Microsoft signs technology pact with Linspire

“Announcing the latest in a series of pacts with Linux sellers, Microsoft said late Wednesday that it has inked a deal with Linspire, a company it once sued for trademark infringement.

The two companies made peace in 2004, with Linspire agreeing to shed its Lindows name and Microsoft paying the company $20 million. Linspire also got the right to use certain Windows Media codecs and settled Microsoft’s trademark infringement claims.

Under the latest deal, the two will be working more closely in a variety of areas, including instant messaging and Web search. In addition, purchasers of Linspire’s paid Linux version will get intellectual property protection against any legal action by Microsoft for using the Linux desktop software. Linspire doesn’t plan to include either the Microsoft technology or the patent protection in its no-charge Freespire product.

“We’re going to include it with Linspire, and we are not going to raise the retail price,” Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony said Wednesday.

It’s just the latest in a series of Linux-related deals. Things started last November when Microsoft and Novell struck a controversial arrangement that provided, among other things, patent protections for users of Novell’s Suse Linux. Microsoft has since struck a deal with Xandros as well.

Microsoft also has noted that Linux protections have been part of its recent cross-licensing pacts, including patent-swap deals with LG, Samsung and Fuji Xerox.

“What this deal is evidence of is this continued effort by a variety of Linux providers and Microsoft to build a bridge between our different platforms,” said David Kaefer, Microsoft general manager of intellectual property licensing.

The companies did not go into the financial terms of the deal, but Kaefer said, “Clearly both of us expect to make money on the arrangement.”
As part of the deal, Linspire will make Microsoft’s Live Search the default search engine in Linspire and will get an extension to its license of the Windows Media technology, including access to Windows Media 10 codecs.

Microsoft also will license some fonts and voice over IP technology for use in instant messaging, while Linspire will join an effort to create translators between Office 2007’s XML file formats and the OpenDocument format. “

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6190846.html?tag=nl.e550

Windows Vista DVD: Who Are Those People In That Picture?

Windows Vista DVD: Who Are Those People In That Picture?

Windows Vista Virtual Easter Egg:

Kwisatz has discovered a picture of three guys on the Windows Vista DVD cover. Who are they? What’s the purpose? Does Bill Gates know about it?

I guess it’s just a prank, but by whom?

He has taken the photos with a Nikon 5700 (click on images to enlarge):
He also says there are three more holographic pictures on the cover, but he hasn’t been able to figure out what’s depicted in them.

Do you have a Vista DVD and a microscope?

Head over to the Kwisatz site (spanish language) for more photos.

Update: Paul McNamara over at NetworkWorld sent a mail to the Microsoft PR agency to ask about their identity. The PR agency: “No comment”.

Update: I see some people are suggesting the hologram could be an anti-piracy measure. But, then again, the pictures are on the cover, not on the DVD itself.

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Labels: entertainment, informatics, picture, technology

Microsoft Partners Fuming Over Vista

Microsoft Partners Fuming Over Vista
By JORDAN ROBERTSON (AP Business Writer)
From Associated Press
October 20, 2006 11:59 AM EDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Microsoft Corp. is no stranger to antitrust skirmishes and complaints from competitors about unfair business practices.

But the latest fight over its upcoming Vista operating system pits Microsoft against an unlikely adversary: the security software vendors who are some of its most intimate partners in protecting its notoriously vulnerable systems from attacks.

As Vista’s planned release nears, the company is facing a backlash from such vendors as Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc., which argue that even the concessions Microsoft recently made to appease European antitrust regulators won’t do enough to help them best protect their customers.

“We’ve been talking to them for over two years on this issue,” said Rowan Trollope, Symantec’s vice president for consumer engineering. “And now (with) basically a very short amount of time before the operating system comes out, we’re not in a good position to provide that security to our customers.”

Ultimately, consumers will decide whether Microsoft’s own security measures are adequate to combat increasingly sophisticated Internet threats and keep personal data safe from hackers and online criminals.

