Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Roedy Green]

Can you cite any evidence of Microsoft actually using or threatening
force?

YES . Have you not read a word I said.

 

[Roedy Green]

I guess I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that
Microsoft demanded you pay them per machine you sold under the table in the
absence of a written contract that said that? Or are you simply saying that
they changed the terms of your agreement when it came up for renewal?

This was all under the table.

 

[Roedy Green]

This was all under the table.

The other thing to understand is almost no one buys straight from
Microsoft. One wholesale side there are levels of distributors.

The threat is if you don't comply and they catch you, they will see to
it none of your wholesalers will sell to you.

No contracts involved anywhere.

 

[Paul Rubin]

But there is no law against that type of conduct, *unless* you are a
monopolist. So your conclusion hinges on the determination that Microsoft
had a monopoly, and that hinges on the definition of the "market". That's a
different can of worms for a different part of this thread.

The trial court determined and two different appeals courts upheld
that MS had an illegal monopoly. I think they have more experience
and knowledge of these things than you do. MS's illegal monopoly
is an established legal fact regardless of your irrelevant opinion.

 

[Roedy Green]

I guess I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that
Microsoft demanded you pay them per machine you sold under the table in the
absence of a written contract that said that? Or are you simply saying that
they changed the terms of your agreement when it came up for renewal?

They were demanding I sell a copy of windows with every machine I
constructed, whether the customer wanted or not, even if the customer
had us install some other OS.

The threat was that I did not comply, they would put me out of
business by arranging that my wholesalers would stop selling any MS
product to me, with veiled threat of even worse strangulation.

What I don't think you understand this threat would was just as
effective in putting he out of business as threatening to sending in
goons every week to smash my shop to pieces.

I could at least have a chance of legal recourse with the vandals.

It will be very hard to prosecute MS for their crimes because they
commit them much the way the Mafia does.

No one has any paper. Everyone was terrified of MS and would never
dream of going public. I have talked about this publicly many times
because it always looked as if I were going to die in a few years
anyway.

To put this in perspective, IBM's salespeople made much nastier
threats in their heyday. Dick Toewes, head of Inland Natural Gas, was
in charge of a tender for a new mainframe to do billing. I was
working on the Univac bid at the time. He said that the IBM salesman
said to him, "We know you have an eight year old little girl. We know
she walks along X street every day on her way to school. It would be
a terrible thing if somebody hurt her."

I wrote a tender for about $1 million in computer equipment for BC
Hydro gas. There were many bidders hoping to get a foothold in a
solidly IBM shop. IBM sent a weird chap to see me, dressed as a
gangster, talking in a gangster accent, with a strange tic like Dustin
Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in midnight cowboy. He made no specific
threats, but his act was straight out of Hollywood,"you knows what I
means" warning me about the "consequences" of picking anything but
IBM, how I might get the reputation as unreliable..."

There were the standard tactics on $1 million contracts. Imagine the
dirty tricks for the big ones. Mind you, back then $1 million was
serious money, especially when you considered the no-bid followons
over the years.

 

[Roedy Green]

To put this in perspective, IBM's salespeople made much nastier
threats in their heyday. Dick Toewes, head of Inland Natural Gas, was
in charge of a tender for a new mainframe to do billing. I was
working on the Univac bid at the time. He said that the IBM salesman
said to him, "We know you have an eight year old little girl. We know
she walks along X street every day on her way to school. It would be
a terrible thing if somebody hurt her."

The tactic Univac/Burroughs/Prime used, at least for big sales, was
for example invite the potential customer to view some installation to
talk to a satisfied client about how they were using their gear. There
might be a convenient client in say ... Las Vegas.

The game then became to get the client to get drunk and laid and do
crazy things to help very uptight people cut loose.

On one of these trips, we ran through fields chasing fireflies.

 

[Sibylle Koczian]

When you are not in the majority, you are going to face inconveniences.
You'd face the same inconvenience if you wanted to buy a new car without
seats. Most people wants cars with seats, so that's the way they're
packaged.

