06.09.07
Perplexing business practices
It seems that every day, Microsoft gives stronger and stronger evidence that they are bad for business. Bug and security holes in products aside, they are professional double-talkers. They either outright lie or say one thing then spew something else shortly after. It’s disgusting. Here’s a couple examples.
Microsoft has, for a while, been saying that Linux and other Open Source Software projects infringe on many software patents. They kept building up, hinting about possible lawsuits, etc. Then they finally broke out and stated that Linux and OSS violates 235 of their patents. They even break them out into general categories like email-related or GUI-related. But, when pressed for details, Microsoft claimed they couldn’t specify which patents because it would be too cumbersome, administratively, to collect that information.
Umm. Hello? If you counted them, then you already collected them into some tabular format. Otherwise, how could you count them? This is the type of bullshit business practices I’m talking about. Here’s another one.
Jamie Cansdale, of London, was awarded a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award for his work on a product that allows developers to better test the program code they write. The product integrated into Microsoft’s Visual Studio product and was available for all versions of Visual Studio. Later, Microsoft started threatening him with lawsuits because they didn’t want his product to be used with their “Express” version.
What the hell kind of message is that? “We’re awarding you one of our most prestigious honors. Oh, and by the way, we going to sue you for making it available for all versions of our product.”
So, ask yourself. Is this the type of company I want to do business with?
