Microsoft Moves To Quash Case, End E-mail Revelations 158
CWmike writes "Microsoft asked a federal judge yesterday to end the class-action lawsuit that has been the source of a treasure trove of embarrassing insider e-mails covering everything from managers badmouthing Intel to others on who worried how Vista would be compared to Apple's Mac OS X in 2005. In seeking to end the case, Microsoft argues the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista was not the 'real' Vista, or showed that users paid more for PCs prior to the new operating system's launch because of the Vista Capable campaign."
Good Luck MSFT (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked retail during the period "Vista ready" hit the shelves and only a very small handful of machines meet what our team of salespeople would consider to be truly capable of running vista. The whole thing was a total scam to sell as many computers as possible during the typical iteration lull; when a new product is about to release, nobody typically wants the old one. The seriously funny part of Vista's release is how few people wanted it, but MSFT acted like everyone was going to love it, thus proving how out of touch they are with reality. The new Seinfeld ads prove this to be true. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Re:Good Luck MSFT (Score:4, Funny)
actually.
power corrupts, but powrpoint corrupts absolutly...
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That may be true for Windows nowadays, I wouldn't know. I do know that Linux runs just fine on only 1GB or RAM. Why does Windows need so many resources to run acceptably?
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That depends on your definition of "acceptable". WinXP doesn't *need* 1GB. The email machine in my office at work runs WinXP Pro and has 0.25GB installed. It's slow to boot, and initially slow to load Outlook (2003?) and Firefox 3. However, once they've been loaded once, you're good to go.
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Actually, 256 was more like win98 and win2000. From day one the sweet spot in XP seemed to have been around 512 depending on how taxing your programs would be.
I don't know how many times I did litle more then bring the memory for XP systems up to 512 or better and people thought they had a new machine. Run some spyware tools and clean some of the cruft out and they were tickled pink.
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This all of course depends of the software - in that case, little more than MSOffice, Opera (then version 6 IIRC) for web browsing. And of course no adware/malwae crap.
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With a fresh install, no service packs, not MS office, XP sails on 512 and runs so much fast then 256 or lower that there is a noticeable difference. Start adding the other programs and your going to see a greater difference in performance. 512 is just the sweet spot for XP, With SP2 and the improvements of memory management, it's a little less obvious but it still is obvious.
Now 256 got the job done, just not as much as 512 though. You probably would have been thrilled if you heard that earlier in your XP
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Nah, 256MB was never enough for WinXP. The rule of thumb back around 2000 was:
128MB for WinNT v4
256MB for Win2000
512MB for WinXP
And things worked a LOT better if you could get XP up to 1GB.
Every Win2k machine that was fitted with only 128MB ran like a dog, same thing for a WinXP box with only 256MB of RAM.
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I've always hated the practice... (Score:5, Interesting)
...of selectively disabling features in a software product and selling a product at a lower price. It's a bit different for things in the real world, where there's a real physical cost involved with adding extra do-dads and features to products. But in software, it's just flipping a few bits to remove features you've already developed. The crazy thing is, it actually costs *more* to do this, as the company now has multiple versions of the product to package, distribute, and support.
I'd much prefer the game industry's model of "premium versions" of a game containing extra bonuses. The core product is the same, but if you want to pay for it, you can get a few extras, maybe a "making of" DVD, or a CD containing the soundtrack, books and figurines, stuff like that.
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The EU requires Microsoft to release a basic version as part of their antitrust lawsuite. Each feature in the premium versions requires a price attached to it and the premium version has to cost the same as the basic version plus the price of each additional feature. If any discount is given for combining features then it is considered "bundling" and is not allowed.
Re:I've always hated the practice... (Score:5, Insightful)
This only applies to the media player, due to the knock-on effect on web-based video and music of having every windows pc guaranteed to have microsoft's codecs. This is the reason for the -N versions on the vista DVD.
There's no reason microsoft couldn't have split vista into two versions; home and business. All the extra 'ultimate' crap, and turning off aero entirely in basic was just segmenting the market to extract as much money as possible.
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From :
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Aero is like wood trim in a luxury car (I love car analogies). It's mostly just pretty, Although I imagine it's possible that someone somewhere might find something about it that improves their efficiency.
Take a look at their product matrix.
