Amnesty International says
that Microsoft, along with Yahoo! and Google, has colluded with the Chinese government on Internet censorship. And maybe they all have. But there's a knee-slapper of a quote from Amnesty in this one: "The willingness of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google to override their principles amounts to a betrayal of trust in the face of the lucrative opportunities that the Chinese market offers them."
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Posted by Lee Pender on 07/20/20061 comments
"The entire mountain trembled violently. There was the sound of a ram's horn, increasing in volume to a great degree. God came down on Mount Sinai, to the peak of the mountain. He summoned Moses to the mountain peak, and Moses climbed up...Moses went down to the people and conveyed this to them."
--Exodus 19 (Thanks,
Wikipedia
)
Moses, meet Brad Smith. In the most spectacular and far-reaching declaration of numerated principles since the 10 commandments, Microsoft's top lawyer yesterday passed down to the gathered masses a set of decrees the company literally calls "Windows Principles: 12 Tenets to Promote Competition."
Our exclusive RCP camera caught this image of Smith delivering his message to the lucky peasants at the National Press Club.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 07/20/20061 comments
Not everybody who responded to Tuesday's newsletter was thrilled with Steve
Ballmer's Microsoft's-way-or-the-highway WWPC keynote.
Wayne wrote to say:
"If Steve Ballmer wants to ramp up the Microsoft strong arm business tactics,
I will start selling Linux packages. I am NOT going to turn my back on other
companies that I have partnered with. I plan to provide my customers the best
computer services that can be found in (I won't reveal where he is -- just in
case --LP). If I can NOT provide solutions that fit my customers' needs and
can only provide the Microsoft solution to continue my partnership then COUNT
ME OUT!"
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Posted by Lee Pender on 07/13/20060 comments
This week's Partner Conference in Boston has been a show for the big guys and
the global guys. One partner told me that Microsoft told him that more than
70 percent of conference attendees are Gold Certified Partners, and almost half
are from Europe. The Dutch in particular have been easy to spot with their bright
orange shirts.
I also heard that Microsoft's Ballmer-attended Gold Certified Partner luncheon
on Tuesday turned out to be a little less regal than expected. Instead of having
the tables, table cloths and other signs of civilized dining that partners surely
deserve, Microsoft's channel champions got rows of chairs (no tables) and cold
box lunches! Heck, we got a better deal in the press room. Maybe those Eurofines
have already led to some cost cutting in Redmond...
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Posted by Lee Pender on 07/13/20060 comments
The
Eurostory we've been telling you about
continues....
Well, Microsoft has not settled its anti-trust case with the EU, so now it's time for Redmond to throw some euros Brussels' way. The news, not exactly a shock, doesn't seem to have affected Microsoft's deflated stock price much, but it's surely one expense (and a big hassle) that Redmond would rather not have to deal with. Click here to read the piece from Reuters.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 07/11/20060 comments
Europeans have taken to sticking the prefix "Euro" on all kinds of stuff, from the Eurostar train that connects Paris and London to the fantastically cheesy annual Eurovision Song Contest to the sports TV network Eurosport. So, with the European Union apparently preparing to do what the Department of Justice wouldn't in the US -- that is, really hit Microsoft hard with fines for anti-competitive practices ? it?s time to start thinking seriously about Redmond's Europroblems.
The scenario is pretty simple. Back in March 2004, the EU's regulatory hammer ordered Microsoft to turn over information about how Windows works to competitors so that those competitors could better develop for the operating system. The idea was to prevent Microsoft from doing what it has done for a long time: tying its own applications to Windows and freezing out those from competitors that don't have the advantage of native integration with the operating system. Hmmm...haven't we heard all this somewhere before?
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/26/20060 comments
Everybody needs to calm down.
Sure, Bill Gates' announcement last week that he'll be leaving his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft in 2008 is probably the biggest news to ever come out of Redmond. After all, Gates is the architect and talisman of the company, the public face not just of Microsoft but, for many, the technology industry as a whole. All of that is obvious.
http://rcpmag.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=7536
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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/19/20060 comments