Microsoft looks to get Nook all to itself for $1 billion

Nook sales haven't been too hot lately.

Read the whole story

 

[Johnny Tremaine]

reflex-croft[/url]":3s7hg4ia]

SogiYa[/url]":3s7hg4ia]

ws3[/url]":3s7hg4ia]

SogiYa[/url]":3s7hg4ia]

ws3[/url]":3s7hg4ia]

SogiYa[/url]":3s7hg4ia]This pisses me off; the main reason Borders got killed off is because market analysts downgraded them for not staying competitive with the nook.

Now, barely two-ish years later, B&N is admitting that the Nook is a pile of shit and killing it off.

WTF; I WANT MY BORDERS BACK!

Eh, Borders sucked too.

If you weren't around before B&N and Borders together killed off all the good independent bookstores, then I'm sorry for you.

I've been around longer than either of them and poored that bottle of beer out on the sidewalk long ago; sucked is irrelevant when every option was shitty, Borders was BETTER so im pissed it got killed off.

Besieds; sucked, better, shitty, evil, worst ... the only adjective that matters now is "fucked," because that is the one that applies to us now that B&N is essentially the entire market.

Amazon

Not the same as walking out the store with the book in your hand.

Thank god. I like small independent stores, and used book stores, but huge chain stores? Meh, I can live without them. Amazon is a superior experience to B&N, Borders or places like Wal*Mart.

Maybe, but Amazon will never be able to recreate the ambience of a Borders in its heyday: browsing through stacks, buying a latte in the coffee shop, while listening to an interesting local musical artist play live, and, oh, somebody in a costume is reading to a group of kids in the children's section during story time, all under one roof.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Johnny Tremaine[/url]":1dg6qfmk]

Maybe, but Amazon will never be able to recreate the ambiance of a Borders in its heyday: browsing through stacks, buying a latte in the coffee shop, while listening to an interesting local musical artist play live, and, oh, somebody in a costume is reading to a group of kids in the children's section during story time, all under one roof.

Coffee shop:=your own kitchen.
Local musician:=computer tuned to an internet station.
Costumed reader:=flip over to the PBS station to entertain the kids.

My how we've progressed.

 

[xyzzymagic]

Johnny Tremaine[/url]"
Maybe, but Amazon will never be able to recreate the ambience of a Borders in its heyday: browsing through stacks, buying a latte in the coffee shop, while listening to an interesting local musical artist play live, and, oh, somebody in a costume is reading to a group of kids in the children's section during story time, all under one roof.

I agree... I have a lot of great memories of hanging out at Borders with my best friend during college -- taking turns bringing snacks/drinks to our laptop-laden table, one of us tracking down books & magazines to buy while the other got some work done, and chatting together online... One memorable time, we went there to see a favorite singer-songwriter (Dar Williams) perform her new CD and got to hang out talking with her after she signed our copies.

I know others have always preferred indie bookstores, but only one of the many in my county when I was a kid had a decent selection of "genre" fiction, the clerks tended to be a bit snobbish and would watch browsing customers like a hawk as if we were all there to steal something. The lone exception & survivor, Copperfield's, succeeded primarily because it mimicked Borders, has a big used & antique bookstore, and evolved to carry ebooks as well a while back.

 

[sporkwitch]

Solidstate89[/url]":24aym5cs]

sporkwitch[/url]":24aym5cs]

gowreck[/url]":24aym5cs]Seems like a smart play for both parties. Nook investors should be demanding more money with one hand while packing up the shop with the other. A billion bucks is better than a slow decline into death.

Microsoft absolutely should be using their large war chest to kill competitors. They buy a brand that has a good reputation that can be merged into their own, fulfills a need in their offerings, and removes a competitor from the table.

Its not evil as many comments here imply - its the natural order of things. Big fish eat little fish.

Yeah, never mind that one of the core purposes of antitrust law is to prevent the exploitation of monopoly power in one market to expand into and take over another, thus eliminating the very competition that is necessary to produce innovation and progress (something MSFT, the RIAA, MPAA, etc. are opposed to for the simple fact that progress is a direct threat to their monopolistic empires.)

Because Microsoft taking over Nook's ecosystem removes a competitor and keeps them from competing with Microsoft's plethora of eBook offerings...no wait. It just changes hands and no competitor is removed. Oh that's right.

armendiel[/url]":24aym5cs]How does this make sense? The most likely play is instant exposure to a market where they have no real presence, so the default position is to show them who's boss by immediately giving a few hundred bucks to a competitor for no good reason...

