Tag Archives: microsoft

Microsoft’s existential threat

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Very interesting point made out by this blog post by Patrick Rhone, about how Microsoft’s core business faces an existential threat:
MS office on Flickr

Microsoft for many years had convinced the world that, in order to get “real work” done, you needed Office.
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Then, she explained, the iPhone came. There was no Office. People got things done. Then the iPad came. There was no Office. People got things done. Android came. People got things done. All of those things that they, just a couple of years ago, were convinced they needed Office to do. They got them done without it. And thus, the truth was revealed.
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Like the curtain finally falling from the Wizard of Oz to find just a small, frail, man pretending to be far more powerful and relevant than he really was. Microsoft’s biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie — they were not needed to get real work done. Or anything done, really.

And that will be what ultimately kills them.
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Via Gruber.

The Windows bundling racket gets a jolt in France

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Finally a victory!.

A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn’t want. The judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to obtain refunds for bundled software they don’t want, French campaign group No More Racketware said Monday.

The first sane judgement against the fraud on consumers which has been happening for almost two decades – bundling the Windows OS with all new consumer laptops and desktops. Before others point out, let me emphasise that this doesn’t just affect Linux and other FOSS OSes, it affects Windows users as well.

Several years back, when I bought a laptop for my father, decent laptops were only available with Windows Vista on them – one of the most unusable versions of the Windows line. I wanted a Windows OS on the laptop for my dad, and I wanted it to be Windows XP, but even though Windows XP was being sold on retail at the time by Microsoft, the laptop manufacturers would force me to buy the laptop with Vista. I eventually had to shell out more money to buy a Windows XP licence and install it on the laptop.

This is pure and simple racketeering. Ostensibly, to “prevent piracy” of its OS on new hardware, Microsoft wants its OS to be preloaded on all new hardware. Of course, not any of its OS versions (even though it can be selling multiple versions of its OS at any point in time), but the “latest and greatest” version, whether the customer wants it or not.

How is this different from people paying extortion money to local thugs for their own “protection”?

Sadly, this business practice has been going on for years. While several other activities of Microsoft (and even Intel) have been subjected to anti-trust actions, the Windows OS bundling racket still affects all countries. Hopefully, France will show the way.

Even though, considering how cynical I have become of late, I won’t be holding my breath.

But no matter how small, every victory matters.

Microsoft using Secureboot to lock down ARM

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Thanks to a tip from a colleague – Anshu, I found out further confirmation that the Secureboot issue, that I blogged about earlier, is going to bite us badly just as we expected.

According to this post of the Software Freedom Law Center, Microsoft has recently revised it’s Windows 8 Hardware Certification requirements to lock out all alternative OSes from the ARM-based mobile devices that it ships on.

The Certification Requirements define (on page 116) a “custom” secure boot mode, in which a physically present user can add signatures for alternative operating systems to the system’s signature database, allowing the system to boot those operating systems. But for ARM devices, Custom Mode is prohibited: “On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enable.” [sic] Nor will users have the choice to simply disable secure boot, as they will on non-ARM systems: “Disabling Secure [Boot] MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems.” [sic] Between these two requirements, any ARM device that ships with Windows 8 will never run another operating system, unless it is signed with a preloaded key or a security exploit is found that enables users to circumvent secure boot.

Upcoming devices running Windows 8 mobile including the increasingly popular tablets are soon going to be Windows only – that is, for example, you will not be able to run Android on them without an exploit.

But just yesterday, Qualcomm announced plans to produce Windows 8 tablets and ultrabook-style laptops built around its ARM-based Snapdragon processors. Unless Microsoft changes its policy, these may be the first PCs ever produced that can never run anything but Windows, no matter how Qualcomm feels about limiting its customers’ choices.

While someone may very well point out that because this is only restricted to mobile devices and since most folks, even most technically savvy ones rarely change the OS on their phone, the problem is the precedent this sets. Given some time of locking down the mobile platform to only run Windows, Microsoft can very well make a case to extend Secureboot to desktops that you buy as well, by giving the mobile platform experience as a “standard technical security procedure” to justify this to get around anti-trust issues.