What a stupid comparison! A computer without Windows is a computer with
another operating system. It isn't even comparable to a car with
specially expensive non standard seats.

 

[Harold Stevens]

In <[email protected]> Paul Rubin:

[Snip...]

The trial court determined and two different appeals courts upheld
that MS had an illegal monopoly.

And M$ is still intransigent about that LEGAL FACT, much to the dismay
of the federal judge overseeing the latest (toothless) consent decree:

In a rare display of indignation, U.S. District Judge Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly demanded an explanation from Microsoft's lawyers and
told them, "This should not be happening."

Legal and industry experts said Microsoft's demands probably would
have violated a landmark antitrust settlement the same judge approved
in 2002 between the company and the Bush administration. The
government and Microsoft disclosed details of the dispute in a court
document last week.

More at:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051026/microsoft_antitrust.html?.v=3

Just to really get her riled, the M$ snakes pulled another stunt:

"This needs to get done," U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
said of a project designed to help put potential rivals on a more
equal competitive footing with Microsoft.

"If there's an issue of resources, then put them in," said
Kollar-Kotelly, who endorsed the settlement with the U.S. government
and state attorneys general in November 2002.

More at (line wrapped):

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh193
85_2005-10-26_23-14-09_n26509630_newsml

Any M$ apologists saying M$ isn't an illegal monopoly are just as much
a part of that pack of liars and thieves as M$ itself.

They need to discuss it with Judge Colleen, and STignorantFU about it.

 

[Roedy Green]

I used to be a retailer of custom computers. MS used a dirty trick to
compete with IBM's OS/2. They said to me as a retailer. You must buy
a copy of our OS for EVERY machine you sell. The alternative is to
pay full retail for the OSes.

Through intimidation, MS managed to control the entire retail computer
market in Vancouver BC to the extent you could not buy even the most
stripped down computer without having to buy a copy of Windows with
it, whether you wanted it or not.

You might not want it because you bought OS/2.

You might not want it because you already owned Windows from your
older machine you were upgrading.

You might not want it because somebody stole your machine and they did
not steal all your software masters.

 

[David Schwartz]

The trial court determined and two different appeals courts upheld
that MS had an illegal monopoly. I think they have more experience
and knowledge of these things than you do. MS's illegal monopoly
is an established legal fact regardless of your irrelevant opinion.

The appeals courts upheld that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion. However, both a finding of "yes, Microsoft had a monopoly" and a
finding of "no, Microsoft did not have a monopoly" would both have been
within the trial court's discretion. They could just as easily have found
that Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, and other operating systems competed with Windows.

To call it an "established legal fact" is to grossly distort the
circumstances under which it was determined and upheld.

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

They were demanding I sell a copy of windows with every machine I
constructed, whether the customer wanted or not, even if the customer
had us install some other OS.

Right I understand that. You could have complied simply by only selling
computers with Windows preinstalled. In other words, you could have treated
this the same as a demand for franchise or exclusivity if you had wanted to.

The threat was that I did not comply, they would put me out of
business by arranging that my wholesalers would stop selling any MS
product to me, with veiled threat of even worse strangulation.

Well shit, how surprising that they wouldn't want to do business with
you if you broke your agreements with them.

What I don't think you understand this threat would was just as
effective in putting he out of business as threatening to sending in
goons every week to smash my shop to pieces.

I understand that it is just as effective, but that's not the issue. If
I'm hungry, a person who refuses to give me a loaf of bread for free may be
just as effective at killing me as a person who shoots me. But that doesn't
change the fact that there is no obligation to feed a person and there is an
obligation not to shoot them.

I could at least have a chance of legal recourse with the vandals.

Only because their actions are unreasonable and Microsoft's are not.

It will be very hard to prosecute MS for their crimes because they
commit them much the way the Mafia does.

Right, they send gun-wielding thugs to use force against people. That's
a lot like refusing to do business with people who won't uphold their
contractual obligations.

