Someone Turns the Thumb Screws...

These are indeed weasel words. Well spotted.

I guess all Microsoft had to do was threaten to stop allowing Dell to supply Windows pre-installed on Dell hardware. Such is the power that comes with a total monopoly.

So, when the hell is the EU actually going to do something useful for its' citizens and declare the MS pre-installed O/S scenario illegal?

I don't understand why people are so shocked and outraged. If you were a multi-billion dollar company and someone made a product that was better than yours *FOR FREE*, wouldn't you think the odds were stacked against you and that you'd do _anything_ to protect your revenue stream?

Jake - Personally, I definitely wasn't shocked because they did exactly what I expected of them. Outraged comes close to part of what I felt, but "disgust" is the most accurate word I can think of to describe the overall feeling.

You're right, a company might be expected to do "anything" to protect their revenue stream, but wouldn't you think that at least part of that "anything" would include actually attempting to improve the product?

jw

Microsoft knows they are not the best, in any category, but they also realize that you won't buy a PC that doesn't have their OS installed, and they don't want to lose that. They have a huge amount of money invested in the best lawyers and judges available, but they have to protect their investment, and will stoop to any level to maintain that cash flow. Their only concern is their bottom line, and they couldn't care less about the user, or any laws. The purchaser, of a PC, has no choice in paying for a windows license.

@jw: isn't that a bit harsh on Windows 7? TBH I have only ever seen it from a (safe) distance, but by all accounts it's a vast improvement on Vista. My beef with Windows is the proprietary licensing and domination of marketing and advertising. Would I feel any different if it was Red Hat turning the thumb screws on Dell?

Jake - I don't think it's unduly harsh, no. I have, unfortunately, to some extent been exposed to Vista with Lipstick (Win7) quite close up. As far as I am concerned, compared to Vista Microsoft has changed the BSOD for the WWOD (White Window of Death), changed some of the graphics and icons, changed the "Start" menu yet again, and made the shutdown menu even more inscrutable and unpredictable. Judging from the fact that they aren't even able to keep to their own proclaimed monthly schedule for patches, and "critical security patches" seem like they are coming at least several times a month, I would say that they haven't made any improvement in the core operating system at all.

jw

Jake, I wouldn't say that I'm outraged. But I avoid Microsoft's products because Microsoft as a company is more focused on undermining the competition, rather than improving their own products. This is their way of ensuring a good bottom line, with mediocre products. I would much rather have higher quality products to begin with from a company that is focused on just that, releasing quality software. In my opinion this is exactly what open source vendors are all about. Sure, a lot of companies are involved in tactics to try and favor themselves, but it seems that Microsoft is always at the center of highly controversial tactics that actually hurt the consumers. In my opinion, they should not have needed to contact Dell and have them change the wording on that web page (if that was in fact what happened -- we may never know). If their products were superior as they say, they would not have anything to worry about. But, recent moves by Microsoft have demonstrated that they are potentially worried about Linux. Why? Probably because Linux is popping up everywhere, in different markets, and as a result Microsoft feels threatened. We already know that Linux has a much better track record when you look at OS stability and reboot frequency, and I think Microsoft knows that.

@ AndyPagin
> I guess all Microsoft had to do was threaten to stop allowing Dell
> to supply Windows pre-installed on Dell hardware. Such is the power
> that comes with a total monopoly.

Microsoft is legally unable to do that. In fact, it is legally obliged to offer the same deal to the top 20 Windows PC manufacturers, under the direct supervision of the US Department of Justice.

However, I do find it odd that people trot out provably wrong assertions and aspersions about Microsoft's competitive actions even though the company has been under close DoJ supervision and the control of a US judge for more than a decade. I suspect it would be hard to find a computer company that has operated more legally than Microsoft this century.

A cynic might wonder if Dell put up a claim it knew would get people talking as a way to get some attention...

M

@ator1940
> They have a huge amount of money invested in the best lawyers and judges available

That's clearly untrue given Microsoft's long court record of losing winnable cases (sometimes by a single vote), and of being contfronted by what some might describe as anti-Microsoft judges. (Indeed, two of them were removed from Microsoft cases.) And since Microsoft has had to hand out more than $10 billion in legal settlements, the company would certainly have been better off it had invested more in better legal defences.

> Their only concern is their bottom line, and they couldn't care less about the user, or any laws.

That's clearly untrue, given Microsoft's heavy investment in the usability of its software, which is clearly evident in Windows 7, Office 2007-10 and Live Wave 4. It's also clearly untrue that it doesn't care about law because it has gone out of its way to cater to the requirements of the US Department of Justice and to try to minimise the hostility of its treatment by the European Commission (which has been accused of running an anti-Microsoft vendetta).

Whether you agree with Microsoft's actions or not, it's clearly and obviously wrong to say that "they couldn't care less".

