● 12.12.08
●● World’s Computing Thugs Fight Governments and Continents
Posted in Antitrust, Asia, Fraud, Hardware, IBM, Law, Microsoft, Oracle, Servers, Windows at 12:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Because the biggest criminals wear suits, not jumpers
Being a large company is no crime. However, behaviour is a separate factor and it’s unfortunate that regulation has been so utterly poor, which means that those who are corrupt also meet the most ‘success’.
We see the effects of this in the global crisis right now because those who are rich are doing fine, whereas those who are poor are marginalised further and forced to pay big corporations in order to ‘save’ them (from their own fraud).
Has everyone read about the $50 billion Madoff corruption yet? Everyone should. It’s in today’s news.
●●● The Software Felon
Companies like Microsoft grow to become political creatures that laugh at the government [1, 2]. This is something that we covered — using plenty of extensive evidence — so many times before. Here is the news story about Microsoft’s latest fight against European law, which it refuses to obey. It’s not inability. It’s unwillingness, it's vanity and it’s hubris.
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Trade groups the Association of Competitive Technology (ACT) and the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) will side with Microsoft, while IBM, Oracle and Red Hat will help the Commission defend itself in the court appeal.
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Got that? Microsoft and its fronts are so adamant and vicious that the European Commission needs to be defended by large American companies like Oracle and IBM. Yes, a high legal authority needs to defend itself like a coward, having witnessed the smear campaigns Microsoft et al launched at Neelie Kroes for ‘daring’ to call for (and yet to restore) justice.
The text quoted above would also be useful to few naive people who still stubbornly deny that CompTIA [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and ACT [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] are Microsoft mouthpieces. These are people who virtually work for Microsoft, but can pretend not to because they do their trade under titles which sounds more neutral, e.g. BSA [1, 2, 3, 4], being an equivalent of the RIAA or MPAA.
The article continues:
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The Free Software Foundation Europe, the Samba Team of open-source software programmers, the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) will also turn up in support of the Commission, the court said in a statement released earlier this week.
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Microsoft failed to honor this order for three years after the 2004 ruling, employing delaying tactics despite being threatened with further fines. The Commission imposed an additional €600 million in fines because of the delays.
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Yes, that’s the same old Microsoft, whose ways never changed.
The two sides here are not equal per se. Freedom is no “religion” and those who battle against freedom and human rights have all sorts of names, none of which seems appropriate to include here. Sometimes there are no gentle words when approaching a hard issue, but need truth really be a taboo?
Apple vs. Microsoft (or Mac OS versus Windows) is a battle of egos and a battle between vendors, but both are harmful to the users, who are manipulated into not realising this and not even valuing what they have and what they gradually lose.
●●● The Hardware Felon
Intel continues to treat governments like they are some nuisance or a bunch of obnoxious kids. Intel is so full of itself that it believes only ‘responsible adults’ who run the corporations should decide what qualifies as a bribe and what does not. This series of patronisations now extends beyond Europe as Intel takes its ‘beef’ over to Korea where it wishes not to pay heavy fines for crimes it committed (with conviction).
Intel takes legal swing at Korean antitrust decision
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The watchdog ordered Intel to cough up $18.6m for violating fair trade rules. The Commission ruled that Intel paid rebates to South Korean computer firms to undercut arch rival AMD.
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Intel was charged by the regulator in June last year for violating antitrust laws following a two year investigation into the company’s business dealings in South Korea.
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It is disappointing to see what comes out of Intel’s crimes, a recent example of which is the case of collusion (a joint conspiracy with Microsoft). We covered this in:
Prepare for the Steve Ballmer Deposition Following Crimes with IntelMicrosoft Tries to Dodge Vista Collusions Lawsuit as Ballmer Deposition NearsMore Information About Microsoft’s and Intel’s Crimes Against CustomersWilliam Poole of NComputing (Formerly Microsoft) Blamed in the Big Collusion
Speaking of Will Poole and NComputing, the company has just added an executive from Intel, which is the very same company that fought against a charity, OLPC. Yes, one might add the role of OLPC (NComputing, like Intel, fought against it) and the recent example of corruption in the OOXML fiasco. Intel supported Microsoft’s OOXML, of course.
Unless governments are able to regain a grip on corporations, there will be a reversal of roles (or a continuation, if not exacerbation, of this reversal). This means that we, the ‘little people’, are left at the mercy of people in companies who want to “cut off air supplies”, “tilt into death spirals” and “whack” those who are disobedient. And that’s just a sample of Microsoft vocabulary and attitude towards legitimate competitors. It gets worse. █
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