And to reiterate this again, this will badly hurts the hardcore Windows users as well.

Microsoft’s idea is to control the OS running on the desktop, including which of their own OS will run on new hardware. So if you were not a fan of Vista and wanted to stay with Windows XP, like in the past, you will not have a choice in a similar situation in the future. For example, even if there is some widespread concern about a new Windows version in the future, Microsoft can arm-twist the hardware manufacturers to program the new desktops in the market to only work with the new OS of theirs, forcing all of their users to upgrade.

The incoming Secureboot/Restrictedboot war

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For those who aren’t aware of this, FSF (Free Software Foundation) has been running a campaign for the last few months about Microsoft’s malicious Secureboot initiative (which FSF calls restricted boot). Given the mostly Microsoft friendly corporate IT environments out there, I think this is one topic on which most employees should be very aware.

A nice summary of the issue can be read up at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/18/fsf_windows_8_campaign/

Apparently, Microsoft is practically arm-twisting OEM manufacturers to implement Secureboot to be able to install Windows 8 on their systems – it is a Windows 8 requirement. And most Windows loving IT departments around the world are only too eager to go ahead with this just to be able to install the “latest and greatest” from Microsoft. Combine this with a decree … umm … “security” policy to never remove Secureboot from office laptops, and you can be rest assured that Linux will never be found on business laptops ever. (Speaking on security policies, how come these IT folks never admit that Windows itself is their biggest internal security threat, is something I could never understand )

This would be a good time for you to send this message to similarly interested friends working out there, so that they can encourage their IT departments to not fall for this DRM/anti-Linux trap.

Here is the official FSF campaign page:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/

If you read carefully, you will find that FSF’s main issue is not just the secureboot spec itself, but rather how it gives OS/manufacturers a way to lock you out of your own hardware.

If this becomes mandatory, you will never be able to install Linux and other FOSS OS on even computers you buy yourself. You will never be able to reuse old computers for barebones Linux server installs and the like.

The reasons behind the OOXML appeals

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The story so far:

  1. December 2006: 7 ECMA approves OOXML as ECMA-376
  2. December 2006: ECMA submits ECMA-376 to ISO for consideration as an ISO standard under the fast track process
  3. September 2007: ISO ballot process votes against adoption of the specs as a standard
  4. April 2008: OOXML gets approved as an ISO standard
  5. South Africa, Brazil, India, Venezuela, (possibly Denmark too) have for the first time in ISO history, appealed against the decision to make OOXML an ISO standard.

So what happened between (3) and (4)? Stories are now emerging of the tactics used by the organization behind the OOXML standard.

India

Prof Deepak B Phatak (IIT Bombay) writes in an open letter to the BIS committee which worked on the Indian response to this standard:

The final Indian position at ISO was decided by the committee on 20th March 2008, which retained Indian ‘disapproval’ vote.

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Microsoft started filing complaints to various Indian authorities in early March 2008, claiming bias on part of several members of the committee because of their presumed membership of a group called ‘ODF Alliance India’.

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Worse, the complaints have painted these organizations and their representatives, including the Indian delegation which attended the BRM, as acting against the Indian National interests.

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The meeting of the committee on 20th March 2008 had clearly and unambiguously finalized the Indian position of retaining the earlier disapproval vote. In spite of this, Microsoft continued to make representations to top Indian leadership, pressurizing them to change the Indian vote. This act, in my opinion, goes well beyond the behavioral boundaries for a non-Indian commercial entity, amounting to interfering with the governance process of a sovereign country.

Not that this succeeded in changing India’s vote at the final ballot. India still admiringly voted aginst the standard.

However, India’s appeal was against the way in which the final decision was taken – instead of the established method of technical discussions in solving issues with the standard, only a few issues were resolved while the rest were just put to vote. A vote which went like this – 6 for, 4 against, 22 abstained/no-position. Out of the 6 voting for the standard, only 4 had participation status, while two had observation status. All the 4 voting against the standards were participating countries.(These numbers are from Prof. Phatak’s post. I find the break-up of the ‘for’ votes contradictory to the numbers stated by ISO about the final result. ISO mentions all the positive votes to have P status).