But the showdown also marks an important turning point in how computer users buy security software.

Microsoft now competes directly with Cupertino-based Symantec and Santa Clara-based McAfee with its own product, called OneCare, posing a substantial threat to vendors who have been vital to protecting generations of Microsoft operating systems.

European antitrust regulators have warned Microsoft not to shut out rivals in security software and other markets, and the European Union so far has fined the Redmond, Wash., company $970 million over the current flavor of Windows.

To quell EU concerns about Vista, Microsoft pledged to make key changes, but the vendors remain unsatisfied and have threatened antitrust lawsuits. McAfee issued a statement Thursday complaining of the company’s failure to live up to “hollow assurances.”

Industry analysts said Microsoft’s new dual role could inadvertently make the operating system more vulnerable.

“Microsoft’s priority should be simple: Fortify the operating system, make it secure, make it as impenetrable as possible, but work with the third parties,” said Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst with Jupiter Research.

Vista will be Microsoft’s first major upgrade to its flagship operating system since Windows XP’s release in 2001. The company touts Vista’s sleeker looks, improved search capabilities and simplified organization as key upgrades over previous systems.

But several key security changes prompted Symantec and McAfee officials to launch withering public attacks in recent weeks.

Executives accused Microsoft of unfairly promoting its own security software with a dashboard that couldn’t be disabled by vendors. The company pledged technological information to turn off the feature, designed to help customers easily see what protections are switched on.

Vendors also howled over an icon on the welcome screen linking to Microsoft security products. Microsoft refused to remove the link but has vowed to link to other security companies.

The biggest – and currently unresolved – fight hinges on vendors’ claims they have been locked out of access to the core, or kernel, of higher-end, 64-bit versions of Vista.

A new feature called PatchGuard is meant to protect the most sensitive information in the guts of the system. While blocking out hackers, PatchGuard also keeps out security vendors that have traditionally been allowed inside to retrieve necessary information.

Vendors said their products will thus lack advanced security features for 64-bit users (The 32-bit version that consumers are likely to get does not include PatchGuard and thus offers access to the disputed data).

Microsoft said the methods previously used were undocumented and unsupported and left the system less secure and less stable. Customers, the company said, demand better security.

The company has agreed to permit limited kernel access, but will not provide a “blanket exception” or turn off the feature entirely, said Stephen Toulouse, a senior program manager in Microsoft’s Security Technology Unit.

“We did look at that, but we got consistent feedback that that wouldn’t be a good option for the customer,” he said. “We want to make clear that we will work with those vendors. It will take some time, but we’re committed to making that happen.”

Microsoft held online briefings with security vendors on Thursday to address their concerns, though technical difficulties booted some vendors out.

Security vendors said their engineers are going to have to scramble to update their software once the technical tools they need become available, which could be months away.

Vista begins shipping to computer manufacturers and larger businesses next month. Consumers should be able to buy the new operating system in January.

“We’re turning blue holding our breath waiting for something to happen,” McAfee chief scientist George Heron said in an interview. “And frankly so are the users. This is the 11th hour. Now is not the time to crack open the designs.”

In the meantime, third-party vendors said their products will work but won’t have maximum protection. Microsoft said its products will adhere to the same rules and won’t have an unfair advantage.

Security experts said it’s unclear whether Microsoft’s stance on protecting the kernel will make Windows more secure, though it will likely challenge hackers to try to crack it.

“No matter how secure any operating system is, if it has been built by man, it can be broken by man,” said Ken Dunham, director of the rapid response team at VeriSign Inc.’s iDefense Intelligence. “While it might be a major improvement, there is no silver bullet.”

Vendors said customers are likely to agree.

“It’s a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house,” Symantec’s Trollope said. “If Microsoft can control the ways that companies can innovate, if they can control the dialogue of security with the customer, you end up with a security monoculture. And that’s unacceptable.”

