Microsoft Corp.’s attempt to reverse a lower court’s ruling in the ongoing “Vista Capable” lawsuit was denied by an appeals court on Monday. The decision means the case can resume.
It also means that new insider e-mails subpoenaed from Microsoft and nearly 30 other companies could be made public.
In a brief order dated April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Microsoft’s request to overturn a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman in February that granted class-action status to a lawsuit that charges the company deceived consumers in 2006 with its Windows Vista Capable marketing program. Read the full story on ComputerWorld.Com
Talk about a catch 22. Did you know that in order to be allowed to downgrade Vista to XP on a new computer, Microsoft expects you to have one of the more expensive editions of Windows Vista that most OEMs don’t even put on their machines. It’s true. Have a look at this official Microsoft one-sheet explaining the intricacies of downgrading from Vista that’s come bundled with a new PC.
You’d have to add $180 to the price of a Dell Inspiron 530 in order to have the right to use XP instead of Vista.
Microsoft’s Windows juggernaut is collapsing as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute. Meanwhile, Windows has outgrown hardware and customers are pondering skipping Vista to wait for Windows 7. If Windows is going to remain relevant it will need radical changes.
That sobering outlook comes courtesy of Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald. Half of a full room of IT managers and executives raised their hands when asked whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows. Read the full story on ZDNet.Com
Since the release of Windows Vista, Creative has promised their Sound Cards as being ‘Vista Ready’. Unfortunately, as many unlucky customers did discover, this is not true. What the users actually found were buggy, feature crippled drivers. Creative insisted that features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(TM) signals and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on windows Vista. With Creative releasing less than one new driver a year, things seemed bleak. Fortunately, a talented user, Daniel_K, was recently able to ‘fix’ many of the drivers, enabling the incompatible features and also fixing many bugs.
Creative decided to put a stop to this. They removed all links to his modified drivers, and banned several users who were posting links to the now banned drivers.”
The move backfired big time, generating a media firestorm and howls of protests from outraged users on technology forums across the web. Guess what, Creative has reinstated Daniel_K’s posts. Read the full story on TheRegister.Co.Uk found via SlashDot.Org
“Private Microsoft emails unearthed during a US court case have revealed that even the software giant’s own executives struggled to get Windows Vista running smoothly.”
“…One executive, Mike Nash, complained he was “burned” so badly by compatibility issues he was left with “a $2100 email machine”.
Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft executive in charge of Windows, struggled to even get his home printer working with Vista.”
“Jon Shirley, who experienced compatibility problems with his Epson printer and scanner and his Nikon film scanner.
He could not even get some of Microsoft’s own MSN software products to work on Vista and refused to upgrade his other computer to the operating system.
“I cannot understand with a product this long in creation why there is such a shortage of drivers,” Shirley wrote to Ballmer.
Other emails from various Microsoft executives show that even they struggled to work out what “Vista Capable” and “Vista Ready” meant when buying a new PC.
“Is it true that Vista Ready doesn’t necessarily mean Aero capable? I got a Dell Latitude that is Vista Ready but doesn’t have enough graphics [hardware],” Sinofsky wrote.”
“…Microsoft finally relented in January and allowed Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium to be virtualized, company officials attributed the change of heart to a newfound “maturity in the industry,” in terms of being able to trust “what’s under the virtual machine.”But the real reason for Microsoft’s capitulation became clear on March 7 via a new joint-status report in the Microsoft-Department of Justice case. It turns out BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies (a long-time Microsoft partner) filed a complaint with antitrust regulators about Microsoft’s virtualization restrictions.” Read the full story on All About Microsoft
I received word from the lawyer handling the case who is looking to find people who wish to participate in the suit against Microsoft. If you purchased a computer listed as “Vista Capable” you should get involved. Jeffery Thomas of Gordon Tilden Thomas & Cordell LLP is handling the case and can be contacted at (206) 467-6477
Interested participants should go to the law firm’s website and fill out this form.
“So now that the “Vista Capable” lawsuit is a full-blown class action, the judge has unsealed all 158 pages of emails between Microsoft execs trying to sort out what went wrong with the sticker program. While bits and pieces have been blacked out, what remains is still fairly incredible — although Intel’s 915 chipset was initially rejected as incompatible with Vista, MS execs flatly admit that “In the end, we lowered the requirements to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded” and “We are caving to Intel.” Read the full story on Engadget.Com
“In a blow to Microsoft Corp., a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit late Friday alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as “Windows Vista Capable” even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called “Vista Home Basic.”The slogan was emblazoned on PCs during the 2006 holiday shopping season as part of a campaign by Microsoft to maintain sales of Windows XP computers after the launch of Windows Vista was delayed.