Brazil

Peter who was part of the brazilian delegation reports what happened in the ballot and why brazil is appealing against the vote:

When Brazil decided to vote NO on OpenXML, the kindergarten argument of “lack of time to read everything” wasn’t used. We’ve made an tremendous effort to review the specification and we vote with a complete technical knowledge of the facts.
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According to him, the ballot process went like this. On Sunday evening(before the meeting), all delegations were told that they have to reach some decision by Wednesday to resolve all the outstanding issues against the standard. By Wednesday, only 18% of the 1027 issues could be covered (also in these 18% many were simply asked to be taken offline because they weren’t enough time).

On Wednesday, the delegations were told that the rest 80+% of the issues will not be discussed and simply put to vote. The final vote resulted in the approval.

He writes about the people who didn’t vote (NB = National Body).

At that moment, there was a very interesting protest of a delegation which said that they didn’t went Switzerland to vote, which could be done from home (they were there to discuss) and the answer: “Patience…”.

Another NB protested saying that they only received the document containing the answers to their own questions and didn’t even had the opportunity to read and discuss the whole responses document (1027 responses on a 2500+ document). For this reason the option “We do not wish to record any position” was created on the ballot. That highlighted problem also happened on other NBs and there are NBs that simply voted on proposals that they never even read! (This is really cool, right?).

This joke of a standards process (in which only 6 of the 33 members actually had a positive position on the standard) is what India, Brazil and the other countries are complaining about.

The Microsoft Tax Refund campaign at ILUGD

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ILUGD is presently furiously discussing a legal procedure to get refund for the Microsoft Tax applied to all desktops and laptops that you buy from the branded market in India.

Here is a good definition of Microsoft Tax.

Some relevant snippets for the impatient.

The Microsoft tax is an unofficial, but commonly used term that refers to the licensing fee that Microsoft charges major suppliers of personal computers for each unit sold and that purchasers thus usually pay for such computers, regardless of whether or not they want or intend to use a Microsoft operating system.

This tax exists because of pressure … Microsoft has been able to exert such pressure because of its monopoly power, and the ability to dictate that nearly all new personal computers come with Microsoft Windows preinstalled has been a major factor in its ability to perpetuate this monopoly.

… Another factor that facilitates extracting this tax is the fact that most purchasers of personal computers are not aware of it, and most of those who are aware of it believe that they have no choice but to pay it.

So if you have ever been concerned that you are buying a laptop/desktop from the market, formatting, installing Linux/BSD on it, and in effect never using the Windows installation that came by default on it … this campaign is relevant to you, and you might get some of the money back that Microsoft has surreptitiously gained at your expense.

The campaign is being currently tracked here: http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Microsoft_Tax_Refund_Quest

Microsoft vs. Google

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A great article on the online tussle between Microsoft and Google.

For anyone who has been watching Gates over the years, the idea that an upstart like Google could so flummox him and his fierce company takes getting used to. But Google is a rival unlike any he has faced in a long time. In previous battles, Microsoft always had a powerful trump card: It controlled the Windows operating system. That meant that when consumers bought a PC, Microsoft had a powerful say in what products and services they saw first. It had pricing power and distribution power over competitors. Because of that, its applications didn’t have to be superior to those of the competition—just roughly equal. Windows wasn’t better than the Macintosh; Word didn’t improve on WordPerfect, or Excel on Lotus. Even Explorer was only as good as Netscape. Microsoft’s genius was integrating them seamlessly to make them easier for customers to default to, and then using its marketing, distribution, and pricing clout. It won by attacking competitors’ business models, not their technology.

Microsoft’s array of weapons has so far proved next to useless against Google.

Opensource catalyzes a paradigm shift in the computer industry

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Going through the daily drudgery of earning to survive, one always keep wondering – “where are we going with all this?” or “which way should I turn now?” or if you are a business, then “which way should we take today so that we are where others would try to flock to tomorrow?”. You are always crying out for a larger view of things. And from time to time, you find the words of someone else with a theory that can shed some light on that possible path.