Myths About Microsoft

Myths About Microsoft

Microsoft has a monopoly?
There are two kinds of “monopolies”, which I’ll call coercive and competitive. Coercive involves actual violence or the real threat of it. For example, organized crime has been handed its greatest gift – a coercive monopoly on distributing certain pharmaceuticals – this monopoly is enforced by the police, at the expense of the taxpayers, who are also the people buying the product. Try to compete with this monopoly and you die, either being shot by BATF thugs or by organized crime thugs. Nice setup, eh?

The Post Office is a coercive monopoly in most countries; you can be put in jail by force if you try to start your own first-class mail delivery service, in many countries.

A competitive monopoly is one that comes about as a result of market forces. Competitive monopolies generally don’t last as long as coercive ones because, despite the high cost of entry, there are always people willing to try to compete, and some percentage of these succeed. Just a generation ago, IBM was the perceived monopoly and Microsoft came out of nowhere.

A coercive monopoly prevents alternatives. A competitive monopoly cannot prevent competitors from starting up and, often, gaining market share. Consider these alternatives:
Item Alternative
Operating System OS/2, Linux, OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD, BeOS, …
Browser Lynx, Netscape, Opera
Office Suites Star Office, Applix, Corel Office, …
Encyclopaedias on CD Britannica, others too numerous to list
Home Entertainment Too numerous to list
Small Business Software Too numerous to list

There is competition — it’s up to the people to use it!
The government needs to break Microsoft up?
Nonsense. The market will do so, in good time. When people don’t want Microsoft to stay huge, they will stop buying its products. There are good alternatives on all fronts; see previous question.

Microsoft Promulgates Myths About Itself

Microsoft gains market share by innovation?
The sad truth is that Microsoft gains some of its market share by shady back-room deals and by threatening and intimidating its own customers.
Windows 95 is innovative
The alleged innovations in Windows’95 were “borrowed” from other operating systems.
Microsoft invented DOS
There were many Disk Operating Systems before Microsoft. IBM had DOS for its then-small System/360 mainframes as far back as 1964. The DOS that we know and hate today was not even written by Microsoft.
Microsoft Invented Directories
Many people have remarked upon how much the directory structure of UNIX looks like that of MS-DOS, and wonder if UNIX copied it. In fact, the UNIX directory structure was invented in 1970 by Ken Thompson and another researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Bill Gates wanted to dominate the world so, in the 1980s, Microsoft was working on its own version of UNIX. They licensed it from AT&T and renamed it Xenix (since AT&T then wouldn’t let anybody use the name UNIX). Now the folk at the MS Campus in Redmond are pretty collegial, so it wasn’t long before the folks in the Xenix project and the folks working on DOS were drinking together. The DOS folks needed a way to get beyond the 15 “user areas” that MS-DOS had inherited from CP/M-86 (see DOS history above). The Xenix folk were bragging about how great UNIX-style directories were. So they DOS folk looked, and became believers, and borrowed the ideas and the syntax, but not the implementation. UNIX’s chdir/cd, mkdir (shortened to md), and directory tree notions were grafted onto DOS’s drive letters, and the slash (/) converted to a backwards slash (\) in a move that has driven “bilingual” people crazy ever since (it wasn’t for that purpose; MS had already used “/” as an option delimiter where UNIX used the “-”, and felt they couldn’t change that for fear of breaking backwards compatibity).

Once Microsoft got the idea that they could write Windows NT and stop paying royalties to AT&T, the Xenix project was cancelled. However, it was taken over by a smaller company that had begun as its largest dealer. The Santa Cruz Operation, later shorted to SCO, continued to sell UNIX software and systems until around 2001, when it was acquired by Caldera.
Microsoft Invented Windows?

Window systems as we know them were invented by Xerox, at their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Nearby SRI researcher Doug Englebart invented the mouse as we know it.

When Apple Computer was foundering after the first onslaught of the IBM PC (which even with its crippled processor was faster than the “Apple ][" or Apple 2) and MS-DOS, their leaders visited Xerox PARC and saw window systems. They hired some of the talent away, and put out the Apple Lisa (which I first saw demonstrated in Toronto around 1983). Lisa was a flop, but she paved the way for (or even mutated into) the Apple Macintosh.