> The purchaser, of a PC, has no choice in paying for a windows license.

Again, this is factually incorrect. Any company is able to offer PCs for sale without Windows, and a great many do - including Dell. Not very long ago, Linux had the majority of the netbook market, and at least one company is piling up $billions by offering PCs that don't have Windows installed.

Starting in his university dorm, Michael Dell became a multibillionaire by building Windows machines that people wanted to buy. If your opinions have any basis in reality, you too can become a multibillionaire by selling non-Windows machines that people want to buy. But, sadly, we both know that your opinions do not have any basis in reality.

Jack, granted that one or two comment miss the mark a bit, I find it very difficult to agree with your take on Microsoft's business practices. Notwithstanding the DOJ oversight, there are plenty of examples to support generally held grievances about Microsoft's activities.

"Losing winnable cases"?!?! Winnable, in whose opinion? The facts are the facts, the cases were lost, on legal grounds. Trying to pretend that Microsoft "should have won" doesn't change that, and doesn't alter the facts.

"Anti-Microsoft Judges"?!?! They were "confronted" with an entire pro-Microsoft government for eight years, from 2000-2008, and in addition to dropping one of the largest cases against Microsoft it spent eight years stuffing the courts with pro-Microsoft judges.

"The EU has been accused of running an anti-Microsoft vendetta"?!?! Zowie, it's really tough to be the monopolist on the block, everyone just wants to pick on you, don't they? American judges, EU regulators... they couldn't possibly be right, could they?

"Microsoft cares about the law"?!?! They are certainly showing that with their "willfuly infringing of a patent" held by i4i LP of Canada. That was a jury verdict, obviously not the product of an "anti-Microsoft judge", but I suppose this was an "anti-Microsoft jury"? Is there anything at all about Microsoft's behavior in this case which shows even a hint of "caring about the law"?

"Usability improvements clearly evident in Windows 7 and Office 2007-10"?!?! Putting a fresh coat of cheap lipstick on Vista doesn't make it useable. How about one small example of "Usability"? I defy you, or anyone else, to predict consistently and accurately what the shut-down power symbol on Windows 7 is going to do at any particular time. Usability of Office 2007? Have you ever sat with anyone who was accustomed to using Office 2003 and had to use Office 2007? It gives a whole new meaning to "obscurity and confusion".

If your comment had any basis in reality, they would take into consideration the real actions of Microsoft, rather than squawking along with Microsoft propoganda.

jw

Jack, I disagree on a couple of your points as well:

"That's clearly untrue, given Microsoft's heavy investment in the usability of its software, which is clearly evident in Windows 7, Office 2007-10 and Live Wave 4."

Microsoft has demonstrated that they are NOT concerned with the consumers. Granted, they obviously want customers, but they want them in regards to how much money they can squeeze out of them, not to entice them with quality software. They've been accused of vendor lock-in for many many years, and only within the past few years have they started to open up their standards and be compatible with other software standards. Their licensing programs are so complex, that customers end up paying more than they should, yet Microsoft has never revamped it to make it simpler in design, despite complaints for many many years. Also, many many security holes have taken Microsoft so long to fix. The infamous "17 year old bug" that was fixed earlier this year is probably the most extreme case. I've heard numerous times that various parties have submitted security bugs to Microsoft and they were ignored.

"Again, this is factually incorrect. Any company is able to offer PCs for sale without Windows, and a great many do - including Dell. "

Ah, but you are missing one point here. Sure, vendors offer a select and very few models with Ubuntu (and other flavors of Linux, and FreeDOS). However, if you price them out compared to models with Windows, the ones with Windows are significantly less expensive. There are several theories on why this is the case, ranging from Microsoft paying vendors and giving them incentives, to 3rd parties paying vendors to include their bloatware on the vendor's images. Whatever the real reason is, a PC that has a free (cost-wise) operating system should be less expensive than a PC that comes with software that you pay for. And unfortunately, this is never the case currently.

Some companies do offer Linux-based PCs, and they are doing OK. But they just don't have the market exposure that Dell, HP, Acer, and other leading vendors have. Linux itself doesn't have the exposure, most people have never heard of it because they already know people that run Windows or see ads on TV. I take my hat off to Dell for publishing the true statement on their Ubuntu page, even though they softened it up a bit afterwards. It would be interesting to know the real reason they did so, even though we will probably never know.

usability is in the eye of the beholder; I know exactly what my shutdown process is at any time but I know how to hover over the button and read the tooltip that appears and I know how to click the arrow and chose from the menu if that's not what I want. If I'd never noticed that the icon on the button changes when updates are going to be installed, I might get confused too.