Tim O’Reilly’s wonderful essay The Open Source Paradigm Shift has some very interesting conclusions made out of commonly known scattered facts. His argument, that we are on the edge of another paradigm shift in the computer industry, makes a lot of sense to me, as it articulates feelings that I havent been able to put down in words for quite a while.

The last paradigm shift that happened in the software industry was when it “moved up” from being centered around hardware to being centered around software. Monolithic mainframes from IBM, Digital etc. ruled the day in those days, with software being mostly bundled or custom-made. Then the IBM PC happened, and with hardware being commoditised, the focus shifted to the operating system and packaged software. The hardware behemoths were no longer the only one in the market, which now got flooded with others like Compaq, Dell, etc. Note that while individual hardware majors suffered, the market actually exploded, more wealth was generated, and most importantly more people benefited by having easy access to cheap hardware.

That time is now here, when the software industry is about to move up – from being centered around software to being centered around services. Tim narrates a great anecdote in his article, where he asked an audience two questions – “how many people used Linux?” and “How many people used Google”. Obviously, the supporters for the latter far surpassed the former, underlying the irony of these people actually unknowingly using Google’s cluster of 1,00,000 Linux servers behind the website. The software behind services no longer matters to the user – he just sees his PC in front of him which can be Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.

Opensource is the catalyst which will cause this paradigm shift, by commoditizing software. It would no longer make a difference whose software you use to access an Internet Service – the service would be God.

Yes, Microsoft will have to cower down(in the shrink wrapped software business), and scream about “Opensource being a IP destroyer“, and may just lose a lot of money in the business. But the market will explode further, just like before, with more wealth created, and with more people having access to cheap, modular, (mostly) standardized and legal software. And they will pay money primarily for the service (isnt that the ultimate goal?).

This indeed is what is staring at our face right now, whether we want to admit it or not. The Dot-com boom era was probably a step in that direction, but with not much of a solid foundation. Google, Baazee, Fabmall, etc. are the future.

So stop dreaming about another great idea of software to sell. Start selling services. Yes, ASP is a great model, and it harmonizes well with Opensource licencing and philosophy too.

No RegEx in M$ World?

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The other day I got an XLS file exported from a client’s Microsoft SQL Server. I had to import the data into MySQL, and I thought using CSV would be the right way. But there was a problem – the XLS cells had newlines in them, and exporting to CSV use to mess up, and the only option was to remove the newlines in the XLS before exporting.

So I needed to remove the newlines in the XLS file. I was at a friend’s place. So I used his computer to open up the XLS file in Microsoft Excel XP, and looked at the search and replace function. “Now how the hell do I specify a newline?” . I looked through the clippity help, but couldnt figure it out. Googled, but found that there are “add-on” products available for a price which lets you do that.

Disgusted, I came back home, opened the file in OpenOffice.org, used its search-and-replace Regular Expressions (regex, in short) which allowed me to specify a newline , and cleaned up the XLS before exporting.

This got me thinking. Even in its rather new version of Office, Microsoft(M$ in LUG parlance) doesnt provide a regex replacement function. What is it with this company? Does it find its user too dumb for its products? That they can figure out pivot-tables, but cant figure out simple regexes?

Regex has been around for years. Perl has been here for such a long time and regular expressions have become synonymous with it. Text editors in the Unix world, like vim, emacs, etc. have been having regular expressions built into the editor for a long time. Why, even Javascript has had regular expression objects since 1.2. Have never worked with that killer development app from M$ – Visual Basic, but I am guessing there is no default support for regex in it either. I wonder if its Visual Studio IDE has it at all.

When will M$ learn, and start trusting the intelligence of its “power” users, and start putting features in its products, which have been a given in the FLOSS world?

Interestingly, search-and-replace in OpenOffice.org spreadsheet can be done on all the sheets at once, but again in Excel, you have to buy an add-on. :)