Read again. The entire point is to prevent an established monopoly in one market from being leveraged to force its way into another and to displace others when it would otherwise have been unable to. A perfect example of this is the X-Box 360, knowingly released with a design flaw resulting in ~60% failure rates, but the revenue from their other markets allows them to eat these losses indefinitely. As a result, they gained a one-year head-start over their competitor and managed to win the PR war for the generation by that early lead, something that would not have been sustainable if they didn't have the money from their desktop OS and office suite monopolies. This is one of the exact sort things of that antitrust law is designed to prevent: an established player coming in and displacing others via tactics that would not be possible without monopolies in other markets.

MSFT's entry into this market via eating up Nook gives them a head start, yes, and in effect removes a competitor (if they enter on their own they're competing with Nook, if they buy nook, that's one less to compete against, really only leaving Amazon, and to a lesser extent, Sony). Is it legal for them to get in this way? Probably, depending on what they do going forward with it; it's essential that they make it self-sustaining, because if they use their monopoly power from other markets to keep an otherwise failing brand afloat too long they would risk antitrust action (in the EU, at least; ever since they bought their way out of the convictions in the 90's, the US has been rather impotent when it comes to enforcement of competition law).

One thing's certain, though, if Nook becomes a MSFT subsidiary, they won't be getting my business any more, and I'll be stuck repurchasing a couple hundred ebooks.

 

[sporkwitch]

xsteven77x[/url]":21idtrwd]

salamanderjuice[/url]":21idtrwd]

jmshub[/url]":21idtrwd]I still cannot tell what Microsoft's interest in Nook could possibly be.

Ecosystem?

Google and Apple already have pretty sizable ebook stores. Buying Nook would give them one of the larger ones plus an already established brand.

This idea of buying an already established business and trying to make it theirs seems to be a common theme with Microsoft lately...

Lately?

They developed their original compiler on stolen computer time from local universities.

They bought DOS from its creator after selling it to IBM.

They "bought" IE for a "percentage of sales" just to give it out free; they lost the lawsuit and had to cough up a few pennies.

They flipped the MacOSX UI upside down and reversed it to arrive at Vista/7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT6YO30GhmQ (Apple should really take a look at this one, since this IS substantial copying, as opposed to whinging about a grid of icons).

Much like Apple, you can track pretty much everything they've done to something they bought, not developed in-house.

 

[sporkwitch]

epobirs[/url]":1yvbli6y]

sporkwitch[/url]":1yvbli6y]If this goes through, does that mean MSFT will control the Nook app on my android devices? Does this mean they get the money when I buy an ebook for Nook? Because that's how it reads.

Does anyone know the contact information for whoever is running Nook these days? I've spent hundreds of dollars on ebooks for Nook, including books I already had physical copies of, because it's simply more convenient, but if MSFT is taking over, that's going to be a lot of repurchasing from Amazon for me (and a reader application that is massively inferior.)

So you're going to needlessly throw money at one empire to spite another? Quite the little psychosis you have there.

If you really want to make a difference, get all of your books from torrents and send money directly to the authors. Cut out everyone in between.

Not to spite the other, to replace what has been lost. I won't give MSFT money, period. As to Amazon being an evil empire, I've yet to see them do anything but compete on the merits. They're big, but they're not evil. They treat their customers right, and so I feel no shame in giving them my business (I just wish their Android app didn't suck, but if MSFT does end up buying up Nook, I won't have much say in the matter).

 

[kzin53]

sporkwitch[/url]":72t6t0fa]If this goes through, does that mean MSFT will control the Nook app on my android devices? Does this mean they get the money when I buy an ebook for Nook? Because that's how it reads.

Does anyone know the contact information for whoever is running Nook these days? I've spent hundreds of dollars on ebooks for Nook, including books I already had physical copies of, because it's simply more convenient, but if MSFT is taking over, that's going to be a lot of repurchasing from Amazon for me (and a reader application that is massively inferior.)

Why would you buy a decidedly inferior product just to protest MSFT? or Apple or any other big company which won't notice anyway?

 

[sporkwitch]

kzin53[/url]":2z9as98o]

sporkwitch[/url]":2z9as98o]If this goes through, does that mean MSFT will control the Nook app on my android devices? Does this mean they get the money when I buy an ebook for Nook? Because that's how it reads.

Does anyone know the contact information for whoever is running Nook these days? I've spent hundreds of dollars on ebooks for Nook, including books I already had physical copies of, because it's simply more convenient, but if MSFT is taking over, that's going to be a lot of repurchasing from Amazon for me (and a reader application that is massively inferior.)

Why would you buy a decidedly inferior product just to protest MSFT? or Apple or any other big company which won't notice anyway?