Bill Gates, who even then wanted to dominate the world, saw the Xerox Alto and decided he had to have one, too. He got his best geeks to fake up a prototype, showed it at Comdex, and the press boys all wowed it. Then they actually wrote it and, after 3.1 tries, got something that barely worked The rest is history.

For Further Reading

For Seattle DOS and MS-DOS, hit the library and read Microsystems (later called Micro/Systems Journal) for 1980-1984. Not the Microsoft Journal, but the original Microsystems Journal put out by Sol Libes, and later cannibalized by Ziff-Davis.

For Bill Gates, check out the books Hard Drive and Over Drive.

For life on the Redmond Campus, check the book MicroSerfs, by Douglas Copland, the same dude that coined the term Generation X.
Details...
Back-room deals

As a single example, consider this Reuters story which appeared in The Financial Post on January 12, 1998:

Microsoft Wins TCI Contract Seattle -- Microsoft Corp scored a major victory Saturday in its aggressive push to lead the convergence of television and the Internet, winning a contract to supply the core sofware for at least fie million advanced set-top boxes for cable giante Tele-Communications Inc.
The deal, hammerered out in negotiations that lasted until 2:30 a.m., came just a day after Microsfoft's bitter rival, Sun Microsystems Inc. announced [that] TCI would use its [J]ava programming language in the boxes,

In other words, once Bill Gates was stung by Sun, he went into the back room with TCI and a mandate to get even.
Threatening your own

Microsoft is not above threatening to destroy entire companies (even its own large customers) to get its own way. Here’s another quote from another Reuters article, also in The Financial Post on January 12, 1998:

Software giant faces federal contempt charge
Washington — Microsoft Corp faces federal charges of contempt tomorrow for allegedly violating a judge’s order requiring the software giant to sell computer makers its Windows 95 software without building in a Web browser.
The Justice Department has aasked U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to fine [the company] US$1 million a day for violating his Dec. 11 preliminatry injunction…
The government stepped in last fall, after Microsoft threatened to cut off Compaq Computer’s access to Windows 95. Compaq needs Windows to stay in business.

In other words, Bill was then so determined to destroy Netscape over its dominance in the Browser field that he was willing to destroy Compaq if they wouldn’t help him do it.
Windows 95: Steal from the best

The general ideas of windowed computer are all appropriated from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) and environs, where windows, the mouse, selection, drag-and-drop, the File/Edit/View menu, and so on were all invented while Bill Gates was still just another college dropout. See Michael Hiltzik’s book Dealers of Lightning for documentation on this.

Here are just a few of the major “innovations” in Windows ‘95, and where M$ “borrowed” them from:
Innovation Actual Origin
Icons directly on desktop Xerox Alto (1981); Macintosh (1982?)
Recycle Bin Macintosh Trash Can (1984?)
Start Menu Macintosh Apple Menu (1982?)
Settings->Control Panels Macintosh Control Panels
Long File Names Macintosh 1982?; UNIX 1979.
Task Bar HP Vue
Right Button Menus Sun SunView, Sun/ATT OPEN LOOK, …
DCOM Xerox Alto; RPC (Sun&HP had RPC mechanisms by the early 1980’s)
Internetworking Xerox Alto; UNIX (4.2BSD, 1982, included TCP/IP)
Network file sharing Many, many distributed filesystem schemes

No wonder the Macintosh fans all said “Windows 95 == Mac 88″.
Seattle Computer’s SC-DOS becomes MS-DOS

IBM was designing and building its first Personal Computers in the early 1980’s, and needed an operating system. The main contender seemed to be CP/M-86, a second-generation version of Control Program for Microcomputers, a Digital Research product based on several earlier systems including Digital Equipment (DEC)’s RT-11 and another (Xerox??) operating system called simply CP, or Control Program. So CP/M was a reimplementation of those for the 8080/Z80 microprocessors that preceded the IBM PC. CP/M-86 was a reimplementation of CP/M for the faster, 16-bit 8086 that was coming into vogue, and its 8-bit cousin the 8088 that IBM eventually chose.

