On Sep 12, 5:50 am, High Plains Thumper
<highplainsthum...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ness...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > (Thurrot, re Apple-Microsoft ad wars)
>
> > <Quote> [snip] Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch called
> > Microsoft’s astroturf campaign “sleazy,” saying, “This is not
> > a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries.”
> > </Quote>
>
> >http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/09/08/paul-thurrott-calls-apple-%e...
>
> No boundaries like?:
>
> http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2005/07/14/microsofts-law...
>
> orhttp://tinyurl.com/59wley
>
> [quote]
> Microsoft's lawsuit payouts amount to around $9 billion
> Updated Twice the GDP of Cambodia
> By Désiré Athow: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 2:35 PM
> * UPDATE Additional material at the end of this article.
>
> MICROSOFT HAS had a long, a very long history of litigation,
> court orders, patent infringements and antitrust lawsuits against
> it since the very beginning of its history. We;ve managed to draw
> up a partial list of these.
>
> The surprising thing is not only the number of those lawsuits
> against Microsoft - at one time, it had more than 130 pending -
> but more importantly, the sheer amount of money it represents.
>
> The Redmond giant has been ordered to pay nearly $9 billion, a
> figure which is set to rise with some lawsuits still to be ruled on.
>
> [.... Table below rearranged according to award amount, header added]
>
> Award Amount Plaintiff
> -------------- ------------------
> $1,950,000,000 Sun
> $1,100,000,000 California
> $850,000,000 IBM
> $750,000,000 AOL
> $613,000,000 EU
> $536,000,000 Novell
> $521,000,000 Eolas
> $500,000,000 DR DOS/Caldera
> $440,000,000 Intertrust
> $250,000,000 Apple
> $240,000,000 Minnesota
> $202,000,000 Florida
> $150,000,000 Gateway
> $104,600,000 Arizona
> $96,000,000 Perma Temps
> $89,000,000 North Carolina
> $83,000,000 Stac
> $64,000,000 Tennessee
> $62,000,000 SPX
> $60,000,000 Burst
> $35,000,000 Immersion
> $34,000,000 Massachusett
> $32,000,000 Kansas
> $23,250,000 Be
> $22,600,000 Nebraska state
> $12,300,000 Montana
> $10,500,000 Maryland
> $10,500,000 Private (5)
> $9,700,000 Vermont
> $9,330,000 South Dakota
> $9,000,000 Employee fired (3)
> $9,000,000 North Dakota
> $8,960,000 Carlos Armando (1)
> $8,600,000 Daum (4)
> $6,200,000 Columbia
> $4,100,000 Bristol
> $3,150,000 New Mexico
> $2,000,000 Iowa
> Undisclosed Alacritech
> Undisclosed AT&T
> Undisclosed Sendo
> Still in court? Discrimation Suit (2)
> Still in court E-data
> Still in court Forgent
> Still in court Go
> Still in court Mythic
> Still in court Wordperfect suit
> Still in court Real
>
> [...] * UPDATE Thanks to Groklaw and Mr. Jaffar for their
> assistance. Ten more cases have now been added and the total in
> the coffer now exceeds the $9 billion mark:
>
> Time Line Settled, undisclosed
> Ticketmaster Settled, undisclosed
> Priceline Still in court?
> Goldtouch technology Settled, undisclosed
> Syn'x $ 250,000
> eLeaders Settled, undisclosed
> e-Pass Still in court
> Roger Avary (6) Still in court
> Arendi Holdings Still in court?
> Borland $100,000,000
> [/quote]
>
> --
> HPT
> Quando omni flunkus moritati
> (If all else fails, play dead)
> - "Red" Green
Was it Tim recently who implied that IBM, Apple, Cisco and who knows
else are just as bad as Microsoft? It was just too tedious to reply
to this, and besides, he knows better. "We all sin, so the devil is
not so bad," is the logic, so convenient for Microsoft.
Microsoft may be no worse than Standard Oil was in the 1880s. I don't
know the history well enough to say. But the monopolies of that era
led to bad associations in the minds of the public with monopolies,
and also to reforms (Sherman anti-trust, etc). We'll see if there
are any reforms in the works in the technical field. Probably the
best you could hope for in the US in the next 20 years would be patent
reform (like abolishment of software patents), and some consumer
friendly legislation regarding ISPs and Telcos. And some increased
action by the EU against Microsoft lock-in efforts. And the best you
could hope for is usually not what you get. Right now competitors
(mainly Apple and Google) are doing a good job of chipping at
Microsoft's monopoly, forcing them to compete on the merits of their
product (where they don't do so well). Meanwhile, Microsoft is
helping its competitors by continuing to rely on the same old tactics
of lock-in, embrace, extend, extinguish. As for FOSS, what's
remarkable to me in the last couple of years is the huge increase in
awareness of FOSS in minds of the public, media, legislators,
commentators, etc.
Of course the dollar amounts above are rather small compared to
Microsoft's profits. It's just the cost of doing "business" for
them.
You know they say robbing a bank is about the stupidest way of making
money. You get maybe $10,000 if you're lucky (hard to carry away more
than that), with a high probability of being caught. To be a
successful thief, you have to think much, much bigger.
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