Posts by Lewis Mettler 1 130 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
Do you really think you have to buy IE in order to install any other software?
Before Microsoft illegally forced the sale of IE, both Netscape and IE were on the retail shelf. Either could be purchased.
Plus you do not need browser to download software anyway. Other services are available without a browser. So IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome or what have you would be equally available with or without cost.
Forcing the sale of IE is just that, a forced sale.
Either you are forced to buy whatever version of IE Microsoft forces you to purchase, or you can not buy it.
So why does anyone in the industry even talk about IE at all?
No body has a choice in the matter. The illegal practices from Microsoft eliminate your choice in the matter.
I guess Microsoft pays a lot of people just to act like they work for the trade press. If there is no decision to be made by anyone, the issue is just not important.
You can learn a lot by reading Microsoft's required public reports.
Such as the fact that IE is NOT free. Contrary to the employees that spout out about you have to buy IE and shut up because it is free, IE is not free. Microsoft claims that some 35% of the revenue from OS sales includes "unearned income" which Microsoft says includes IE. So not even Microsoft itself claims IE is free. Unless, of course, they are attempting to defraud customers. Then it is free. But, officially it is not free.
For the slow learners anytime you pay money for a product it is not a free product. Only idiots and fools think so.
Lest we forget that Microsoft paid AOL almost $750 million to have AOL drop the antitrust suit against Microsoft and allow Microsoft to continue its illegal practices. No doubt Mozilla saw some of that. And I doubt that the current deal even approaches a billion dollars.
Microsoft is good as spending money to continue illegal practices designed to restrict consumer choice and use of technology.
If you are looking for a cost effective solution you have to install solar panels over the affected area. At least most of it. There could be days when the extra heat might be welcomed. And certainly anyone is smart enough to move to the shade when they are beginning to boil off their sweat.
You are out of your tree.
Hey, I have been up the mast on a sailing vessel and I got queazy. Also up a 50 foot wind machine tower. And even part way up a antenna. But, these guys are nuts. The pay must be great. But, no medical benefits. Who needs medical benefits if you have absolutely no chance of surviving the fall? Maybe the company pays for the funeral?
I swear at one point the guy let go with both hands and jumped to the next higher rung. I know my heart skipped a rung or two.
Too bad the video did not last long enough to see what he actually did. Most likely replaced a light bulb or two. It appeared to have a strobe on top. Buy a longer lasting bulb next time.
Maybe it is two bucks per foot. And usually those towers do have an elevator that takes you almost to the top. But, the last couple hundred feet are on your own.
I guess you could wave at the International Space Station as it flys by. That would be fun.
$5 a foot is not enough to convice me. Those gloves can slip. And somehow he managed not to grap one of the aluminum antennas. If he had, he would still be holding on to it as he hit the ground.
I also wonder is all of his tools had tethers? Dropping a simple screw driver can ruin your day if you are walking around at the bottom. Not to mention going down to retreive it. Maybe your good buddy has a spare?
When you fly up a mast on a boat you are actually being lifted up the mast. And that gives you a sense of security. Weak but no doubt comforable. Free climbing like those idiots is crasy. And did you notice how the guy hangs on with one hand and swings around looking down to see if he buddy has chickened out? And the guy even took the time to scratch his leg once. Hate to have an itchy leg, right?
I seriously doubt that the wholesale cost portion of the OS for new PCs is less than 30. (Sorry I normally do not use the little pound symbol).
And I seriously doubt that any retailer does not mark up their wholesale costs.
So claiming that nobody pays the high retail price for the Microsoft combination totally lacks any credability at all. When you buy a new PC all idiots pay the retail price. And even if it is a special deal it is more expensive because of the monopoly products forced upon all consumers.
I guess Microsoft salesmen just can not avoid committing fraud.
It would appear that Apple has learned as Microsoft has learned.
Ignore the law when you have plenty of lawyers on tap.
Microsoft has ignored antitrust trust law and they were rewarded by the idiots at the US DOJ and EU Commission. Apple can see that clearly.
So screw the little guys. Screw the law. Just take what you want and pay no mind to the legalities.
The fanboys are idiots. They can not even hold their expensive phone. Some jerkhead designed it so that it would not work correctly.
Buy from Apple, you have been warned. Develop for Apple and you are going to be screwed.