The "easy" feature that they hold back from *every* edition except ultimate is encryption. Ok, business has "filesystem encryption" but from the product page, I ge
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How do you determine what is a bonus feature and what was removed? Just shift names around and stuff and you can have exactly the same thing with the same effect.
There's really no problem with doing this.
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How do you determine what is a bonus feature and what was removed? Just shift names around and stuff and you can have exactly the same thing with the same effect.
There's really no problem with doing this.
I'd differentiate it by asking: Is the core product in the "light" version of the software intentionally crippled? Or, perhaps one could look at it a different way. Is the "standard" product the less expensive or more expensive one (i.e. the one that gets promoted)?
Using my example of the game industry (normal games vs "collector edition" games), you can clearly see that the standard package is the less expensive SKU. However, the game itself in both packages are identical. The "collector edition" boxes
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Naturally, you're correct that it's a matter of perception. But when selling products to consumers, perception matters, right?
Yes, that's my point. Just market it differently and you make the crippled version be the normal version and all other versions have bonus features and it's the EXACT same thing.
Hell, the stripped-down version might otherwise allow people who couldn't buy the full version a chance at a new, modern operating system. Not sure why they'd choose Vista (lol) but you see my point?
Percept
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Sometimes this happens because you bring out a fully featured, single level product with a certain price tag and people are buying it. A little later on you get messages from other interested parties along the lines of "I really like your product - but I don't need features X, Y or Z, could you provide a cheaper product without those features?", and so it happens.
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Except Windows doesn't get cheaper, it gets more expensive.
Re:I've always hated the practice... (Score:5, Informative)
It is not always the case for hardware. Intel chips would often have part of the hardware disabled, because it is cheaper to make one type of chip than two (the 386sx/dx, 486sx,dx, etc...) Cameras as well, can come with hardware that is not supported by the version of software installed, thus disabling part of it.
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This is done with hardware for manufacturing costs and so on, as you state - only one set of tooling needed to make the chips, or the widget or whatever it is your company makes.
Then you can stream it at QA, which I know Intel has done in the past, and put lower quality batches as slower chips, selling them as such. The QA assures that they will work properly at say 1GHz, when it's literally an identical chip to the 1.5GHz in the more expensive box - it just failed QA at that speed.
Not that Intel are innoce
Re:I've always hated the practice... (Score:5, Informative)
I bought a laptop that came bundled with Vista and it crashed on me numerous times before I got fed up with all the Vista crap and "upgraded" to XP (and later upgraded to Ubuntu). Just because it's never crashed on you doesn't make other people liars. I think you need to get a clue.
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I bought a laptop that came bundled with Vista and it crashed on me numerous times before I got fed up with all the Vista crap and "upgraded" to XP (and later upgraded to Ubuntu). Just because it's never crashed on you doesn't make other people liars. I think you need to get a clue.
Actually, thinking back, I had a somewhat similar experience, but it was XP, not Vista. I got a brand new Dell notebook a few years ago, and it was horribly unstable with all the crap that came pre-installed on it. I had to wipe the drive and re-install XP and the minimal set of drivers. I'm not sure exactly what was making it unstable, but it was rock solid after that. I wonder if you had a similar experience? Pre-installed crapware is a fairly significant problem with Windows-based machines from big-
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I'm actually one of those weird people who like Vista - I've recently bought a new Thinkpad with Ultimate preloaded, and love it. And yes, it does work without a hitch there. But elsewhere, well... my desktop PC - which is by no means old or low-end - still can't sleep properly (or rather it won't wake up) in Vista, and Hibernate takes about three times as long
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Am I the only one that remembers the Plus! pack that you could by to "enhance" your Windows 95 and 98?
Yeah but Plus! 95 actually did add features like font smoothing and high color icons (later released as a free font smoothing patch [microsoft.com]), Pinball, LOGO.SYS boot screen, and of course themes. Since all of that was integrated into later Windows releases Plus!98 pretty much just installed themes and a new boot logo.
If people want to complain about different versions of Windows, 95 was even worse! There was "Wind
Tales from the Past (Score:5, Insightful)
As an ex-IBMer, I have wondered for years why Microsoft is not drowning in antitrust cases (or the modern fashionable class actions). For the 13 years the second A-T case against IBM ran, every employee signed off the Business Conduct Guidelines every year, and knew that a breach of the BCG was cause for instant dismissal.
MS doesn't seem to think unethical behaviour is even noticed.
