Trustworthy Computing in 2002

Microsoft not doing itself any favors
Product Activation proved a bad start for Microsoft, late 2001, getting people on the defensive side. In 2002, to cause further turmoil, Microsoft brought out a new Windows licensing plan labelled Software Assurance/Licensing 6. This forced people to upgrade their operating systems by paying an annual subscription fee or face paying anywhere from 45% up to 107% more for licenses later on - and all this during a technology recession. This caused many to buy before the deadline and others signed new multi-year contracts, doubling Microsoft's profits. Needless to say, this didn't go down too well, even those who were pro-Microsoft were frustrated with the company's attitude.

In late November Microsoft mentioned that the following year it would create a new "Open Value" licensing plan, due to the negativity generated by Licensing 6. Part of this new plan would mean that any sign of a large 'defection' from Microsoft products to Open Source products could get Microsoft to offer discounts of up to 50%.

The attempt at offering Microsoft Office as a subscription based service was dumped as nobody was interested. But Microsoft caused more than a stir when they later announced that Office 11, the upcoming version of Microsoft Office, would only run on Win2000 or above and would not be compatible with older versions. This was necessary (as reported by Microsoft) due to security issues.

To top it all, Craig Mundie stated that "Customers' continued reliance on earlier versions of Windows, rather than the current Windows 2000 and Windows XP, is slowing down efforts to secure the global computing infrastructure". This did little more than blame the bad state of computer security on those who were using older software, rather than the fact that Microsoft's older software was created with very poor security that it wouldn't freely fix.

Desperate measures
Open Source became the focus of everybody's attention, becoming more of a viable option due to big names such as IBM, HP, Dell and SUN all backing Linux, helped along with the growing lack of trust in Microsoft. The Open Source PHP scripting language overtook Microsoft's ASP, and Open Source Apache Web server overtook Microsoft's IIS.

In March Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Wept for Windows during the Anti-Trust season. Microsoft released a video of it in both Windows Media Player and RealPlayer format, obviously wanting everybody to be able to access it - probably for the first time in history.

During the Anti-Trust case, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (a small think tank promoting free-market principles) published a white paper against the use of Open Source software. The paper was reported to be very weak and poorly-researched. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution itself received a significant portion of its funding from Microsoft, and much of its research was aimed at issues important to Microsoft.

Microsoft's Anti-Unix campaign wehavethewayout.com didn't get much credit, as the Website was (at the time of release) discovered to be hosted on the Open Source Apache Web server, running on the FreeBSD operating system.

Microsoft got a taste of its own medicine when Open Source zealots in California and the Philippines called upon their governments for laws supporting the use of Open Source software. Microsoft didn't like that and created the "Software Choice" movement, stating that it was unfair and that everybody should be free to choose what software they used. This was a very two-faced and self-condemning statement from Microsoft, considering its stand on proprietary formats that tie people to Microsoft products, the software bundling that gave it an unfair advantage and killed off its competitors, and the forced inclusion of Windows with every PC purchase (all things in which Microsoft has never admitted any wrongdoing).

Congressman Adam Smith, who's biggest political contributor was Microsoft, began circulating a letter asking for signatures in a petition against the Open Source GPL license. This caused a major outcry from the Open Source community, and rather than doing any damage it made congress aware of the strong support behind Open Source. The letter was withdrawn, and most who signed the petition said that they didn't even know what they were signing.

At one stage, around September, Microsoft repented about the FUD it had spread concerning Linux/Open Source, and proclaimed that it would instead turn to focusing on the strengths of Windows. From that point on, rather than focusing on the strengths of Windows, Microsoft expanded its attentions from the PC to other ways of spreading its grip: such as cellphones and PDAs, wireless networking, the Xbox game console, etc. (just to note, it was revealed in November that all of Microsoft's other ventures had made losses). In October, after many news articles commenting on Microsoft's poor security, Microsoft went back on its word and once again attempted to deride Open Source security via the medium of FUD.

Although criticising Open Source, Microsoft changed to accommodate some of the Open Source techniques, such as focusing on a development 'community' and opening its source code (although it was read-only). Microsoft created the Shared Source License, which allowed developers to view the code for purposes of developing, debugging and supporting both commercial and non-commercial products. While deriding Open Source it was back to stating how open code did nothing for security, and mentioning that not many people had shown an interest in Shared Source. This was quite strange as Microsoft stated in the first place that it had created Shared Source due to customer demand. A short while after this, Microsoft was again promoting Shared Source as though it were a great asset. Microsoft certainly did appear to be changing with the times.

Microsoft stated that it was focused on listening to the customers needs, and did indeed appear to be making changes to its plans due to customer demands. However, when your customers are constantly complaining about you and are considering dealing with your competition instead, what else do you do? Yet again, Microsoft appears to look good in a bad situation.

Nearer the end of 2002 Microsoft started an advertising campaign for the Macintosh version of Microsoft Office. The advertisements showed Macs and PCs getting along together, promoting compatibility between the two. Some could see this as Microsoft deciding to get along with its competitors, and as Microsoft said, it shows its commitment towards the Mac. But considering that until this time Microsoft had never shown any commitment to the Mac, and that disgruntled Windows users had at that time started to look towards an alternative operating system, I'm sure that Microsoft would rather they switch to the Macintosh than Linux. After all, Microsoft never said that the Macintosh was its greatest threat, and uncertainty of commitment had been one of the major reasons people were wary of any Open Source software.