Fools and idiots never learn. They just bend over.
Fraud is the use of lies or deceit to get your money.
YOU decide. If Steve Jobs is lying about the product in order to get your money, you can sue him.
That is what fraud is all about.
PR departments and CEO's for that matter have to be carefull not to make false statements in order to get money. Clearly Apple is stupid. They will be sued. They are being sued. And they should be.
Lying about a competitors product can also be a serious problem. Why not claim that Cherrios will give you cancer? Simple. If you can not prove that it is true, you will end up in court.
Suggesting you have to hold a product in a particular way in order for it to work correctly is fine. Suggesting you need to buy a cover or use duct tape is fine. But, lying about what the product does is fraud. And lying about what other products do is also going to get you sued.
Consumers are stupid. And consumers can easily be defrauded. Microsoft does it all of the time. Remember when Microsoft lied saying they bundled IE with the OS because it was part of the OS? The US appellate court decided that commingling the code was illegal. And Microsoft knew that. Microsoft also knew that most consumers were easy to defraud. Apple thinks the same way. Tell them it is the bar program. Tell them all phones do it. Lie about it anyway you can in order to get their money.
If you paid money to Apple and have been lied to, sue them. Sue them for fraud. Sue them for lying about the product in order to get your money.
It is as simple as that.
It is not true that only posts in violation of the policy get deleted.
Some posts are deleted simply because a particular advertiser might object to the comment. Even if it is true.
You think not?
I have had posts deleted AFTER others have responded to it and added their own two cents. Nothing violated the stated policy. Only the policy that if advertisers might complain the post gets zapped.
It has happened a number of times.
Censorship rules.
What about the ebay policy to just refund the purchase price and dock the sellers account if the seller can not prove actual delivery?
EBay does not even warn sellers of this policy for international sales. And proof of delivery on international shipments can be expensive even when it is an option.
Shilling is a problem. And few sellers are a stupid as this guy. But, if is not the only problem that eBay does not solve.
Microsoft continues its illegal practices.
The US Appellate court clearly decided that commingling code between the OS and IE was illegal. it was the paid off DOJ that just decided to ignore the illegal practice, lie about it and continue to support Microsoft's illegal practice of forcing technology upon all consumers.
The same is true of the EU Commission. Illegal bundling of IE continues unabated. All consumers still must purchase IE. Yes, some idiots try to ignore the illegal practice by suggesting that somehow a ballot screen compensates consumers for the harm caused by the illegal bundling. It does not.
Microsoft has not changed its illegal practices at all.
If you have a copy of IE, you were in fact forced to purchase it in exchange for cash.
Only a fool and an idiot would do that and somehow think everything is okay.
Any product would be a success if all consumers were forced to buy it. And any alternative technology using the same revenue model could not exist. Just like the browser marketplace. There isn't one. It can not exist as long as the illegal practice continues. And the EU Commission and the US DOJ knew that for a fact. They still did nothing to protect consumers.
Microsoft has not changed. YOU are still forced to buy their technology. Even if you do not want it. Even if there are better alternatives available. You still pay for IE regardless.
Yes, some idiots still buy the happy meal because they think it is a free toy.
Clearly iPhone 4 has a serious problem.
Just watch as consumers try to redesign the damn thing by wearing gloves, wrapping the iPhone in duct tape, cellophone tape or rubber bumbers. Now that is some real style.
Changing the bars displayed is pure fraud. Of course, it may be that the display has been wrong all the time but claiming that it somehow is going to prevent dropped calls is fraudulent.
Apple needs to be sued for being idiots and fools. And for lying to consumers.
Hopefully many consumers will just switch to Android and stop buying crap from idiots.
At least with Android the various models offer some choice of hardware. And somebody will actually do the necessary R&D to put up a phone that works.
Not an app for that.
Touching an antenna will almost always affect its efficiency.
I am sure many readers have taken to using tin foil to somehow improve their rabbit years of years gone by.
The truth is that the more you play with antennas the more you realize that you have to do a lot of testing and even experimentation to maximize their utilization. And allowing users to put their sometimes grubby hands directly on the antenna has to be a 'no no'.
Even wearing gloves or using a case may not solve the problem completely. Any conductive material near the antenna can throw it off. And it might improve it too. There are many external devices that might improve the ability of an built-in antenna to function reliably. And some have degrade it to.