No one has any paper. Everyone was terrified of MS and would never
dream of going public. I have talked about this publicly many times
because it always looked as if I were going to die in a few years
anyway.

I think you're starting to go off the deep end.

To put this in perspective, IBM's salespeople made much nastier
threats in their heyday. Dick Toewes, head of Inland Natural Gas, was
in charge of a tender for a new mainframe to do billing. I was
working on the Univac bid at the time. He said that the IBM salesman
said to him, "We know you have an eight year old little girl. We know
she walks along X street every day on her way to school. It would be
a terrible thing if somebody hurt her."

Yep, way off the deep end.

I wrote a tender for about $1 million in computer equipment for BC
Hydro gas. There were many bidders hoping to get a foothold in a
solidly IBM shop. IBM sent a weird chap to see me, dressed as a
gangster, talking in a gangster accent, with a strange tic like Dustin
Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in midnight cowboy. He made no specific
threats, but his act was straight out of Hollywood,"you knows what I
means" warning me about the "consequences" of picking anything but
IBM, how I might get the reputation as unreliable..."

There were the standard tactics on $1 million contracts. Imagine the
dirty tricks for the big ones. Mind you, back then $1 million was
serious money, especially when you considered the no-bid followons
over the years.

If that kind of thing ever happened (which I seriously doubt), it's
absolutely reprehensible. I find it almost possible to believe that
individuals on commission might do this kind of thing with no knowledge of
their corporate higher ups, or perhaps even that people one level up or so
might do it if they are also on commission. But I find it almost impossible
to believe that any major corporation could do this as a policy.

Of course, the individuals who use actual force or threats of fraud (and
blacklisting because they didn't buy from you is fraud), deserve to be
prosecuted and imprisoned.

Do you have any documentation or evidence to support these claims? Or am
I supposed to take your word for it? (Honestly, it seems like you're just
trying to mess with me.)

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

The tactic Univac/Burroughs/Prime used, at least for big sales, was
for example invite the potential customer to view some installation to
talk to a satisfied client about how they were using their gear. There
might be a convenient client in say ... Las Vegas.

Yep, that's a classic. Notice that no force, fraud, or threats are
involved.

The game then became to get the client to get drunk and laid and do
crazy things to help very uptight people cut loose.

On one of these trips, we ran through fields chasing fireflies.

That is a bit questionable, I admit. It is questionable because the
intent is pretty obviously to get the individuals more interested in being
nice to you than looking out for the interests of their employers when they
make their purchasing decisions.

On the other hand, it's a far cry from force, fraud, blacklisting,
threats of false accusations, and so on.

DS

 

[Peter T. Breuer]

However, both a finding of "yes, Microsoft had a monopoly" and a
finding of "no, Microsoft did not have a monopoly" would both have been
within the trial court's discretion.

Well, of course, and they said YES (as a finding of fact).

They could just as easily have found
that Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, and other operating systems competed with Windows.

It would have been irrelevant.

To call it an "established legal fact" is to grossly distort the
circumstances under which it was determined and upheld.

Uh, it's an established legal fact. So I think your logic is off there.

Peter

 

[David Schwartz]

David Schwartz schrieb:

What a stupid comparison! A computer without Windows is a computer
with another operating system. It isn't even comparable to a car with
specially expensive non standard seats.

It is comparable in the only sense in which I used a comparison. More
people want a computer with Windows preinstalled than want it any other way.
Similarly, more people want a car with standard seats preinstalled than want
it any other way.

Who said anything about 'specially expensive'? Are you pretending I said
that just so you can refute it?

It kind of reminds me of a scene from Futurama, which went roughly like
this:

Leela: We need to get some money.

Fry: Well how are we going to do that? A daring daylight robbery of Fort
Knox on elephant back? That's the dumbest idea I ever heard!

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

Through intimidation, MS managed to control the entire retail computer
market in Vancouver BC to the extent you could not buy even the most
stripped down computer without having to buy a copy of Windows with
it, whether you wanted it or not.

You might not want it because you bought OS/2.