Re:Tales from the Past (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet, they've elevated it to an artform. Buying representatives on standards committees, bribing government officials to get rid of FOSS friendly legislation, the list is endless.
When having to choose between monsanto and microsoft as the supreme example of an outright criminal corporation it's a tough choice.
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When having to choose between monsanto and microsoft as the supreme example of an outright criminal corporation it's a tough choice.
I don't know about you but when it comes to corporate monopolies I mind a lot more when it's food having less genetic variety compared to one company's OS being run on every computer; and then there are the dominant terminator seeds that spread to neighboring fields so that regular crops can no longer be grown... at least there's no virus on my Mac that uninstalls OSX and replaces it with Vista.
So I suppose that while *some* of their actions are similar, the bigger criminal is easily Monsanto.
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When having to choose between monsanto and microsoft as the supreme example of an outright criminal corporation it's a tough choice.
Shouldn't DeBeers be in there somewhere?
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Why just MS? They were bribed into lowering their vista ready standards by Intel. Intel should also be punished for trying to keep the market to themselves through such an illegal backroom deal.
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in order to prove Intel did wrong you have to prove MSFT was wrong and get MSFT to say bad things about Intel. Since Windows Is the only CPU stuck OS anymore pissing off Intel isn't possible for MSFT.
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Fact: Microsoft has VERY strict Conduct Guidelines that every employee and manager must comply with. These guidelines do include proper Business Conduct, and cover things such as accepting or handing out bribes (in any form, including "well it was just a nice gesture!" scenarios). They're referred to as "SBC" (Standards of Business Conduct).
These mandatory compliance rules are updated on average twice a year (sometimes more often depending upon what changes), and every employee has to watch a series of vi
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Fact: Prepending a statement with "Fact:" does not make it so.
"The big lie" technique (Score:5, Insightful)
"The evidence refutes Plaintiffs' claims that Windows Vista Home Basic cannot 'fairly' be called Windows Vista," Microsoft said in the motion for summary judgment.
And yet their own internal communications talk about what a piece of crap it is, and how the "Vista capable" thing will blow up in their face, mislead consumers, etc etc.
Ultimate-ly (smirk smirk), the lawyers are going to be the ones to hash out these definitions, and it'll be a damn shame if "the big lie" technique succeeds, but factually speaking, Microsoft did intentionally mislead consumers.
Journalists are so unfair to Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft today issued a plea through its network of objective opinion-shapers: Don't let the journalists near it. [today.com]
"We understand that many journalists use Macs," said CNet marketing marketer Don Reisinger. "This means they necessarily suckle at the Satanic rear passage of Steve Jobs. We cannot countenance their bias. Journalists are responsible for all those signs outside computer shops offering to replace Vista with XP. When was the last time you saw the entire technology field stop and wait for an announcement from any other company besides Apple? It's so unfair!"
Smears and slanders also come from obsessive overweight nerdy Mac-using Linux geek troublemakers who run "benchmarks" and "tests." "It's horrifying bias from the 'reality'-based community," said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary Jo Enderle. "We understand that, just because Vista was 40% slower than XP, the nattering nabobs of negativism are already writing that it's 'not enough of an improvement.' It's so unfair!"
"Mactards are like concentration camp guards," said Guardian marketing marketer Jack Schofield, "brutalising 'I'm A PC' users and" [This comment has been removed by a Guardian moderator. Replies may also be deleted.]
"The only reason Vista failed was because Microsoft planned for it to fail," said Reisinger in an earlier ad-banner troll post. "It was a fantastically subtle double-bluff! They did the honorable thing in the face of the vile calumnies spread by Apple. It's so unfair!"
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Vista = $2100 email machine (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: Regarding the CORE EXPERIENCE (Score:2)
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What a dumb fuck.
I have a 999 dollar (CostCo) machine that runs Vista Ultimate X64 with NO problems.
Hell, even when I trashed the default install of (Vista Standard X86) and upgraded to Vista Ultimate X64, two reboots and EVERYTHING worked, even my remote control. Took about 90 minutes for the complete install to be done. I couldn't be happier.