Clearly the Apple engineers designing the antenna were on vacation or perhaps drugs instead of doing their work, testing and some basic R&D.
It may be true that it would be difficult to prove that Apple holds any kind of monopoly power. An exception would be monopoly power on Apple compatible PCs and Phone. And yes, they can be proven to be separate markets for antitrust purposes. Not yet perhaps. The Psystar case lost primarily because Psystar was violating copyright laws. And a antitrust argument is not a defense against that regardless of what they did.
But, the real problem is that antitrust authorities simply do not care to enforce antitrust law.
You can make up stories about antitrust has changed Microsoft but Microsoft still illegally bundles IE with the OS. And, yes, the US Appellate Court decided that commingling code between the OS and IE was in fact illegal. But, the stupid US DOJ acted to make sure that the illegal acts continued unabated. And today IE is still illegally commingled with OS code. (Not once did Microsoft uncommingle the code).
Then along comes the EU Commission and they do nothing either.
Sure, there is a ballot screen but IE remains a forced purchase by anyone foolish enough to use any Microsoft product. And that illegal act precludes any possibility of a fair and open market for browsers ever. Not until the OS monopoly goes away can any fair and open market exist.
So if you have two antitrust authorities so stupid so as not to even understand what they do and then fail completely to stop Microsoft's illegal conduct, there is no doubt that Apple will engage in illegal activities as well. Apple lawyers know that antitrust authorities can simply be bought. Or, persuaded politically. However you want to describe the complete failure to block Microsoft from forcing the sale of IE upon everyone in the marketplace.
And yes, you can argue that Apple does not even have monopoly power. Yet, anyway. They do in Apple PCs. PCs that run the Apple OS. That is a monopoly.
The question remains how effective such power actually is.
If Apple blocks Google ads on the iProducts, those products lose value. As stated in the article, the Android OS is ready to serve as a ready substitute for the Apple OS on phones. And that is likely to be the result. And the more arrogant Apple appears the quicker Android will take over the marketplace. I doubt that any technology alone is going to be significant enough to maintain the market power Apple thinks it has. As the ads say, without restrictions, droid does.
It is really sad it see ignorant antitrust authorities in the US and the EU. Pure stupidity on their part. It encourages not only Microsoft to continue illegal practics but also tells Apple that the authorities are just not relevant. And they are not. Microsoft continues to forced sale of IE upon everyone. And there is no developer anywhere on the planet that can not understand what those forced sales might mean to their code. NOBODY can be so stupid not to understand that.
Got a product to sell? Get a monopolist to force everyone to buy it. No problem. No marketing required. No intelligence either. In the product or the marketing. Just force all of the idiots to buy it. If you have a copy of IE anyway, you are an idiot. You paid cash money for IE and your opinion simply does not matter.
What a job if you can get it? Just force all the idiots to pay cash for your product. And all of the idiots do precisely that. Cash goes out. IE shows up.
You can blame Apple for seeing the obvious. Authorites do nothing if you can buy them off.
No doubt "Dell recommends Window 7" because Microsoft pays them to do so. And I would expect Microsoft pays DELL to make Ubuntu had to find as well. And to mislead potential customers when they are looking for a Linux machine.
Strange that DELL can even get away with saying Ubuntu is more secure than Microsoft. It may be true for any number of reasons but Microsoft is paying DELL to say otherwise.
Does Microsoft pay DELL to deceive and defraud customers? Certainly that is a major part of the Microsoft business plan. Lying to customers, treating them as fools and basically defrauding customers does work. Microsoft even pays others to do the same.
Surprising to find this sneaks out.
Strange how the trade press still claims that IE is not a forced purchase. It is.
Having IE on the ballot list does not change that. It does not change the illegal bundling of IE. And it does not change the illegal commingling of code between the OS and IE.
Let's get the facts straight.
You are still forced to purchase IE.
That is illegal in the US and the EU. But, the authorities act as if they are paid by Microsoft to make sure that forced purchase remains in affect. And it does.
You have IE because you were illegally forced to buy it.
Period.
No exceptions. You must purchase IE with any Microsoft software.
Saying it is unbundled when that is not at all the case only discredits the speaker.