Vote with your wallet. I certainly don't want to, but accepting Amazon's application's deficiencies (it'd be on my tablet, not one of their own devices) is a less sour pill to swallow than giving my money to one of the single largest causes of the stagnation of progress and innovation in every industry it touches. The argument that I'm just one man is defeatist; every movement started with a few, and if they said "but there's just five of us, they won't even notice us" do you think anything would have EVER gotten done? Of course not. It starts with one, it grows from there; if you say "fuck it" from the start, then of course you won't get anything done, because you never even tried.

 

[DKlimax]

textbooks + onenote (MX)

 

[Wardatrigger]

Kia[/url]":7zx7vj4k]The Nook app\experience is better then the Amazon one, but Amazon has cheaper prices and better advertising.

May I then look forward to continuing to use my recently purchased Nook Simple Touch with a refreshed/cheaper line of books as my Mum enjoys on her Kindle?

 

[sporkwitch]

Wardatrigger[/url]":1rf5tocv]

Kia[/url]":1rf5tocv]The Nook app\experience is better then the Amazon one, but Amazon has cheaper prices and better advertising.

May I then look forward to continuing to use my recently purchased Nook Simple Touch with a refreshed/cheaper line of books as my Mum enjoys on her Kindle?

Root it, install the Play Store, install the Kindle reader; you get the superior device, with the cheaper books (though would have to settle for the inferior app.)

 

[jaset]

I wonder how the recent fire-sale of Nook e-readers in the UK over the last week ties into this. Pretty much everywhere here including the Nook UK site heavily discounted the Nook Simple Touch from £79 to £29 (~$120 to ~$45) and the Nook Simple Touch Glowlight from £109 to £69 (~$168 to ~$107). By all accounts, the majority of the UK's inventory of Nook Simple Touch has been sold.

 

[Wardatrigger]

sporkwitch[/url]":4a0ps09j]

Wardatrigger[/url]":4a0ps09j]

Kia[/url]":4a0ps09j]The Nook app\experience is better then the Amazon one, but Amazon has cheaper prices and better advertising.

May I then look forward to continuing to use my recently purchased Nook Simple Touch with a refreshed/cheaper line of books as my Mum enjoys on her Kindle?

Root it, install the Play Store, install the Kindle reader; you get the superior device, with the cheaper books (though would have to settle for the inferior app.)

That works on the black and white e-ink Simple Touch?

jaset[/url]":4a0ps09j]By all accounts, the majority of the UK's inventory of Nook Simple Touch has been sold.

Yeah, I had to denigrate myself by buying from Argos when B&N/Nook ran out themselves online.

 

[sporkwitch]

Wardatrigger[/url]":1bxrg8rv]

sporkwitch[/url]":1bxrg8rv]

Wardatrigger[/url]":1bxrg8rv]

Kia[/url]":1bxrg8rv]The Nook app\experience is better then the Amazon one, but Amazon has cheaper prices and better advertising.

May I then look forward to continuing to use my recently purchased Nook Simple Touch with a refreshed/cheaper line of books as my Mum enjoys on her Kindle?

Root it, install the Play Store, install the Kindle reader; you get the superior device, with the cheaper books (though would have to settle for the inferior app.)

That works on the black and white e-ink Simple Touch?

jaset[/url]":1bxrg8rv]By all accounts, the majority of the UK's inventory of Nook Simple Touch has been sold.

Yeah, I had to denigrate myself by buying from Argos when B&N/Nook ran out themselves online.

So far as I know, it should. I believe the simple touch is fundamentally the same as the Colour, just with an eink screen instead of an LCD (I could be mistaken on this). I hadn't looked into it specifically until now, but here's the first result from my first google search while writing this post:
http://lifehacker.com/5926798/turn-your ... se-10-apps

So yes, the Kindle app will work on your Simple Touch

It notes that some users ran into issues (while lifehacker didn't), so they also provide detailed instructions in their article about how to root the simpletouch:
http://lifehacker.com/5889158/turn-a-99 ... easy-steps

I confess, I'd been tempted to pick this model up myself, even after replacing my launch-model nook with a Motorola Xoom (I miss the e-ink, and the added real-estate combined with a touch screen is very appealing), and this has me tempted to do just that, if only to mess about with it.

 

[another ars account]

sporkwitch[/url]":3v6esa6f]
One thing's certain, though, if Nook becomes a MSFT subsidiary, they won't be getting my business any more, and I'll be stuck repurchasing a couple hundred ebooks.

I don't get this last bit.

If Random House buys out Penguin and you really hate Random House, does that mean you'll toss all your old Penguin editions of Bronte and Dickens and buy new copies published by Scholastic?