PC manufacturers aren't keen on disclosing how much they get to bundle vast amounts of software on their PCs, but I've been told that it's a significant revenue stream - and indeed one that makes them so much money that they're not going to back away from it no matter what it does to customer experience. (third-party plugins and apps cause the majority of crashes on Windows and slow-downs on IE - I wish Microsoft could bring itself to name and shame the third-party app that's the number two cause of all Windows crashes - and the signature builds of Windows in the Microsoft stores don't have pre-installed crudware on to give users the best experience.) So there are no public figures available but my understanding of the amounts involved is that it's more than enough for it to allow the PC makers to pop a discount on the Windows systems (the more they sell, the more royalties they get for the bundled software). The other question is economies of scale; the effort of sourcing and checking all the drivers for a Windows system is spread over a far greater number of systems than the equivalent effort for a Linux system. So there a number of non-malicious reasons why a Windows and Linux PC of equivalent spec might be different prices.

M

@apexwm
> Microsoft has demonstrated that they are NOT concerned with the consumers.

Untrue for reasons already given. I really don't see the point in you making factually incorrect and unsupported assertions. You can certainly argue that Microsoft has not done the best job it could have (eg with the shut-down procedure mentioned), but Microsoft has many thousands of dedicated staff who are sincerely trying to do their best. It invests a lot of money and effort into improving the consumer experience.

> They've been accused of vendor lock-in for many many years, and only within
> the past few years have they started to open up their standards and be compatible
> with other software standards.

Microsoft has been accused of lots of things by people who don't know and care even less about the facts. It doesn't make any of those assertions true. Otherwise, Microsoft has supported standards as widely or more widely than most commercial IT companies, including its own standards.

> Their licensing programs are so complex, that customers end up paying more
> than they should, yet Microsoft has never revamped it to make it simpler in
> design, despite complaints for many many years.

True, but it's not the only guilty party. How many IBM licenses have you read?

> Ah, but you are missing one point here. Sure, vendors offer a select and very
> few models with Ubuntu (and other flavors of Linux, and FreeDOS). However,
> if you price them out compared to models with Windows, the ones with Windows
> are significantly less expensive.

I'm not actually missing the point. I pointed out that you made a provably wrong assertion, which you did.

Actually, as a Linux user, you should be grateful to Microsoft for providing the platform that made the PC mass market and drove down the prices to the point where Linux became a practical option. It probably wouldn't have started without Linus's 386 machine and it would never have achieved the distribution it has now without hundreds of millions of cheap Windows PCs to feed on.

The savings to consumers from Windows volumes driving down hardware prices are much greater than you've ever paid for Windows, which typically costs about £1/$1 per month. And as you point out yourself, Windows PCs can actually cost less than "free Linux" PCs. You can then install your own choice of Linux distro and get the best of both worlds, so you should be really pleased ;-)

"I really don't see the point in you making factually incorrect and unsupported assertions. You can certainly argue that Microsoft has not done the best job it could have (eg with the shut-down procedure mentioned), but Microsoft has many thousands of dedicated staff who are sincerely trying to do their best. It invests a lot of money and effort into improving the consumer experience. "

I would be happy to know which of my points were factually incorrect? I made no mention of the shutdown procedure. I am speaking from personal experience with their products and dealings in multiple environments.

Vendor lock-in: Microsoft Project Server, Sharepoint, and other web-based apps, ONLY work with IE on the client. Microsoft made no attempt in making some of their web-based products cross-browser compatible, using cross-platform technologies. MS Word when saving HTML (which I wouldn't recommend doing anyway) adds many custom tags only parsed by IE. They do not release IE for any platform other than Windows. Therefore, if a customer uses one of the mentioned technologies, they are forced to use IE (and Windows) on the client machines to get full functionality. I don't know of any open source web-based application (written in PHP) that DOES NOT work with most browsers like IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.

Complex licensing structure: I've been placed in the seat to try and make companies legal with their Microsoft licensing. It took hours and hours on the phone with several reps at various vendors. Once we decided on which program to look at, the price tag just about made the owners fall out of their seats. So as you can imagine, it was dropped and simply left alone. Microsoft could make their licensing programs simpler, yet they don't. This was about 8 years ago and still we have the same problem today.

"Actually, as a Linux user, you should be grateful to Microsoft for providing the platform that made the PC mass market and drove down the prices to the point where Linux became a practical option. "

They were definitely there at the right time, which I can agree on. However Linus himself started Linux in 1991. Where was Windows at that point? He started the Linux kernel because there was nothing else available at the time that did what he wanted.

@Jack,

>> you should be grateful to Microsoft for providing the platform that
>> made the PC mass market and drove down the prices ...

That's revisionist drivel, even by your standards.

IBM created the PC and the PC market, not Microsoft.

IBM may have lost that market to Microsoft, because of its own arrogance and stupidity, but no way did Microsoft create this market. IBM created it and Microsoft fed off it, to use your own terminology.