Making it easier to download alternatives does not uncommingle the code either. And that was determined to be illegal in the US court system.
The trade press really does need to get their facts straight before they open their mouth.
When will consumers figure out that the toy in their happy meal is not free.
The toy (IE) costs money just like everything else in the bag. But, fools continue to buy the happy meals thinking they get a toy for free.
Instead, consumers should be insisting upon a $35 discount to leave the toy there. Fools don't.
As many readers know Anthony Kennedy is on the US Supreme Court. And it turns out that Mr. Kennedy ends up being the deciding vote in many decisions due to his centrist position on many issues.
Years ago Kennedy was know for a rather profound observation. It may not have been his quote originally but he does think that way. The quote?
Every time someone suggests that censorship (ala Apple) is an acceptable idea they have no problem suggesting they should be the ones to apply their rules.
Apple is engaged in censorship. And it is unacceptable. It does not matter if you agree on some decisions or not. Apple should never be the one to decide what customers should get or not get. Period.
Only fools and idiots think their own quidelines must be applied to others.
Apple wants high margins and is willing to violate the law in order to maintain them.
Simple antitrust thinking. Or, perhaps trust thinking.
There is no question that if cross-platform applications turn out to be inferior for any reason they will suffer the consequences in the marketplace. But, Apple cares not one bit about consumers. Their objective is to block competitive alternatives by making it much more expensive to write to multiple platforms. Hoping all along that developers will focus exclusively on Apple products.
That is pure stupidity.
Such a policy may not violate antitrust laws just yet. But, it remains stupid.
You have to keep in mind that the printing capability being proposed here by Google is primarily for use by mobile devices. Phones, netbooks, etc. And for mobile devices it does make a lot of sense. Add Chrome and you have printing capability. From whereever you are.
Mobile devices just are not going to be attached to a printer anyway. They are mobile.
In 1974 I opened a law office and used a programmable calculator to do the accounting, word processing, tax analysis and just about anything else needed. All of the software had been written in the years before on the same machine. It offered a letter quality printer and a 250 lpm thermal printer. Yep, the wrote all of the code.
Back in those days shrink wrap was not a word nor a concept. Everything was custom written. And the word processor had a spell checker and global search and replace.
The HP machine came out in 1972 and by 1973 or so sported a hard disc drive as well. That machine (9830A, see HPMuseum.org for photos and details) came out far ahead of the toy microprocessors mention in this article. And it was from HP which meant full in office support was also available.
By the time the MITS came out, the HP machine was being coded to run the experiments on the first Mars landers. The HP unit was actually bought off the shelf after the craft took off for Mars but was programmed to replace a switch panel before it had arrived. Top quality hardware not the toys of the day like the MITS units.
No offense to MITS but for office use and employee training etc., you need a quality machine from a real technology company such as HP and in office support from the vendor. HP provided that. Check out the HP machine at http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9830.htm. I bought my unit in 1972.
Wang was the other technology company that produced quality programmable machines quite suitable for the office in 1972.
The MITS might have been a microprocessor unit but was hardly usable in any business environment. The HP unit certainly was.
And the idiots at Microsoft actually think they are respecting the right of consumers to decide anything?
Anything except that the PURCHASE of IE is required.
Secret price and secret profits right into Microsoft bank accounts. But, the idiots actually claim to give the consumer a choice?
Unbundling of IE and uncommingling of IE is required if Microsoft ever expects to be taken seriously.
And Microsoft will never stop forcing the sale of IE.
Strange that the press still lies about the required purchase of IE.
Other browsers are not choices for purchase. Everyone must first purchase IE.
Then and only then can they make a choice of which other browsers they may want to use.
No doubt every car maker in the world wishes that consumers had to buy their model before other choices could be considered.
Only fools and idiots can claim that such a bias towards a monopolist is somehow complying with any law. It simply is not. Unless you are selling the products forced to be purchased. Then you too can lie about it.
Novell made a huge mistake by not suing Microsoft for antitrust when MS bundled networking with the OS.
Networking technology can not and never part of any OS. Rather it is just bundled for marketing purposes. And in Microsoft's case it is illegal purposes.
Why can it not be part of the OS? Simple. Networking assumes multiple computers and you can not make any assumption that all systems will run the same OS. That has never been true. Nor will it ever be true. So networking by its very nature is independant of any and all operating systems.
