the past ten years, and expected them to be backed by just as flimsy reasons as they are now. Of course I didn't expect the horrors of 911, so I thought the U.S. president would be in more trouble. However Tony Blair seems to be on the receiving end a bit these days.
Anyway, unless someone has a better answer, I go for Occam's Razor. It is impossible that Microsoft can get out of such repeated hideous offenses.. the only public anger of the U.S. government at Microsoft was when a recent version of windows was shipped with all of its ports wide open. Perhaps they took their pledge for INsecurity too far? Anyway, the next simplest answer beyond Bill getting supernatural help in the courts is that he's already got a few much bigger deals with the government and feels protected. Of course it doesn't hurt to have a pile of money too.
This made me laugh out loud (Score:4, Funny)
Classic!
Re:Wouldn't Burst have copies of them? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't Burst have copies of them? (Score:2)
Re:Wouldn't Burst have copies of them? (Score:4, Funny)
From: BillG@msn.com
To: SteveB@msn.com
Subject: Busting Burst
Steve, I think we can use the tech we saw from Burst, but let's not pay for it, ok?
Re:Cringely Math (Score:2)
Re:Cringely Math (Score:2)
Ok, I get it now. Grace me with a (-1, Silly) mod, please!
Re:Cringely Math (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is This a Case for Software Patents? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a shame you got moderated up.