Naaaa, I'm sure he just dropped Linux 'cause Microsoft told him to.
Posted on 03/19/2002 12:28:49 PM PST by Mike Fieschko
Microsoft sharpshooter Joachim Kempin, who was convicted of illegally shooting antelope in Montana in 1998, has been turning his guns on a more familiar target: Microsoft's own OEM customers.
The States' remedy hearing opened in DC yesterday, and States attorney Steven Kuney produced a devastating memo from Kempin, then in charge of Microsoft's OEM business, written after Judge Jackson had ordered his break-up of the company. Kempin raises the possibility of threatening Dell and other PC builders which promote Linux.
"I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to Ballmer, in what is sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases ("knife the baby", "cut off the air supply") with which Microsoft enriched the English language in the first trial. Unlike those two, this is not contested.
The bullets aimed Spaghetti Western-style at the feet of the dancing OEMs translate to Microsoft withholding source code, according to the memo.
For these details we're indebted to eWeek's Darryl Taft, who unlike some his fellow reporters, appeared to stay for the afternoon session of the hearing. His account of the day's proceedings can be found here , and includes the delicious detail that late in the afternoon, Sun Microsystems was desperately trying to close the session, arguing that cross examination would reveal confidential information submitted under seal.
Reuters also mentions the Linux threat in passing, but compare and contrast with The New York Times, which doesn't. CNET and Wired simply carry the Reuters report.
Earlier memos described that it was "untenable" that a key Microsoft partner was promoting Linux. Kuney revealed that Dell disbanded its Linux business unit in early 2001. Dell quietly pulled Linux from its desktop PCs in the summer of 2001, IDG's Ashlee Vance discovered subsequently, six months after we heard Michael Dell declare his love of Linux on the desktop the previous winter.
Compaq was also mentioned in other memos, with Microsoft taking the line that OEMs should "meet demand but not help create demand" for Linux.
Kempin was Microsoft's chief OEM enforcer in the second half of the nineties, contributing a string of memorable memos to the 1998 Trial, and takes the credit for ensuring that the price of a Windows rose as the price of PCs were falling, during this period.
"The plaintiffs are not here to punish Microsoft - the plaintiffs' goals are to make Microsoft behave properly," argued a States' attorney. But how? Short of obliging the executives to wear antelope horns and race in front of an SUV under a hail of rifle fire, it's hard to see what language they understand.
Naaaa, I'm sure he just dropped Linux 'cause Microsoft told him to.
I'm typing this in Mandrake Linux :)
Therefore, Microsoft is not a monopoly.
Bump, because McDonald's oppresses me by being 3 minutes away while the far tastier Wendy's is all the way on the other side of town.
Is it any kind of fair competition when the distances are so unequal?!?
Funny, i just received a fine Dell custom made machine a "530 Workstation" with all the doo-dahs installed, and to my recolection if you go to their web site and scroll down where the small business units are, they give you the option to choose the OS from "NT","2000" and guess what"Red Hat Linux 7.2" as an option. So I think this whole story is a bunch of horse sh!t.
My two pennies...
I actually don't believe in them myself :}
Besides, even a minority of market share can constitute a monopoly.
Now that totally loses me. If that is the case then what is the complaint? Moreover, why continue referring to such a phenomenon as "a monopoly," when everyone understands the term to mean something different?
Isn't this like how the "poverty line" shifts around from here to there as the bar moves, and "racism" can mean whatever Jesse Jackson has his sights on this month, and oral sex isn't sex, and "the RKBA shall not be infringed" means it can be infringed?
Btw, Mandrake 8.2 is out. I got the CDs burned and will be installing it tomorrow. :)
It's a fun part of the installer when you get to open up those subfolders, as you're going through and picking what to packages to install... like opening little presents!
But this is the free market in action!
I think Microsoft has done great things, and I would also love to see free software displace them. But, displace them according to the wishes of the customers, not those of some court inserting itself on behalf of unsuccessful competitors.
I actually don't believe in them myself :}
Monopolies, not judges!
I bet Sun has said as much in their own internal memos. That's why they are called "internal".
Then how can AOL provide their services purely on UNIX servers, and are now moving to Linux?
Borland and Word Perfect had the major share of their markets, but then they just quit competing. I know from first hand experience. Borland bought jets and fancy cars, and spent zilch on regional marketing. They thought they had beaten MS and were living on easy street, except Microsoft didn't quit. By 1997, MS had the market and no one was hearing much from Word Perfect or Borland. Microsoft didn't do ANYTHING illegal in those repsects. Their competitors simply quit trying.
Monopolies have the ability to control a market. OBVIOUSLY, Microsoft isn't doing that if a major player such as AOL can buy Linux, and Dell sells it.
The monopolistic practice MS was convicted of took place ten years ago when they did have the market locked up. They don't anymore, so quite yer bitchin.
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