At a hearing two weeks ago, lawyers for Microsoft argued that because each consumer who bought a computer touted as “Windows Vista Capable” had different information at the time of purchase, the lawsuit should not be granted class-action status, while plaintiffs’ lawyers said that all individuals who bought “Windows Vista Capable” PCs were united in that “each person in our class did not get what they paid for.” Read the full atricle on SeattlePI.Com
“…My conclusion is now that NO ONE who values their sanity, their time, their psyche and general sense of well-being should use Vista. At all. Under any circumstances. In fact, after giving it more than a fair shake over 11 months of daily use, I know think it deserves to be classified internationally as a Weapon of Mass Data Destruction. In fact, perhaps the best way to defeat Al Quaida or any other terrorist group would be to send them free copies of a particularly brain-dead version of Vista like “Home Basic” - it would stop them in their tracks, as it has done with me and so many others.”
“Vista is the #1 reason Apple has been so successful in the overnight turnaround of its Mac product line. The best feature of the Macbook and iMac series is they DON’T have Vista, not the fact they now have Leopard.” Read the full post on Rossipsa.Com
“…Somewhat ironically, one of the most financially successful capitalist companies of the 90s has positioned itself as a modern counterpart to the old communist Soviet Union. Microsoft’s ideological contempt for and resistance to free markets and the open expression and propagation of fresh ideas and technologies is not only a close parallel of the old USSR, but also a clear reflection of why Microsoft is currently failing and why its troubles have only just begun. Here’s a comprehensive look at why this is the case.” Read the full article on RoughlyDrafted.Com
“After 25 years of desktop computing and 15 years of the commercial internet, there are still plenty of frustrations, pains and throwbacks in our everyday technology experience. It’s great having a terabyte hard disk, but not so great trying to manage it using interfaces and tools that have barely changed from the days when 40MB was respectable.Many factors are holding back technology. Here is a list of 10 such barriers, in no particular order. We have almost certainly missed a few, so feel free to leave your comments using the Talkback facility at the bottom of the page.
A Microsoft product manager couldn’t correctly explain the “Vista Capable” marketing slogan, according to recent filings in a lawsuit that claims the company misled consumers with a prerelease Vista campaign last year.
“…After a 10-minute consultation with Microsoft’s lawyers, Croft (Microsoft’s product manager) corrected himself. “I made the statement that … Capable would be able to run any version of Windows Vista, whereas, in reality, our intent with Capable was that the system would be able to run a version of Windows Vista,” he said. “So quite an important difference in the two — two terms there.”
When [the plantiff's] lawyers asked Croft if Microsoft had done any market research to determine if the term Vista Capable “would cause any consumer to make the very mistake that you just made,” Croft acknowledged that the company had not.” Read the full article on PCWorld.Com
The legal dispute over Microsoft’s “Vista Capable” claim continues.
“…Microsoft criticizes the plaintiffs for focusing on “a small (less than a square inch) sticker” and not considering the broad array of things it did as part of the Windows Vista Capable program. The company claims that it made clear through “a comprehensive marketing campaign” what the sticker meant, and that arguing over interpretations of the word “capable” without reference to these broader efforts isn’t a fair way to proceed.” Read the full article on ArsTechnica.Com
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices.
…a spokesman for Becta said the problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licences for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else. Read the full article on BBC News (via Slashdot)
“…In all my years working as a journalist, I’ve never seen any technology company spin information the way Microsoft did today. The press release on OOXML ratification is a blueprint for spinning semantics, and the stringing together of truths and half-truths to seemingly make the outcome of one event something else altogether. Microsoft’s press release and statements contained therein are shocking. The amount of propaganda conveyed by this one press release is reason for Microsoft customers or partners to reflect on their dealings with the company.” Read the full article.
“…Seven states are pushing back against the Department of Justice’s assessment that the landmark antitrust settlement between the United States and Microsoft has removed the anticompetitive obstacles created by the software maker and resulted in more competition in the middleware market. In fact, according to attorneys for California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, known as the “California Group” of plaintiffs, “Microsoft’s market power remains undiminished and … key provisions of the final judgment-those relating to middleware- have had little or no competitively significant impact.” Read the full article.
I can think of many reasons not to buy Vista, but why should I? After all, Microsoft has been doing a great job of that all by itself. Take, for example, the fact that U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman just ruled that a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Microsoft of what amounts to deceptive advertising can go forward. And what does it say Microsoft did that was deceptive, you ask? Read more.
Were computers carrying the Windows Vista Capable sticker truly Vista capable? Earlier today, a Seattle judge issued a ruling that indicates that an answer should be warranted. She denied a Microsoft request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging Microsoft’s Windows Vista Capable marketing violated the Consumer Protection Act. Read more.