If he spent thousands on a laptop, He's an idiot. If he bought a machine and used the default installation of ANY operating system, He's an idiot. And from having
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Nash wrote that he "personally got burned" by buying a laptop that was labeled as Windows Vista Capable
If you're using it for e-mail Vista must be running, and thus the machine is rightly "Vista Capable". So is a P3 with 512MB of RAM but I don't expect it to get a high hardware rating and run Aero. That's like blaming Intel because your Celeron has crappy performance and the "Intel Inside" sticker mislead you.
They need proof?? (Score:2)
"Microsoft argues the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista was not the 'real' Vista, "
I sure as hell can. The beta versions of Vista had more features than Vista Home Basic.
I still have copies of the betas that can be compared to Vista Home Basic.
all hinges on the definition of "capable"... (Score:2)
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.
I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.
I'm usually not one to jump on the Anti-Microsoft hype machine (I don't think Vista is nearly as bad as people say it is - I use Vista 64-bit at work and it's great). But it *does* require a machine with a bit of horsepower to run it well. It's pretty obvious that Microsoft was willing to sacrifice a few customers to stay in good graces with Intel. Are you going to tell me that a consumer who purchased a machine with a "Vista-ready" sticker would seriously have expected or understood that it could only run the most basic version of Vista?
As shallow as it may seem to some, interface is big part of the computing experience. A consumer is going to be reminded of the fact that they have a "sub-standard" version of the OS every time they look at their screen. I know it would bother me, especially if it was sold under false pretenses.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:4, Interesting)
In January 2007, I bought such a "Vista Capable" computer and I'm usually not the one to defend Microsoft. However, on the box of the machine there was a sticker saying "Vista Capable", but the text next to it clearly identified the fact that it wouldn't run Aero and that it will be Vista Home Basic at best. [Relevant Journal Entry [slashdot.org]]. It was very clear to me: I can read....
That said, that machine was never meant to run a Microsoft product. The preloaded version of Windows XP MCE (the journal entry says Windows XP Home, but I was wrong), lived on it for a few months and then made place to Ubuntu.
Yes, indeed, just going by the sticker was quite misleading.... Actually reading the fine print was not. But then, I am a computer Geek and did understand what the fine print said.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone who's been reading Slashdot since "Longhorn" started development would know that Microsoft had always intended for Vista to have different levels of UI capabilities depending on the hardware it is running on. that's not news to anyone here, and even without the fine print most Slashdotters wouldn't equate the "Vista Capable/Ready" sticker with "Aero Capable."
however, and this is a pretty big however, we're not the average consumer. unless you're a tech geek, you're not going to know these details about Vista, or know what Aero even is. just like unless you're a car-buff you're probably not going to know what kind of engine your new car has other than that it's a V4/V6/V8. should a car-buyer know the internal workings of the vehicle they are looking to purchase? i think that's debatable. but in this case it's completely besides the point.
consumers were clearly misled in this case with a combination of deceptive actions on the part of Microsoft:
you can't have it both ways. you either advertise your product as clearly having multiple tiers, or you deliver the full "premium" experience which includes all of the features advertised.
and, IANAL, but i don't think fine print by itself is sufficient defense against false advertisement charges. i highly doubt that there's anyone out there who's never missed a line of fine print, either in a contract they're signing, a TV commercial they watched, a magazine ad they glanced over, or (in this case "fast talking") a radio commercial. the very nature of fine print/fast talking makes it impossible, or at least impractical, for an ordinary human-being (as opposed to the radioactively-enhanced type) to catch all of the information businesses try to slip past consumers. just like it's impractical for a consumer to become an expert on every product they're looking to purchase.
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I'm curious about this fine print myself. I purchased a Dell Inspiron E1505 with a "Vista Capable" sticker on it. It has no such fine print and I know for a fact that it wasn't on the website when I ordered it.
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True, but if the fine print said "$XYZ won't work", the customer should be able to comprehend that when he'll put Vista on that machine, he won't get the full experience.... even if he doesn't know what $XYZ means.
I was not clear enough: the Vista Capable sticker, including the fine print was on the exterior of the cardboard box containing the computer which I could inspect as long as I wanted since I bought it in a shopping mall. What I call fine print as also quite large, like 10pt Arial or so, but on a
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well, let's just say that Microsoft isn't the only one using these tactics. they're just being singled out at the moment because they've got a class-action lawsuit on their hands. the use of fine print by businesses has always been a controversial legal issue, and credit card companies and lenders are traditionally the biggest abusers of this type of deceit, using fine print to engage in bait-and-switch tactics.
but just because we've gotten accustomed to getting the wool pulled over our eyes in this way doe
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"i don't think fine print by itself is sufficient defense against false advertisement charges"
Probably true, and clearly needs to be fixed:
There should be a EULA you have to click through, by touching a square on your TV, before you can see the ad.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:4, Funny)
Vista is a vast improvement over XP.