You may argue that is not true with Netware. But, even with Netware the client component has nothing to do with the server OS. So the client component has always been and will continue to be independant of the OS. I has to be.
Nobody wants a network that can only communicate with systems running the same OS. And that is true for Microsoft as well. Even they have client OSs and server OSs. So which one is the networking technology a part of? Neither is the correct engineering answer.
Microsoft just illegally bundled their client networking technology to eliminate competitive client networking technologies. And Novell is not the only company that was illegally harmed by that practice. Remember the days when you could buy client licenses even for the Microsoft systems? That changed with the illegal bundling. But, Novell, the fools they can be, did not sue Microsoft and instead just arranged with Microsoft to bundle their own client software.
Sounds fine you say? But, it eliminated a whole host of alternative networking technologies from the marketplace. Technologies that would have made multiple systems much easier to network.
You might be able to get NFS for Microsoft systems. But, you can not get Microsoft technologies on Unix or LInux. And you can not get SAMBA on Microsoft.
You should have a choice of about 3-4 complete networking technologies to install on multiple systems. But, that just does not exist today due to Microsoft's illegal business practices.
And now Novell is up for sale? No surprise.
Why should you not be able to buy a Microsoft OS sans networking and install SAMBA instead? Or, even a Novell networking stack?
Answer for the slow learners is that Microsoft continues to illegally bundled key technologies with the OS simply for the reason that it precludes fair and open markets for competing technology.
You have to be a real slow learner not to know and understand that.
Even Microsoft did not start out bundling networking technologies. Initially they sold separately. But, that let Novell compete. Bundling does in fact eliminate competitive technologies. That is why the idiots at Microsoft engage in illegal activity. Simple enough.
Paying for IE is nothing compared to paying Lindows to stop using Lindows. Windows as a trademark was going down. Almost certainly. And that is why Microsoft (who brought the original law suit against Lindows) paid Lindows to change its name ot Linspire instead. Hate to have an unqualified tradename lost, right?
Windows today remains subject to challange by just about anyone. SUSE Windows, Xandros Windows, Fedora Windows or what have you. And you are almost guaranteed to get Microsoft to pay millions to have you stop.
Windows is not a valid trademark or tradename and never will be. But, Microsoft is willing to pay millions to pay anyone off who tries to use a similar name.
Need thirty large? Take a copy of Linux and release it as Linux Windows. You'll get your money every time since Microsoft can not afford to have the name disqualified in a court of law.
I believe it was Steve Wozniak that worked for Hp just before Apple first "invented" their original PC in the 70's. And when the schematics were known to the public for the first Apple computers what engineers saw was a HP 2640A Communications Terminal stolen from HP.
So did Apple invent their PC. Absolutely not. They stole it from HP.
IE sold for $35 too before Microsoft began its illegal business practices.
Today Microsoft still forces all consumers to purchase IE but the price is secret.
It is not zero even by Microsoft's own statements. The price is just secret.
When you buy a happy meal that toy you play with was not free. Just not itemized.
Buying IE first and then permitting a customer to download something else is hardly an accomplishment. It still illegally precludes a fair and open market for browsers.
A 10% drop in price is the same to stockholders as a 10% drop in marketshare.
So it is interesting to see Microsoft try all kinds of tricks and special deals (such as educational discounts, etc) in order to maintain a market share position.
Microsoft shareholders lose either way. Of course Microsoft does not want any stupid customers to find out about OO or cloud based alternatives. So it is not a surprise to see Microsoft offer lower prices.
But, as long as Microsoft's office products are not available for Linux they do not even qualify.
I can not believe the stupity of those who think that the toy in the happy meal is free.
It is not. IE is not free. It is part of the $200 or so you pay.
Just because the use of IE has dropped does not mean that consumers are not illegally forced to continue to purchase IE. It is illegal in the US. And it should be illegal in the EU.
Clearly the EU commission wants all consumers to continue paying for IE. That is a huge mistake on their part. The US DOJ wants that too even though the appellate courts decided that commingling the code was in fact illegal. MS even appealed that specific issue to the US Supreme Court and they denied the appeal.
The monopoly is not over until consumers can save $35 for not taking IE home.