 

[AbbaDabba]

TheDarkerPhantom[/url]":49ajkwb9]

AbbaDabba[/url]":49ajkwb9]I will NOT be using Nook, nor buying from B&N again if this happens. The Evil Empire must be stopped....

I am going to guess you don't even own a Nook to begin with.

In fact, I own two. Not a good guesser, apparently.

 

[sporkwitch]

another ars account[/url]":utptec9c]

sporkwitch[/url]":utptec9c]
One thing's certain, though, if Nook becomes a MSFT subsidiary, they won't be getting my business any more, and I'll be stuck repurchasing a couple hundred ebooks.

I don't get this last bit.

If Random House buys out Penguin and you really hate Random House, does that mean you'll toss all your old Penguin editions of Bronte and Dickens and buy new copies published by Scholastic?

No, because those editions won't go away. On the other hand, if for any reason I have to reinstall or redownload any of my books from nook, I'll be stuck with whatever MSFT has done to the application, if they even still make it available for Android instead of forcing you to get their products. It's not a case of having to immediately repurchase, so much as the usual worry everyone has with DRM: the provider disappears and now you can't get at your shit anymore.

 

[another ars account]

sporkwitch[/url]":1f80p7c3]
No, because those editions won't go away. On the other hand, if for any reason I have to reinstall or redownload any of my books from nook, I'll be stuck with whatever MSFT has done to the application, if they even still make it available for Android instead of forcing you to get their products. It's not a case of having to immediately repurchase, so much as the usual worry everyone has with DRM: the provider disappears and now you can't get at your shit anymore.

Ah okay, that makes more sense.

Sounds like a good reason to proactively break the DRM on your purchases. I don't buy anything DRM'd that I'd worry about losing, for the same basic reason.

 

[sporkwitch]

another ars account[/url]":ny3nbxi4]

sporkwitch[/url]":ny3nbxi4]
No, because those editions won't go away. On the other hand, if for any reason I have to reinstall or redownload any of my books from nook, I'll be stuck with whatever MSFT has done to the application, if they even still make it available for Android instead of forcing you to get their products. It's not a case of having to immediately repurchase, so much as the usual worry everyone has with DRM: the provider disappears and now you can't get at your shit anymore.

Ah okay, that makes more sense.

Sounds like a good reason to proactively break the DRM on your purchases. I don't buy anything DRM'd that I'd worry about losing, for the same basic reason.

Which will soon be legal (we hope)!

As an aside, isn't Dickens some of the last stuff to enter the public domain? Why pay in the first place? I have many classics from the likes of Verne and Lewis Carol that were free for that reason (from the nook shop!)

 

[another ars account]

sporkwitch[/url]":62w33fsq]
As an aside, isn't Dickens some of the last stuff to enter the public domain? Why pay in the first place? I have many classics from the likes of Verne and Lewis Carol that were free for that reason (from the nook shop!)

I just picked stuff that might conceivably be available through multiple publishing houses to make the analogy work. If you don't like Harry Potter Press, Inc., you're out of luck.

The real lesson here, as it's been with every DRM situation ever, is don't buy DRM'd goods unless you're willing to (a) strip the DRM, or (b) discard your purchase after a short period of use. None of the rights protected by DRM are yours.

 

[sporkwitch]

another ars account[/url]":3st0jw7j]

sporkwitch[/url]":3st0jw7j]
As an aside, isn't Dickens some of the last stuff to enter the public domain? Why pay in the first place? I have many classics from the likes of Verne and Lewis Carol that were free for that reason (from the nook shop!)

I just picked stuff that might conceivably be available through multiple publishing houses to make the analogy work. If you don't like Harry Potter Press, Inc., you're out of luck.

The real lesson here, as it's been with every DRM situation ever, is don't buy DRM'd goods unless you're willing to (a) strip the DRM, or (b) discard your purchase after a short period of use. None of the rights protected by DRM are yours.

I figured as much, hence putting it as an aside; it was mostly idle commentary. Unlike some on ars, especially in threads like this, I do know how to evaluate an analogy properly (hence the primary response), rather than just nit-picking details to either make it fail or make it work when the converse is the case.

All that said, I actually think many of my nook books are DRM-free, assuming the blurb at the start stating they're DRM-free is true, and DRM wasn't added after the original copy of the file was created by the publisher.

 

[Great_Scott]

Solidstate89[/url]":1z7giw8x]

prc117f[/url]":1z7giw8x]Simple, Embrace and extinguish. If you want to read up on a good and little reported example, microsoft's fahrenheit project. SGI did not do so well afterwards.


Also google "Microsoft Dirty Tricks history"

Extinguish what? An ecosystem they don't even compete in?