Here is a snippet from an 17 hour DVD set which you can obtain by contacting the poster. “What we’ve got here is Bill Gates raw, lively, on the hot seat and uncensored like no interview you’ve ever seen before.” Read the rest of this entry »
We knew it was only a matter of time until someone brought a class action lawsuit against Microsoft and the Xbox 360, but we thought it would be related to failure rates and the red ring of death, not scratched discs. But, here it is before the ink is even dry right after being filed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The plaintiff and his lawyers are seeking more than five million dollars. Read more.
Microsoft subscription maintenance program for its volume licensees has never been overly popular. But according to a new report from Forrester Research, Software Assurance is looking like even less of a good deal to Microsoft customers than before. Read more.
Peter Moore discusses the new plans for Microsoft to extend the warranty for all Xbox 360 consoles from one year to three years, and discusses reimbursement for all who’ve had to pay for warranty repair due to the the three red lights error.
A lawsuit alleging that Microsoft Windows Vista Capable users were misled about the capabilities of the operating system will go to trial Oct. 28, 2008, a federal judge in Seattle decided last week. That starting date will be close to the two-year anniversary of the release of the Windows Vista operating system. Read more.
Now that Apple Inc.’s iPhone is finally on sale, the race is on to see who can unlock it. Locked phones can only be used with cellular service from one carrier, a move designed to guarantee carriers recover the cost of subsidizing a handset through monthly service charges. But the cost of the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599 depending on the model, is not subsidized by AT&T. Users must pay full price for the handset and sign a two-year contract, which requires them to pay from $59.99 to $99.99 per month for cellular service. Unlocking the iPhone will enable the handset to be used with any cellular provider with a GSM. Read more.
[Microsoft] is at a dangerous crossroads, if its software bumps up the price of a computer by 100 per cent, people might look to alternatives. That means no [Vista] DRM infection lock in, no mass migration to the newer Office obfuscated and patented file formats, and worse yet, people might utter the W word. Yes, you guessed it, ‘why’. People might ask why it is sticking with the MS lock in, and at that point, it is in deep trouble. Read more.
Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, “We are pleased that as a result of Google’s request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista.” Nevertheless, Drummond said that “Microsoft’s current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice,” Read more.
Remember the problems with game consoles being stolen at launch time? Remember armed holdups on people waiting in line with cash in pocket - to buy 360’s, PS3s, and Wiis?
For a while, it was looking like Microsoft threats (and money) would convince a substantial number of Linux distribution providers to sign “interoperability and IP protection” pacts with Redmond. But as of today, the “deal/no deal” count is even. Read more.
I believe that Microsoft’s domination of the PC software market has dulled and altered our expectations of the ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘use from the box’ aspect of all - not just computer software - products we now shell out our hard earned for. Read more.
…the link supplied by Microsoft goes to a website which is available only to computer makers who are prepared to sign up to a non-disclosure agreement. Without knowing what’s included in the fact-rich program, it’s difficult to know why people should proceed with confidence. Read more.
The latest Department of Justice status report on Microsoft’s antitrust compliance is out. And Microsoft’s concessions to a Google complaint regarding integrated desktop search are a key component of that report. Read more.
The Linux faithful might appear to be staring down the barrel of another round of Microsoft’s legal taunts but at the Linux Foundation Summit earlier this month there was little fear expressed.
Microsoft Corp.’s attempt to reverse a lower court’s ruling in the ongoing “Vista Capable” lawsuit was denied by an appeals court on Monday. The decision means the case can resume.
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Talk about a catch 22. Did you know that in order to be allowed to downgrade Vista to XP on a new computer, Microsoft expects you to have one of the more expensive editions of Windows Vista that most OEMs don’t even put on their machines. It’s true. Have a look at this official Microsoft one-sheet explaining the intricacies of downgrading from Vista that’s come bundled with a new PC.
Microsoft’s Windows juggernaut is collapsing as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute. Meanwhile, Windows has outgrown hardware and customers are pondering skipping Vista to wait for Windows 7. If Windows is going to remain relevant it will need radical changes.
Since the release of Windows Vista, Creative has promised their Sound Cards as being ‘Vista Ready’. Unfortunately, as many unlucky customers did discover, this is not true. What the users actually found were buggy, feature crippled drivers. Creative insisted that features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(TM) signals and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on windows Vista. With Creative releasing less than one new driver a year, things seemed bleak. Fortunately, a talented user, Daniel_K, was recently able to ‘fix’ many of the drivers, enabling the incompatible features and also fixing many bugs.
“Private Microsoft emails unearthed during a US court case have revealed that even the software giant’s own executives struggled to get Windows Vista running smoothly.”
“…Microsoft finally relented in January and allowed Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium to be virtualized, company officials attributed the change of heart to a newfound “maturity in the industry,” in terms of being able to trust “what’s under the virtual machine.”But the real reason for Microsoft’s capitulation became clear on March 7 via a new joint-status report in the Microsoft-Department of Justice case. It turns out BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies (a long-time Microsoft partner) filed a complaint with antitrust regulators about Microsoft’s virtualization restrictions.” 