Just about all the problems with it are from people using inferior hardware. You can't run XP on a commodore64 either.
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Nothing truer ever said.
OS Bashing is lamesauce. All operating systems have their place.
I use Vista Ultimate X64 and Vista Premium on another laptop. Both my laptops are decent machines, a gig of ram minimum, dual core processors, etc.
But, Vista works well, just as well as Ubuntu on my "public" machine, even moreso, since I don't have all the wireless issues, etc. that I do on Ubuntu (yeah, it's normal to have to find a driver, then find a hacked version of the cards firmware, or have to run FWCutter to p
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I never upgraded either just brought a new laptop with Vista. I wouldn't upgrade an XP machine to Vista because there is little point, especially with old hardware.
I find it interesting that allot of the people who bad mouth Vista have never actually run it.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:5, Insightful)
It's even simpler than that. Just consider the fact that MS lowered their standards for "Vista Capable" at the request of Intel. This is strong evidence that there was once a choice made as to what would be a reasonable level of capability to be called "Vista Capable", and it was lowered below that level. This whole case is that "Vista Capable" is below a reasonable level. It damn near proves itself. The only real counter-argument would be if the original standard was set too high, which given how poorly Vista runs on low-end "Vista Capable" systems, that's a pretty difficult position to defend.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:4, Funny)
Is Microsoft going to defend itself by insinuating that little old ladies should have informed themselves by reading reviews of beta software, rather than by reading the label and believing what the clueless Best Buy drone told her?
I hope so. That is a court case I would watch.
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Now I picture one of those TV Court rooms with Judge Judy or the like yelling at the Microsoft person.
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You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
Last I checked Apple didn't offer any cases in brushed aluminum [bit-tech.net] =(
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure exactly the same is justified.
One thing Apple has always been very clear about, perhaps even a little too conservative, is the minimum system requirements for their products. Often those requirements are actually above a usable minimum, whereupon they take quite a bit of flack until someone hacks out the hardware check.
Apple actually found itself in very similar circumstances with the release of... can't remember which one. Tiger I think. Anyway, the new Quartz Extreme extensions wouldn't all run on older video cards. So what did they do? They were up front about it, but they also made Quartz degrade gracefully. Actually, the only reliable way we could tell was to drop a widget on Dashboard and see if there were any screen ripples.
Re:Don't Let This Die (Score:4, Interesting)
Since Apple controls its product line, the responsible thing to do would be to make sure that all of their current products supported CoreImage-- essentially, floating point fragment shaders.
I'm not sure if Apple offers a machine that does not. It shouldn't.
The Vista ready program was designed to assure customers that they would be able to buy a computer that Vista would run well on. In the pre-Vista era, Aero was certainly hyped [microsoft.com]. It's not inconceivable that some poor hapless soles bought new computers in the expectation that they would be able to use Aero, when it came out and were sorely disappointed when they found out that they could not.
Now that Vista has been released, you can demo a prospective purchase in the store, find out that the interface is not as lickable as you were led to expect, and move on. Or you can read reviews, and note the line "Not powerful enough to run Vista". But prior to release, it was all about trust, fine print, and careful research.
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When Apple released Quartz Extreme they did not sell a machine that didn't support it. But they had sold machines in the past that didn't, and knew such machines were in use.
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I know of at least one Windows 98 machine still in use, and repair G3 OS 9.2--OS 10.2 iMacs at work (even a OS7 PowerMac came in once).
You need to cut the cord at some point.
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Early versions of Aqua, MacOSX's widget set, were described as lickable because many of the elements resembled jellybeans. A nod to the term eye candy, perhaps?
Quartz Extreme was "Jaguar", 2002 (Score:2)
That was also the first "production ready" release of OS X, at least according to the experiences of my studio. We tested 10.0 and 10.1 and began migrating at 10.2 Jaguar. 10.3 Panther was even better - performance noticeably improved on G3 machines.
Microsoft's talent lies in greed, fraud and extortion, not software engineering; the comparison with Apple proves that better than anything else.