But then another reimplementation came out of the woodwork. Seattle Computer’s SC-DOS was also called QDOS, for Quick and Dirty OS; written as it was in a pretty short time (rumor has it as little as one weekend, which I find hard to believe). SC-DOS was a clone of CP/M 86, and was sold for personal computers based on the 8086. Seattle didn’t have any “application software” to run with it. But Bill Gates was able to “bundle” this O/S with his Basic interpreter (Basic was big back then, since it was small enough to run on machines with 64KB). IBM bought into the deal, Gates bought the rights to the O/S from Seattle for a song, Seattle went under, and Gates went on to become the world’s richest man. That’s history, folks!

There are two footnotes to the above footnote. First, Gary Kildall, visionary and founder of Digital Research, the home of CP/M and CP/M-86, died in relative anonymity in 1994, a bit like Mozart, forgotten in his own time but, perhaps, to be remembered along with Mr. Gates by future historians. Second, Tim Paterson, who wrote SC-DOS at Seattle, went on to work for Microsoft and is relatively wealthy from Microsoft stock options.

Symantec sues Microsoft over storage tech

Symantec sues Microsoft over storage tech
By Joris Evers
URL: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6074055.html

Symantec has launched a suit charging Microsoft with misappropriating its intellectual property and with violating a license related to data storage technology.

The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, seeks unspecified damages and an injunction barring Microsoft from using the Symantec technology, which would include a halt on Windows Vista and the Longhorn server, according to a copy of the filing.

“We are accusing them of misusing certain intellectual property that they had access to…and (saying) that they misused our intellectual property in operating system products,” Michael Schallop, the director of legal affairs at the security company, said in an interview. It is the first time Microsoft and Symantec have been pitted against each other in court, he said.
newsmaker
Beware the ‘monoculture’
CEO John Thompson on why Symantec will beat Microsoft.

The complaint involves Symantec’s Volume Manager product, acquired as part of the company’s takeover of Veritas Software. Volume Manager allows operating systems to store and manipulate large amounts of data.

Microsoft licensed a “light” version of Volume Manager from Veritas in 1996 and used it in Windows 2000, Schallop said. The Redmond, Wash., company then used it to develop functionality for Windows Server 2003, which competes with Veritas’ Storage Foundation for Windows, Schallop said.
Microsoft also misuses Symantec’s technology in Windows Vista and the Longhorn server release, Symantec charges in its complaint. It seeks an injunction to stop Microsoft from further developing, selling or distributing Vista, Longhorn server and all other infringing products, as well as a recall of all products already in the market, according to the complaint.

“The breaches of the agreement and IP violations began after Windows 2000…They were not allowed to use that intellectual property to develop products that compete against Veritas,” Schallop said. “They have used our intellectual property in terms of trade secrets and source code to develop competing products.”

Additionally, Schallop said, Veritas discovered about two years ago that Microsoft had filed patent requests based on Veritas’ trade secrets. “They claimed they had invented something that they had not,” he said.

Symantec and Microsoft have tried to resolve the dispute, but were unable to. “We recently agreed to disagree and let the courts help us resolve the dispute,” Schallop said. “We think that we will prevail through trial.”

A Microsoft representative confirmed the dispute and the attempts to reach an agreement outside of the courts. The argument stems from a “very narrow disagreement” over the terms of a 1996 contract with Veritas, the representative said in a statement.

“These claims are unfounded because Microsoft actually purchased intellectual property rights for all relevant technologies from Veritas in 2004,” the representative said. “We believe the facts will show that Microsoft’s actions were proper and are fully consistent with the contract between Veritas and Microsoft.”

Apple Mac does Windows too!

As elegant as it gets

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.⁽¹⁾ Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don’t have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them….

To read the complete article click on link or copy and paste:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/