Did Microsoft have its hand in the cookie jar?

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Fri Feb 24 03:30:32 2006: 1704   bruceg2004


What amazes me, is the greed factor. I mean, how much cash does MS have? And that is still not enough. It is a good thing Bill married Melinda, or he might have hoarded all of his cash, and not given any to charity.

How much money, and market share does one person, or company need? Greed usually gets people in trouble, and hopefully MS will get what they deserve.

- Bruce






Fri Feb 24 23:48:55 2006: 1709   anonymous


I think that Microsoft's licensing with SCO was actually legitament on the face of it.

Microsoft has had dealings in the past with SCO and has written or at least licensed code themselves that have ended up in some of SCO's operating systems via Microsoft's own unix varient: Xenix.

Also Microsoft does have it's services for Unix stuff (although probably most of that comes from BSDs like OpenBSD) were they could of licensed Unix code from SCO for.

Stuff like that. Enough to provide a good legally-unassilable front.

However I know that people higher up in businesses can actually be suprisingly petty and vindictive.. just like any other individual. I seen situations were people are whilling to get all angry and threaten million dollar deals simply because on some side project the other party refused to pay a few thousand dollars on interest on something.

With the day to day operating expenses and just the massive amount of capitol these guys in Microsoft throw around what they gave to SCO is fairly minor in comparision. Petty cash almost.

I think the real motivation is simply a vendetta. Tired of seeing the press talk smack about Microsoft in comparision to Linux. Tired of major business customers threating to use Linux just to get massive discounts on Microsoft licenses (a common practice nowadays, I expect). Tired of the FUD directed at their investors that is keeping their stock flatlined for the past 5 years or so.

I suppose the conversations between people higher up in the MS food chain involved terms like: 'See how those **** like this.', 'It'll be fun to watch them twist in the wind' and stuff like that.

The justification I suppose would be to chalk it up to business expenses.. Attempting to trip up a competitor with some legal technicalities like this is fairly common and expected.

Also I don't think that there is going to be any loved lost between SCO and MS. Remember the old EU lawsuites that SCO used against MS to get out of some legacy code licensing agreements it inherented from AT&T and Xenix.
(link)

So it would go like this:
Real Motivation: Amusement, pure petty-ness, vengance.
Self Justification: setting up a legal barrier and 'FUD' for a businees competitor.
External Justification: Licensing agreements to resolve some legacy 'IP' issues and/or gain compatability for Unix services for Windows. (something along those lines)



Fri Feb 24 23:53:59 2006: 1710   drag


oops forgot to stick my name on the above post.

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Did Microsoft have its hand in the cookie jar? Copyright © February 2006 Tony Lawrence

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