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Wow, you're right. It was that long ago. Time flies.
My lab found that 10.0 was more of a beta (Apple really treated it that way as well, including giving it away for free and giving free upgrades to 10.1), 10.1, Jaguar, was the first-run version, which worked pretty well but had some bugs. Panther was a big improvement, as you say, faster across the board.
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Of course. But from the customer's point of view, they end up with a little more hardware than perhaps they actually needed, instead of a little less. Thing is, in this case it's Price is Right rules. If you're under, it's game over.
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I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
This is an absolutely true statement, but it overlooks one thing: the unfair advantage that is monopoly status and industry entrenchment.
I support open source because it's hard to leverage unfairly, but when I have to choose between Microsoft and Apple I choose Apple because they're the underdog.
When Microsoft's market share reaches 50% or less on desktop OSes and browsers, I'll re-evaluate my stance. They have the same business practices as Apple, but they have far more power until the ecosystem eve
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I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
Get back to us when Apple are leveraging a monopoly to stop other companies selling any non-Apple OS. And are convicted of such.
Or did you mean that other sort of "exactly," the sort which means "in the broad category of things I don't approve of, but which encompasses a massive range?"
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I can get back to you with Apple leveraging it's MP3 player monopoly to push it's own DRM and iTunes store, which happens to be completely and deliberately incompatible with everything else on the market.
Is that too inconvenient a truth?
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Is that too inconvenient a truth?
Inconvenient for you, it's not a truth. Apple doesn't force any of their iPod owners into using their store. iPods will play any MP3 or AAC file just fine, no DRM required.
Furthermore, Apple is actively seeking to remove DRM from their store, and was the first mainstream store to call for it. If they were a monopoly, and were trying to lock their users in, would they really clamor for the ability to remove the only artificial lock in the whole system?
Apple's philosophy is to compete on quality. They use ope
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Also, if Apple REALLY wanted a D
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Sure, they don't force you to buy music from iTunes, sure, but they do control the way the user generally uses it. iPods appeal the most to the non-technical crowd, who probably don't know, for example, that the Amazon mp3 store exists. iTunes is much more a store than a music player. I'm not saying its unfair, but its not like its the most open system either. It's like MS doesn't force you to use WMP or IE, its just what's most likely going to happen for the average user.
MS engaged in practices that made it difficult to use MP3s in WMP, and made it difficult to use Netscape on the web. Apple does nothing to make it difficult to not use iTunes.
And yes, Apple tightly controls the iPod user experience. That's why it's so well liked.
Also, if Apple REALLY wanted a DRM free store, then it would be. Amazon REALLY wanted it, and they have it, and Apple has far more pull in the digital music front than Amazon does.
You can be damned sure they really want it. They're not going to give up the viability of their store to get it. The labels gave Amazon the DRM-free store first, because they are afraid of Apple's dominance in the online music market. Jobs was the f
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Where does Apple force you to use their DRM and iTunes store?
The iPod is compatible with Apple's own implementation of mp4 audio (AAC), the DRM'ed version of that (AAC protected) and several other codecs that you can choose to use - wav, aif, mp3 etc. The only format it doesn't support is WMV, but Apple doesn't sell WMV files, so that's ok.
Assuming you choose to use the iTunes music store for your purchases (note: just because you use an iPod doesn't mean you have to use the store), you can either buy some
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Apple forces you to use iTunes, and that's enough - what percentage of people will load up iTunes and just decide to buy from that store because it's more convenient? I don't think that's an insignificant percentage.
Further to that, just because the DRM is trivial for you to defeat, that doesn't mean that:
a) You're not technically in breach of the DMCA, no matter how much or little you care about it*, nor
b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no kno
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a) You're not technically in breach of the DMCA, no matter how much or little you care about it*, nor
b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no knowledge that if they switch away from Apple, their legally purchased music library is utterly useless.
Well, for part a, that would be Apple in breach of the DMCA, unless it's somehow a crime to circumvent the DRM Apple places on their tracks using a piece of software that Apple provides and advertises about, telling you with a step by step guide, how to make music CDs with no DRM from the music you just bought.
As far as part b goes. Apple *encourages* you, with a big warning notice that it puts up, to back up your purchases from the iTunes music store either by burning the songs to CD, or by other means suc
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Apple forces you to use iTunes, and that's enough - what percentage of people will load up iTunes and just decide to buy from that store because it's more convenient? I don't think that's an insignificant percentage.
