Microsoft Pushing the Platform

Posted by tadelste on Jan 14, 2006 8:16 PM EDT
LXer.com -Article; By Gary Edwards, Open Document Foundation
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In response to The Boston Globe In Agony Over Peter Quinn?, Gary writes: Big media is corrupt and long ago lost the trust of their readership... Where's the Department of Justice? Or how about Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly? Talk about being asleep at the switch! And it's not just the reprehensible array of intimidation, FUD, and outrageous corruption of democratic processes to further their own business needs that should cause us all to shout loudly that Microsoft be immediately hauled back in the docket.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious Don. Big media is corrupt and long ago lost the trust of their readership as news and editorial departments increasingly came under pressures from advertising concessions on the one hand and one world “internationalism” political correctness on the other. Their declining audience and rapid rise of alternative information and opinion sources proves the point in the harshest terms possible. They can't be trusted. The Boston Globe is up to their ears in corrupt influence peddling, and established themselves long ago as a ring leader in this continuing big media movement to wrap the facts in a spinning garb of shamelessly self serving big advertising and big internationalism.

Peter Quinn is a good man who sought to do the right thing for the people of Massachusetts. Unfortunately what's right for the people of Massachusetts and the future of their information technology infrastructure, isn't the right thing for Microsoft. Now he faces one of the most destructive and corrupt machines ever assembled. Unable to compete on the facts or meet the basic requirements of the sound and well thought out ETRM (MA Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM)), Microsoft has launched a smear campaign of intimidation, fear and extortion. And oh yeah, does anyone doubt that the single largest advertiser in the history of the technology industry isn't using this leverage to influence big media shills?

The technology media industry was corrupted long ago by this very same potent combination of Redmond advertising dollars and carefully controlled and parsed out access to the center of technology decision making. The Microsoft monopoly gives them as much power and control over big advertising – technology oriented media as it does over the technology marketplace of hapless users and boastful but wholly neutered competitor wannabes.

The same reprehensible tactics of intimidation, collusion, extortion, and exclussion that landed Microsoft in the anti trust docket, and were found to be used by Microsoft against competitors to illegally establish and maintain their monopoly control, are now being used against individuals like the honorable and respected Peter Quinn. The intent is the same; maintain and expand the monopoly control of Microsoft.

Where's the Department of Justice? Or how about Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly? Talk about being asleep at the switch! And it's not just the reprehensible array of intimidation, FUD, and outrageous corruption of democratic processes to further their own business needs that should cause us all to shout loudly that Microsoft be immediately hauled back in the docket. Take a look at the MSXML ECMA specification, and you'll find that this isn't about an XML file format, open or closed. Nor is it even about a product. No, this is about a platform. Illegally extending the Microsoft desktop monopoly into an entire platform; the highly integrated and tightly bolted MS Vista stack.

When the the MSXML file format was first introduced in MS Office 2003, it was encumbered by application specific dependencies, and one very ugly anti XML binary key. After much argument with the Valoris Group and the European Union's TAC/IDA committee, Microsoft finally agreed to remove the binary key in subsequent versions of MSXML. With the recently released ECMA MSXML specification though, we're seeing something far more insidious and disturbing. Something that should have anti trust guardians the world over up in arms and screaming. The application specific dependencies are being replaced with platform specific dependencies. So much so that the ECMA effort is likely to be more about ratifying MS Vista as a platform standard than anything having to do with XML file formats, transformations, or the wonders of XML interoperability.



We all suspected, and recent events unfolding in Austin, Texas look to confirm, that Microsoft purchased a Presidential pardon for their illegal anti trust activities. The events that link together noted Republican fund raiser Tom Delay, high powered former Preston, Gates and Ellis lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, the BSA, and Microsoft are a chilling testament to ferocity and power of the monopolist monster now having their way with marketplaces, governments, competitors, and big media. A chilling ferocity and show of raw power that was brought to bear on a single individual, Peter Quinn, who by trying to do the right thing for the people of Massachusetts, stood in the way of the mighty Microsoft criminal enterprise machinery.

Tom Adelstein, in his Pulitzer prize deserving reporting on the Microsoft machine, sights a VarBusiness Magazine headline dated June 26, 2005, which read:

It's A Microsoft World :: Five years after running afoul of the Feds, Microsoft is as powerful than ever. Pushing a platform instead of products could make it stronger still. Why nothing seems to stop it.

Pushing a platform instead of products? That's exactly what the ECMA MSXML specification is all about. Where's the gendarme when you really need them?

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