La Résistance has gone mainstream. Once a more-or-less underground combatant in the battle against the Internet Explorer empire, Mozilla and its Firefox browser are now
engaging in full warfare
with along with a couple of powerful new allies: Google and RealNetworks.
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Posted by Lee Pender on August 03, 20065 comments
Speaking of betas
, that "other" beta product just became
a new cash cow
for Microsoft. Want to download Office 2007 Beta 2? That’ll cost you the price of a soft drink and some of those pre-packaged cookies from the hallway candy machine.
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Posted by Lee Pender on August 01, 20064 comments
A Redmond magazine columnist
now has his doubts
about the Software Asset Management program. Any thoughts on SAM? Any experience with it? Comment here or send me e-mail at
[email protected]
.
Posted by Lee Pender on July 25, 20060 comments
With Windows Genuine Advantage blowing up in Redmond's face (scroll to the last entry
here
), I asked whether any of you had experience with a company that sold pirated software. Without mentioning any names (as promised), here are some of the stories I received:
"Yes, I worked at a place that sold/installed pirated software. I think it was terrible. This was in the days of Novell, and what they did was buy software (Novell) and use it in the office and also install it at client sites. So when it was time to call Novell for support, it was a big scramble to figure out who was registered as the owner. Also, when it was time to upgrade, it was a big mess. We also sold people RAM and charged them for Compaq RAM and installed Kingston."
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Posted by Lee Pender on July 25, 20060 comments
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 July 20, 20061 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 July 13, 20060 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 July 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 July 11, 20060 comments