You might not want it because you already owned Windows from your
older machine you were upgrading.

You might not want it because somebody stole your machine and they did
not steal all your software masters.

Tell me, can you buy a new car without seats? Guess what, you have to
buy those seats whether you want them or not.

Try to start a business selling competing seats for a new car. Your
seats may be cheaper, better, but how can you possibly compete when people
have to pay for factory car seats whether they want them or not?

The real reason PCs were not available without Windows was because not
enough people wanted them that way to justify setting up a business to
provide them that way, and Microsoft was not going to let a business
parasitically use Windows to build a business that touted the advantages of
competing products. (Just as Burger King corporate will not you sell Big
Macs in the same store in which you sell Whoppers.)

DS

 

[Peter T. Breuer]

Microsoft was not going to let a business
parasitically use Windows to build a business that touted the advantages of
competing products.

Well, it should have, because that's what manufacturers of operating
systems, washing machines, and so on, are supposed to do. And so says
the legal system. Attempting to subvert market economics like that is
illegal.

(Just as Burger King corporate will not you sell Big
Macs in the same store in which you sell Whoppers.)

They're not obliged to. There is no comparison. Not even the same kind
of business in the abstract. Try :- Cow Meat Inc. will see that no
supplier will ever sell you cow meat again if you also sell vegetables
in your totally independent restaurant.

Peter

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Lasse_V=E5gs=E6ther_Karlsen?=]

Roedy Green wrote:

competing products. (Just as Burger King corporate will not you sell Big
Macs in the same store in which you sell Whoppers.)

Rather odd comparison don't you think ?

A better comparison would be if Burger King purchases the fries from a
factory that says that Burger King has to give out a pack of fries with
all meals, regardless of the type of meal, or they are going to raise
the price. In other words, you'll be forced to take a pack of fries with
your ice cream, salad or what not. Considering that McDonalds have been
selling meals with "potato-boats" (don't know the correct english term
for it, carved potato pieces fried), they'd have to give you a pack of
fries with your meal regardless, even if you want to replace the fries
with "potato-boats".

Also, in this case Burger King "won't sell you" is not the same as
"can't sell you", which seems to be the case with this whole Microsoft
discussion. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to easily buy a
computer from Microsoft with OS/2 installed or vice versa either and I'm
not sure they would be obliged to do so either. However, controlling
what an independant outlet is doing, that's different.

 

[Paul Rubin]

The appeals courts upheld that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion. However, both a finding of "yes, Microsoft had a monopoly" and a
finding of "no, Microsoft did not have a monopoly" would both have been
within the trial court's discretion.

No, that finding would have been contradictory to the facts at hand.

They could just as easily have found that Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, and
other operating systems competed with Windows.

Nice try, but those other OS's did not have enough market share to
prevent the finding of monopoly under the law.

To call it an "established legal fact" is to grossly distort the
circumstances under which it was determined and upheld.

Who is paying you to post such nonsense? If the trial court
determines a fact and it's upheld on appeal, it's an established legal
fact regardless of whether you or Microsoft likes it.

 

[Roedy Green]

That is a bit questionable, I admit. It is questionable because the
intent is pretty obviously to get the individuals more interested in being
nice to you than looking out for the interests of their employers when they
make their purchasing decisions.

I don't think this was as reprehensible as what MS did. For a start,
everyone could refuse the trip if they wanted without dire
consequences. They could also refuse to go out partying each night
with the salesmen. They could refrain from alcohol (as I did).

Even though I don't think in most cases the salesmen went so far as to
purchase hookers or lap dancers, they did after the evening's revelry
know something about the client that potentially could be very
embarrasing if it were revealed to a spouse, without the tiniest hint
of a threat to do so.

 

[Roedy Green]

Right, they send gun-wielding thugs to use force against people. That's
a lot like refusing to do business with people who won't uphold their
contractual obligations.

You stupid ****! How many times do I have to tell you.

There was NO contract. Just a THREAT to make me do what they wanted,
to go along with their extortion racket.