Does Microsoft allow you to drag and drop files on the Zune without installing their proprietary software? Do they even make a Mac version of the Zune software? Can I play my Microsoft-owned Playsforsure files on my iPod or Zune, or can I play my purchased Zune music on any other player?
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b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no knowledge that if they switch away from Apple, their legally purchased music library is utterly useless.
A few points on this bit:
* There was no purchase - people licence the music. It's an important point, and while people generally don't like or want restrictive licences, it needs to be understood that it is a licence.
* It's a good thing in the long term if people move to another player and realise their DR
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I won't get into the rights and wrongs of your point, except to note that your version of "the exact same business tactics" actually means "quite different business tactics used to reach a different goal."
If you're going to use terms like "exact same" you should at least be certain that the situations are identical.
People keep saying Apple are the same as Microsoft. Well, no, they're not. Apple's a hardware company while Microsoft is a software company. That alone changes how they can and cannot be the same
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If you're going to argue on semantics, then I can't complain - I'm pretty pedantic myself, so.
Conceded :)
bullshit (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
Now say that with a straight face! Apple and Microsoft do NOT employ the same business strategies in any way; they cannot, because they are the 5-10% player, and microsoft is the 90-95% player. Therefore - as the evidence shows:
1) Microsoft's ONLY strategy is abuse of monopoly through lock-in;
2) Apple's ONLY strategy is to innovate and have the better product (nice
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2) Apple's ONLY strategy is to innovate and have the better product
Say that with a straight face. Apple repeatedly leverages what control it has to improve it's marketshare without necessarily innovating at all.
Let's see... refusing to license FairPlay to other MP3 players to push iPod/iTunes lock-in, banning applications from their distribution store that 'replicate features' in Apple-owned products, banning any other form of distribution other than their own under the pretense of 'security', engaging in lawsuits against anybody who dares to install their OS on hardware t
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2) Apple's ONLY strategy is to innovate and have the better product
Say that with a straight face. Apple repeatedly leverages what control it has to improve it's marketshare without necessarily innovating at all.
Let's see... refusing to license FairPlay to other MP3 players to push iPod/iTunes lock-in, banning applications from their distribution store that 'replicate features' in Apple-owned products, banning any other form of distribution other than their own under the pretense of 'security'
You just don't get it. Apple does these things in order to maintain their high standards. If Apple were to license their systems to others, you'd end up with a mess similar to what Microsoft finds itself in. Sure, there are a lot of quality PCs out there, but there are also a ton of shit PCs. Same with phones. There's a lot of great phone apps for other phones, and a lot of shit apps.
Apple wants their products associated with a certain level of quality, and their actions are consistent with this motive. Mic
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I'm not sure whether you're trolling me or not, but I'm going to bite anyway.
You've picked the examples I provided that are convenient to prove your point, obviously ignoring those that might have a chance of proving you wrong. How does pushing Safari as a security update for iTunes associate Apple products with a certain level of quality? How does silencing developers and users who try and criticise them improve their image? Stealing UIs from Xerox and Creative? Preventing installs of OSX on unsupported ha
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Stealing UIs from Xerox
Whoa there boy, and here we expose the guy with an axe to grind.
I think you meant to say "licensing the UI from Xerox PARC". There was no theft. The two companies entered into a mutually beneficial business arrangement.
You make it sound like when Microsoft renamed the Trash the "Recycle Bin" and put it in the opposite corner of the screen and called it "innovation'.
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I think you meant to say "licensing the UI from Xerox PARC".
Xerox didn't seem to think so. [nytimes.com] I can't find a mention of a licensing deal, but you seem to know where I would find details.
You make it sound like when Microsoft renamed the Trash the "Recycle Bin" and put it in the opposite corner of the screen and called it "innovation'.
That doesn't even sound relevant to what I said, and it doesn't sound like I'm the one with the axe to grind.
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I'm not sure whether you're trolling me or not, but I'm going to bite anyway.
I'm replying to you. I'm not calling you names. I'm not insulting you or saying you're drinking kool-aid and positing that you might be a troll. Disagreeing with you doesn't make someone a troll.
You've picked the examples I provided that are convenient to prove your point, obviously ignoring those that might have a chance of proving you wrong.