I received word from the lawyer handling the case who is looking to find people who wish to participate in the suit against Microsoft. If you purchased a computer listed as “Vista Capable” you should get involved. 
“So now that the “Vista Capable” lawsuit is a full-blown class action, the judge has unsealed all 158 pages of emails between Microsoft execs trying to sort out what went wrong with the sticker program. While bits and pieces have been blacked out, what remains is still fairly incredible — although Intel’s 915 chipset was initially rejected as incompatible with Vista, MS execs flatly admit that “In the end, we lowered the requirements to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded” and “We are caving to Intel.” 
“In a blow to Microsoft Corp., a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit late Friday alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as “Windows Vista Capable” even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called “Vista Home Basic.”The slogan was emblazoned on PCs during the 2006 holiday shopping season as part of a campaign by Microsoft to maintain sales of Windows XP computers after the launch of Windows Vista was delayed.
“…My conclusion is now that NO ONE who values their sanity, their time, their psyche and general sense of well-being should use Vista. At all. Under any circumstances. In fact, after giving it more than a fair shake over 11 months of daily use, I know think it deserves to be classified internationally as a Weapon of Mass Data Destruction. In fact, perhaps the best way to defeat Al Quaida or any other terrorist group would be to send them free copies of a particularly brain-dead version of Vista like “Home Basic” - it would stop them in their tracks, as it has done with me and so many others.”
“…Somewhat ironically, one of the most financially successful capitalist companies of the 90s has positioned itself as a modern counterpart to the old communist Soviet Union. Microsoft’s ideological contempt for and resistance to free markets and the open expression and propagation of fresh ideas and technologies is not only a close parallel of the old USSR, but also a clear reflection of why Microsoft is currently failing and why its troubles have only just begun. Here’s a comprehensive look at why this is the case.” 
“After 25 years of desktop computing and 15 years of the commercial internet, there are still plenty of frustrations, pains and throwbacks in our everyday technology experience. It’s great having a terabyte hard disk, but not so great trying to manage it using interfaces and tools that have barely changed from the days when 40MB was respectable.Many factors are holding back technology. Here is a list of 10 such barriers, in no particular order. We have almost certainly missed a few, so feel free to leave your comments using the Talkback facility at the bottom of the page.
A Microsoft product manager couldn’t correctly explain the “Vista Capable” marketing slogan, according to recent filings in a lawsuit that claims the company misled consumers with a prerelease Vista campaign last year.
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices.
“…In all my years working as a journalist, I’ve never seen any technology company spin information the way Microsoft did today. The press release on OOXML ratification is a blueprint for spinning semantics, and the stringing together of truths and half-truths to seemingly make the outcome of one event something else altogether. Microsoft’s press release and statements contained therein are shocking. The amount of propaganda conveyed by this one press release is reason for Microsoft customers or partners to reflect on their dealings with the company.” 
I can think of many reasons not to buy Vista, but why should I? After all, Microsoft has been doing a great job of that all by itself. Take, for example, the fact that U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman just ruled that a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Microsoft of what amounts to deceptive advertising can go forward. And what does it say Microsoft did that was deceptive, you ask? 
Were computers carrying the Windows Vista Capable sticker truly Vista capable? Earlier today, a Seattle judge issued a ruling that indicates that an answer should be warranted. She denied a Microsoft request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging Microsoft’s Windows Vista Capable marketing violated the Consumer Protection Act. 
We knew it was only a matter of time until someone brought a class action lawsuit against Microsoft and the Xbox 360, but we thought it would be related to failure rates and the red ring of death, not 
Now that Apple Inc.’s iPhone is finally on sale, the race is on to see who can unlock it. Locked phones can only be used with cellular service from one carrier, a move designed to guarantee carriers recover the cost of subsidizing a handset through monthly service charges. But the cost of the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599 depending on the model, is not subsidized by AT&T. Users must pay full price for the handset and sign a two-year contract, which requires them to pay from $59.99 to $99.99 per month for cellular service. Unlocking the iPhone will enable the handset to be used with any cellular provider with a GSM. 
Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, “We are pleased that as a result of Google’s request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista.” Nevertheless, Drummond said that “Microsoft’s current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice,” 
For a while, it was looking like Microsoft threats (and money) would convince a substantial number of Linux distribution providers to sign “interoperability and IP protection” pacts with Redmond. But as of today, the “deal/no deal” count is even. 
I believe that Microsoft’s domination of the PC software market has dulled and altered our expectations of the ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘use from the box’ aspect of all - not just computer software - products we now shell out our hard earned for.