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Posted in Bill Gates, Formats, IBM, ISO, Open XML, OpenDocument, SCO, Standard at 1:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Watch the evidence, but pass your own judgment
Just days after accusations had been made against IBM and a ban put in place, IBM was cleared of all charges and the ban was lifted. The Register was quick with its report and so was The Inquirer.
=> ↺ quick with its report | ↺ The Inquirer
It’s not entirely clear what the EPA ban was for in the first place, but IBM said in a statement that it would continuing to cooperate with the EPA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which served grand jury subpoenas in search of documents and testimony relating to the contract. So apparently, they don’t know what’s going on either then.
The news about the ban came at a hugely interesting time. It came almost at the same time that ISO’s outrageous sellout was declared (OOXML approved). In fact, just two days beforehand (on March 31st to be precise), the following article was just one among many that got published to severely damage IBM’s reputation:
IBM blackballed in US federal ambush
=> ↺ IBM blackballed in US federal ambush
IBM learned of its temporary banishment through a third-party source last Friday. Upon looking at the US General Services Administration website, the company found it was on the excluded parties list, along with minimal information.
“Prior to learning of the temporary suspension on March 28, 2008, IBM was not aware that the EPA or US Attorney’s office were considering any action against IBM,” the company said today.
Remember Dennis Byron, formerly an 'analyst' at the Microsoft-funded IDC, who several weeks ago wrongly accused IBM of corruption related to government procurement and document formats [1, 2, 3, 4]? Andy Updegrove promptly contradicted his libelous claims and did so completely, but those false claims had already entered relevant news feeds about document formats. Byron also denied knowing who I am, despite sending me E-mails in the past, which is suspicious in its own right. We have seen cases of manufactured consent before [1, 2] and who could ever forget Microsoft’s own words, such as:
=> 'analyst' | the Microsoft-funded IDC | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model…”
–Microsoft, internal document
If you trawled around Microsoft blogs and various pro-Microsoft ‘talking heads’ at that time of ISO’s announcement and immediate backlash, you’d see statements like “it only comes to show that IBM does this too.” This was said in reference to the baseless smears above, which are no longer substantiated. When and where have seen this before? Have a look right here. Microsoft used a journalist whom it invited to Redmond. He spread the anti-IBM smear, which went a very long way (including Slashdot, not just Microsoft’s many blogs). Microsoft is well aware of its own crimes, so it resorts to accusing others, as in “let’s call it even.” Did it fabricate allegations? This time it’s difficult to tell. This was seen as definite in the past, but this time around we only have suspicion and isolated bits of supporting evidence. Of course, it could all just be a series of coincidences, so we mustn’t rule that possibility out. But let us explore a little further.
=> ↺ ‘talking heads’ | right here | Slashdot | well aware of its own crimes
“Microsoft is well aware of its own crimes, so it resorts to accusing others, as in “let’s call it even.””As you can trivially find in the latest news, the whole accusation turns out to be some kind of a horrible mistake that no-one understands (total bafflement) and it’s worth stressing that the timing was interesting — almost as interesting as those responses from Microsoft apologists who defended Microsoft’s actions by wrongly accusing IBM.
Linking to this to-be expired article from Associated Press, Pamela Jones from Groklaw added the following remark at the time (on March 31st): “You don’t suppose some Microsoft proxy filed a complaint??”
=> ↺ this to-be expired article
Coming from someone who has ‘religiously’ covered the “SCO versus IBM” saga for over 4 years (and, moreover, turned out to be right despite opposition from all directions), this remark should not be immediately dismissed or overlooked. Pamela has earned her hugely high credibility and in fact only days ago she proved yet again that more of her insights were correct all along, more specifically in relation to OLPC and Intel’s sabotage of this charity. To be specific, 3 days ago she put the following text in News Picks, linking to a this article I had sent her.
=> ↺ this article I had sent her
“The Eee PC’s success wasn’t possible without Intel’s support. The chip maker was initially hesitant to embrace Asustek’s push into low-cost laptops for fear it would drive down margins for its mobile processors if users opted to buy low-cost laptops instead of more powerful — and more expensive — models. But Intel eventually decided that the opportunity to expand the size of the overall laptop market outweighed the risks of lower profit margins, and gave its backing to the little laptops.”
[PJ: I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. All you folks who flamed me for saying Intel was involved with Asus can now send me emails of apology. Chocolate would be nice too. It would show sincerity, don't you think?]
Back to IBM, there is some more evidence here which could — just could — suggest Microsoft involvement in this latest debacle. Maybe it prodded someone to file a complaint just shortly before the big volcano over ISO finally erupted.
In particular, given recent precedence, it’s clear that Microsoft’s role should at least raise some healthily-restrained dosage of suspicion. Only months ago we saw the following eye-opening incident, which was described as a possible proxy war waged between Microsoft and IBM:
ITJungle.com: Microsoft to IBM: Tolerate PSI Mainframes or Quit EuropeServerWatch.com: Enterprise Unix Roundup: EU vs. Microsoft vs. IBM
Read these articles again and become as shocked as Brian Proffitt to find a reality of legal proxy wars. We covered several more such examples in [1, 2, 3, 4]. Some of them include IBM, but they are barely visible in the 'mainstream press' (with the Gates-Murdoch filter applied to it).
=> 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | the 'mainstream press'
It must never be forgotten that Microsoft was behind a very large investment in SCO and more recently suspicions were raised due to Bill Gates’ connection with Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, who was going to inject some more money into SCO (via an obscure American venture capitalist who needed this loan). Later came all sorts of cover-ups and lies, which perhaps made those involved panic, then walking away, as reported just 2-3 days ago in the press. There will always be the suspicion that Microsoft was at least partly responsible for SCO’s demise, no matter the context or event. How deep does all of this dishonesty run? █
=> Microsoft was behind a very large investment in SCO | cover-ups and lies | ↺ Microsoft was at least partly responsible for SCO’s demise
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