India was becoming a key player in the tech/software market, and appeared to be looking towards Linux. In November, Bill Gates travelled to India, giving them (from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) $100 million towards fighting AIDS. Bill also announced that Microsoft was investing $400 million in India over the next three years to promote the use of Microsoft solutions, and a further $20 million for e-learning (adding the Microsoft influence to schools). At that time Bill said that "India is of strategic importance", appearing to openly admit that he was bribing India (via his self-owned charity) to go with Microsoft.

When critics accused him of bribery, and that he was doing it to make his company look good, Bill responded that this was not the case, the foundation was independent of Microsoft and was founded long before any claims of anti-trust. Still, one could question why the foundation always appeared to follow Microsoft around whenever it needed to coax governments into using Microsoft solutions. As Bill said, the foundation was independent from Microsoft; but, it wasn't independent of Bill Gates, and when you think of Bill Gates you think Microsoft. And just because the foundation was created before the odor of anti-trust was found around Microsoft doesn't mean that Bill couldn't be using it in an impure way, Microsoft's conduct had been questionable long before the Anti-Trust case started.

Giving money to fight AIDS was far from bad, however, Bill's motives for doing this (especially at this critical time of 'strategic importance') would appear questionable. And if Bill's giving of money to fight AIDS is considered to be generosity, shouldn't we also consider why Bill gave four times that amount of cash towards investing in India's tech sector?

Ironically Bill's visit to India gave a huge publicity boost to Linux and Open Source, causing the Indian government to seriously consider the use of Linux.

In late December, users of Microsoft Office in Norway asked Microsoft to translate it into their New Norwegian, or Nynorsk, language. Microsoft declined, pointing out the large cost involved in such a task. Eventually Microsoft agreed to translate it after most of Norway's high schools threatened to boycott all Microsoft software if it didn't.

Anti-Trust
After the Anti-Trust case concluded, when Microsoft had been found guilty of acting as an illegal monopoly, and settlement plans had been made, Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft has "learned and grown through the experience of the last four years. We are committed to moving forward as a responsible leader in an industry that is constantly, constantly changing."

Microsoft has treated everybody with contempt for years, and all it can say about this is that it has learned from it? Bill Gates proclaimed, "This settlement puts new responsibilities on Microsoft, and we accept them," and also that he was "personally committed to full compliance." It's a pity that he wasn't so happy to play fairly and responsibly for the past few years.

Again, Microsoft never admitted that it did anything wrong. Microsoft pleaded innocent, yet it was found guilty.

Leaked Memo
In November a memo leaked from Microsoft showed the results of a telephone survey of developers, sysadmins and business executives who make decisions on IT spending. This concluded that Microsoft's efforts at turning people away from Linux/Open Source by attacking it were ineffective. In fact, it showed that most people were already quite familiar with Open Source, and were in favor of it. The main reasons why people were pro-Open Source was due to the Total Cost of Ownership being lower and also purely because it was an alternative to Microsoft products.

Sun v Microsoft
In December Sun Microsystems, the creator of the Java programming language, took Microsoft to court hoping to get its Java Virtual Machine (JVM) distributed with Windows. Previously Microsoft had distributed its own 'doctored' JVM but had been found guilty of polluting and defragmenting Java. During the court case Microsoft attorney David Tulchin said, "The antitrust laws were not promulgated so that one competitor could take a free ride on the back of another competitor". But would this statement not confirm that Microsoft's own software bundling with Windows was anti-competitive, giving its own separate products the advantage of this free ride? If the 'free ride' on Windows is worth so much, should Microsoft be allowed this advantage just because it owns Windows and is not in competition with itself?

Around this time Microsoft was preparing itself to face a separate anti-trust case by the European courts. If Microsoft was found guilty of anti-competitive practices by the European courts, one resolution being considered was to "unbundle" Windows Media Player from Windows. Microsoft didn't like this idea at all, saying that removing Windows Media Player would damage Windows, and it was something it wasn't prepared to consider. From this it was clear to see that Microsoft was desperate and determined to bundle its software with Windows, signifying that it was fully aware of the great advantage bundling gave.

Conclusion?
Microsoft has continually brushed off the big problems or unfavorable situations it has created with smooth sales talk, acting as if it's the only company that has been wronged, and announcing extravagant plans to make everything better. Foolishly people continually come back to take another beating, still believing the hype that Microsoft thrives on.

Microsoft would like to put the past behind it, however, this is no reason for everybody to forget what it has done. The Microsoft we see now is still trying to force itself upon everybody, cutting out consumer choice and sucking as much money out of people as possible.

For Microsoft, 2002 was filled with failings, inadequacies, lies, cover-ups, passing-the-buck and (as usual) relentless pressure to upgrade. These are the actions of a company promoting 'Trustworthy Computing'. But is it trustworthy?