No doubt that Microsoft is going around telling all of its customers that switching to OO is just too expensive. "Send us your money", in other words.
But, the key to lower operating costs will be making hundreds and thousands of OO cds and just telling employees the company it moving to OO so get yourself qualified. That is a no cost option for individual employees and companies.
OO is available for all platforms. And it makes sense to use a techonology that does not have to cost hundreds of dollars per employee each year. Training or not.
Let the fools and idiots continue to pay Microsoft's high prices. The smart money is moving on. Or, putting that money in more powerful hardware.
The lack in interest for IE suggests that Microsoft should offer consumers a $35 discount for not taking IE home. Otherwise they purchase it but choose not to use it.
I know that the EU Commission and the US DOJ want consumers to be forced to purchase IE. But, I guess the adage about leading a horse to water applies here. Even worse, the hores has to build up a sweat to get to the pond.
Despite commingling the IE and OS code and all of the engineers reasons why that is a bone headed idea (read that as IE6), Microsoft will continue to force the sale of IE to all it can.
Even those who are too dumb to realize the toy in the happy meal is not free.
Legally, if you buy a bag of parts each part is attributed a portion of the cost you pay. And that will always be that way regardless of the fraud Microsoft wants to use to fool the idiots.
Without the illegal practices we would not have the IE6 problem today. And almost all browsers would have been standard compliant all along. That is what happens when you can not force a consumer to use a particular technology. Of course, Microsoft never has been and never will be interested in what a consumer might want.
What Google is doing is not even close to what Microsoft does.
Microsoft requires the purchase of very expensive software and then also wants to be paid for online services on top. Does Google do that? I do not think so.
Google may sell the Nexus One. But, it does not require Nexus One buyers to rent, lease or subscribe to additional Google services.
Microsoft may change. But how soon do you think the $500 office suite will be available without a stiff upfront fee. And, those cloud services are of no use unless you first cough up the $500.
Microsoft is scared that consumers will figure out that Microsoft does not need to be paid.
Contrary to what Jobs claims to think competition is not evil. Monopolies are.
Just consider the benefits to the industry and to consumers as second sourcing becomes available.
Apple would be wise to consider the benefits of encouraging HP, DELL, ACER and others to offer Mac compatible PCs and laptops. Instead they go around suing companies like PSYSTAR so they can benefit from their monopoly prices.
Consumers do not benefit in any way shape or form from only having Apple as a source for products. Any product. That is a scheme to maximize the price consumers pay. Same with the iPhone and AT&T.
Just imagine what you would pay if AMD did not exist. Or, if only one of HP, DELL, ACER and the others were to survive.
The last thing that anyone wants is another screwed up market caused by a Microsoft.
Steve Jobs should go into search if he is unhappy. Or license OEMs to sell the Mac OS.
Consumers gain nothing from the attitude put forward by Mr. Jobs.
I guess Apple and Microsoft just figure that they have more lawyers than anyone else so trademarks are simply something they can buy from other companies. And I suppose that is true.
Microsoft paid Lindows about $30 million in order to get Lindows to change the name of their product. But, Microsoft brought the law suit. Rare it is when the company that brings the law suit pays the defendant $30 large in order to let them drop it.
Of course the so called windows trademark was on the verge of being disquailified. And Microsoft lawyers knew that.
So if you want to raise $30 million or so, fire up a version of Linux and call it Windows. It worked once. And it will work again and again. Vista was little more than an attempt to avoid sticking with the fake windows trademark. And MS blew that using a horrible product. Just think of the damage that could have been down if they called it Windows 6.
The best trademarks are those words coined to be unique. Unless you really want to pay someone else a pile of money to get theirs. But, in the case of windows, that still does not work. I would love to see SUSE Windows or Ubuntu Windows. Microsoft would just have to pay millions to make it go away. And it is not even a valid trademark.
Certainly there are people in Afganistan that would keep an eye out for suspecious activity.
Maybe the US should offer a $5000 prise for anyone identifing the location of one of those IEDs. Before it kills a bunch of our boys. Lots of eyes on the ground. And perhaps another $5000 if they can pinpoint where those dudes came from.
Any solution to the IED problem may have to come from the local population. And we can certainly afford to pay what would amount to a nice years salary for just one tip. Do people in Afg need jobs?
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