No, I stopped at a point where I wasn't just quoting your whole post, and without making cuts. But for your points you feel so strongly about, I'll take them on. Let me know if I miss anything.
How does pushing Safari as a security update for iTunes associate Apple products with a certain level of quality?
It doesn't, and that's not what happened. It wasn't marked as a security update, and it was clearly marked (i.e., not hidden
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Trolling doesn't always mean name-calling. It can be posting things which are demonstrably false to provoke a response.
I understand this isn't the case and apologise without reservation.
It doesn't, and that's not what happened.
My information on this was wrong, so I concede this point.
Name one example.
Pick one of the many times Apple has removed posts from forums complaining about a bug or security issue. Apple are notorious for this, and such has been commented on Slashdot numerous times.
The iPhone NDA was enforced to harshly (in my opinion, of course) to prevent
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Pick one of the many times Apple has removed posts from forums complaining about a bug or security issue. Apple are notorious for this, and such has been commented on Slashdot numerous times.
Oh, that. When you mentioned 'silencing developers and [critical] users', it sounded more like lawsuits and C&D's. It's silly on Apple's part, but hardly 'silencing' anyone. This is, however, all in line with Apple's intense focus on controlling their image, which is part of promoting an image of quality. If you want me to call it foolish or silly or whatever, sure, it is. But I can't quite get to the point of hanging them for it since it is their forums, and they aren't going into other forums and taki
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So a person . . . let's take for example, Mike Nash, VP of Microsoft . . . buys a $2,100 computer. He upgrades to Vista from XP and complains that "he personally got burned" and his computer is now so unusable he calls is a "$2,100 email machine". Now this isn't just an average consumer. He even got internal MS help and they couldn't fix his machine. So the ti
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While I disagree with the delivery the message is spot on and whoever modded you troll will meet meta moderation hell at some point.
Microsoft has gone way too far, the SCO thing, all the proven criminal stuff from the past... It's really a pity that the breakup didn't happen, it would have been a much better climate in software land if it had.
It's really ironic how Neelie Smit-Kroes (one of the most shameless examples of cronyism in dutch politics) is one of the few people on the planet that seems to have t
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Maybe Microsoft hasn't met her price yet.
Not for want of trying.
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As an Idiot Corp, they've done pretty well. There was a time when I recommended M$. But the more trouble they got in, the more uncomfortable I became in my support. I think the day that M$ Management ignored their Humility was the day I switched to Linux. When Mr. Torvalds submitted his personal curiosity, I saw in Linux what M$ was once. I don't think M$ can go back, they have to much to lose. Success does that to people. In the long run, I don't think M$ can really do this, I believe that they are t
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They didn't want to have one version. I suspect the Home/Pro version of XP convinced them there was a way to segment the market to maximize profit.
The truth is, as a monopoly, MS is mainly committed to finding ways of charging more for it's products. And to be fair, if I owned MS, I'd do the same thing. It's about maximizing profits, since they really don't have any competition to their desktop monopoly.
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Apart from XP that is...
Re:Microsoft's segmentation strategy misses. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Home/Pro versions of XP have a historical reasoning, though.
XP Home replaced Windows 98/ME.
XP Professional replaced Windows NT4 Workstation/Windows 2000 Professional.
Now, you could argue that XP should have combined these into one. I agree. However, I wouldn't have though too much of it if they were kept separate versions going into Vista.
Instead, Vista subdivided each of these markets in half:
XP Home to Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium
XP Professional to Vista Business and Vista Enterprise; although Enterprise didn't come until later and is the only version not to be on the same install media as the others.
Then there's Vista Ultimate for people who are naive enough to pay more to have the features of Vista Home Premium and Vista Business plus a few (IMO) useless extras.
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You forgot to add the Media Center Editions.
Vista Ultimate ALSO bundles all media center extensions. I like my Ult. install, it is rock solid stable (I reboot monthly, unless something vicious is addressed on Patch Tuesday), my remote control works out of the box (It was a Media Center Laptop originally, has X64 Ultimate on it now).
I think you're right, though. Maybe two versions of server, one for small offices, one for Enterprise systems. A Home version for computers / laptops and a Media Center versio
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Search for "Fedora 10" on thepiratebay.org. Good seeders exist! SHA1SUM checks out; GPG sigs are good.
Or wait three days and get it from a more reliable source.