● 02.04.09
●● ‘Sabotaging’ Motherboards to Work Only with Windows
Posted in Antitrust, Europe, GNU/Linux, Law, Microsoft at 7:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“I found this issue in a newsletter from an Italian political party that I think is lunatic,” says one reader, “but the issue is an important issue [...] the deliberate sabotage of motherboards to only work with Windows.”
This is a familiar issue. What Microsoft does in Italy is bordering the illegal, so below we are presenting this portion of text that was sent in by a regular reader.
On the substitution of operational systems of portable computersSeveral Italian consumers declared the problem in acquiring portable computers furnished with pre-installed operational systems. In particular, when one decides to substitute the furnished operational system with an HP computer, there have been cases of technical impossibility in de-installing the pre-installed system (Windows Vista) and substituting it with a different one. Restoring disks furnished with the portable computers do not solve the problem and the only solution seems to be, in all its complexities, the substitution of the apparatus, often made impossible by the manufacturer. With reference to the answer already given by the EC in 2007, the Radical MEPs asked if the EC is in possession of data related to the percentage of portables sold with the pre-installed systems and if not, if it intends to gather information on the present situation; if it does not think that, independently of the trade agreements between producers of hardwares and softwares, consumer rights must be guaranteed in renouncing the softwares furnished with the purchase and change it as one pleases and if it intends to take an initiative against the incorrect practices of producers that constrain consumers’ choices. (L. Lipparini)
Microsoft still fights against unbundling [1, 2, 3, 4]. As its chief puts it, OEMs are Microsoft’s “delivery people”. █
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