For a fact, Microsoft might soon enter debt and we have been studying for quite some time the true story behind Microsoft’s PR and accounting walls. Not so long ago we returned our attention to the issue of misconduct, including systematic kickbacks. There is more to bribery then just kickbacks, which themselves as a subtle form of bribery more severe than lobbying, which is legalised to a greater or lesser degree.
Read more »When Microsoft Corporation Met Debt
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FSFE calls on Microsoft to release interoperability information without restrictions
http://www.france.fsfeurope.org –
"The European Commission has fined Microsoft 899 million Euro for anti-competitive behaviour by restricting access to interoperability information through unreasonable royalty payments prior to October 2007. This is in addition previous fines of 497 million Euro and 280 million Euro applied in the same investigation, resulting in a total penalty of 1.676 billion Euro.
«Microsoft is the last company that actively promotes the use of software patents to restrict interoperability. This kind of behaviour has no place in an Internet society where all components should connect seamlessly regardless of their origin,» says Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe.
Read more »Microsoft’s Open Premise: Divide and Conquer?
http://www.gatchev.info –
There is a lot of discussion around the new Microsoft premise to offer freely documentation about its protocols and interfaces, and to not sue developers who use it to create code for non-commercial goals, even if they violate Microsoft patents. Some people think that this is done to avoid further pressure from the European Commission. It could be so - but there could be also a different rationale for it.
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OOXML vs. ODF: What’s happening this week
http://blogs.zdnet.com –
From February 25 to 29 in Geneva, the next step in the seemingly never-ending show-down over whether Microsoft’s Office Open XML document format should be granted ISO standard status is taking place.
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Microsoft gets another shot at Open XML standard
http://www.reuters.com –
Microsoft Corp ramped up its fight to have its Office Open XML document format made into an international standard on Monday as delegates from 37 countries met to reconsider the proposal.
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Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com –
Last week, Microsoft published the binary file formats for Office. These formats appear to be almost completely insane. The Excel 97-2003 file format is a 349 page PDF file. But wait, that’s not all there is to it!
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'Vista Capable' lawsuit against Microsoft now a class action
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com –
In a blow to Microsoft Corp., a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit late Friday alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called "Vista Home Basic."
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Microsoft pledge excluding primary competitors
http://www.france.fsfeurope.org –
"...The announcement confirmed that Microsoft was planning to use its software patent portfolio against interoperating products by requiring a patent license for all commercial activity [...] Microsoft's patent licences are incompatible with Free Software [...] Free Software's freedoms to use, study, share and improve software without additional restrictions are key to the success and utility of Free Software in both commercial and non-commercial ICT infrastructure. They are also the basis for many of today's working examples of interoperability and competition..."
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Judge gives green light to Microsoft lawsuit
http://www.mg.co.za –
A federal judge has said consumers may go ahead with a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over the way it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system.
The lawsuit said Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the much-touted "Aero" user interface.
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Microsoft, interoperability, and mistrust
http://www.fsdaily.com –
Everybody's talking about Microsoft - the hot topics are interoperability, exclusion, standards, and the doubts of a Red Had and the European Union about their alleged about-turn.
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Microsoft, interoperability, and mistrust
Everybody's talking about Microsoft - the hot topics are interoperability, exclusion, standards, and the doubts of Red Had and the European Union about their alleged about-turn.
- bridget's blog
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Promises, Promises from Microsoft. Again.
http://www.groklaw.net –
Nobody is buying it. Well. Employees, maybe. Microsoft is once again promising interoperability and adherence to standards, but its own version of each. Interoperability that is safe only for noncommercial software excludes Microsoft's number one competitor, Linux. It is noncommercial and commercial, depending on who is using it. So, right there it tells you that this is a promise to do nothing that matters.
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Korean Professor Wins Patent Lawsuit Against Microsoft
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr –
A Seoul court ruled that the world's largest software giant Microsoft illegally used patent-covered software technology developed by a Korean professor, ending an eight-year-long legal battle between the scientist and the U.S. company.
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Microsoft open-source move elicits guarded reaction from EU
http://www.linuxworld.com –
The European Commission gave a guarded welcome to Microsoft's pledge on Thursday for "greater transparency" in its development and business practices.
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Microsoft makes boldest move yet embracing open source
http://www.linuxworld.com –
In a major turnaround for Microsoft, the company Thursday promised "greater transparency" in its development and business practices, outlining a new strategy to provide more access to APIs and previously proprietary protocols for some of its major software products, including Windows and Office.
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