The amount of brain-dead copypaste responses I see in every Microsoft article is getting nauseating. As a poster above me said, it's pretty clear they want an eBook ecosystem to compete with against Apple and Google in their eBook offerings.

"Extinguishing" Nook doesn't do anything for them. If they purchase it, it'll be to get access to all of the content Nook already has access to and to rebrand it and integrate it into the App stores for Windows Phone and Windows 8.

You seem to be under the impression that Microsoft extinguishes intentionally.

Of course they bought the Nook to compete in a new market.

However, they will end up killing it, just like they unintentionally killed Nokia.

 

[sporkwitch]

Great_Scott[/url]":3ql93imz]

Solidstate89[/url]":3ql93imz]

prc117f[/url]":3ql93imz]Simple, Embrace and extinguish. If you want to read up on a good and little reported example, microsoft's fahrenheit project. SGI did not do so well afterwards.


Also google "Microsoft Dirty Tricks history"

Extinguish what? An ecosystem they don't even compete in?

The amount of brain-dead copypaste responses I see in every Microsoft article is getting nauseating. As a poster above me said, it's pretty clear they want an eBook ecosystem to compete with against Apple and Google in their eBook offerings.

"Extinguishing" Nook doesn't do anything for them. If they purchase it, it'll be to get access to all of the content Nook already has access to and to rebrand it and integrate it into the App stores for Windows Phone and Windows 8.

You seem to be under the impression that Microsoft extinguishes intentionally.

Of course they bought the Nook to compete in a new market.

However, they will end up killing it, just like they unintentionally killed Nokia.

Ummm... they do extinguish intentionally, or have you never read the halloween documents or any of the transcripts from the trials in which they were repeatedly convicted for illegal and anti-competitive business practices?

You're not using "embrace, extend, extinguish" properly in this post. You're talking about the simple fact that they kill everything they touch, as they did with BattleTech and Halo (destroyed everything battletech was; stripped out every last innovative or new idea from Halo after purchasing Bungie and before Halo released).

Solid is right in that they'll likely use it as an in-road to a new market, and you're right in that it is for the purpose of illegally leveraging their monopoly power to expand their monopoly into a new market, but you're wrong when you imply they'll just accidentally kill things and become irrelevant, as is the case with motorola. Their goal will be to pull off a coup like they did with releasing the xbox 360 years before it was ready and using their other monopolies to keep it going and win via attrition; we can only hope that such a move will fail as well as it has with nokia (though it hasn't totally failed there either, as they've been able to exploit nokia to push arguments-by-proxy against google that would defeat their own efforts if used in their own cases.)

 

[Deleted member 14629]

^^I love how you're still pulling out that old canard, even though those actions happened well over a decade ago under different leadership.

 

[PaoloM]

gmerrick[/url]":1s6lg6v2]

No worse than when MS bought Hotmail years ago. Hotmail was a pure linux solution.

Nope. FreeBSD.

 

[sporkwitch]

Happysin[/url]":23sh2mgq]^^I love how you're still pulling out that old canard, even though those actions happened well over a decade ago under different leadership.

I love how you haven't seen it continuing without having ever stopped, under the current leadership.[mod=an ad hom attack]But your worship of MSFT has always been well-known, Happysin.[/mod]

 

[lwatcdr]

My wife and just bought a Nook HD+ for my mother in law for Mother's day. It is actually a really good device. I have a Kindle Fire first gen, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10. My wife has a Nexus 7 and an iPad so we are pretty tech savy and have used a lot of tablets.
The Nook HD feels much lighter than the iPad Retina and the Nexus 10 and bigger than the 7. It is snappy and frankly really inexpensive. Now that it has the Play store it is a good option IMHO.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

I love how you haven't seen it continuing without having ever stopped, under the current leadership.

Uh, they actually did stop doing a lot of that, in no small part because they were legally obligated to and/or because they didn't want to get mixed up with regulators again.

There's a whole new generation working at MS now that has grown professionally in a cross-platform world. They're embracing it. Naturally they're going to be MS-first (as you would expect from any company), but they've definitely acknowledged that they can't just stand alone.

Further, the companies they have bought since then have been integrated and expanded, for the most part. Great Plains, Adxapa, Navision, Solomon, FAST and Proclarity, Yammer, Skype, Visio (yup, an acquisition), numerous web search engines and tech that have become Bing, GIANT anti-spyware, etc.

MS's acquisitions these days are by and large kept and used. Worst-case, the tech and the human expertise get moved to an existing platform. Microsoft isn't near as bad as say, Yahoo, on the buy-and-kill these days.

 

[sporkwitch]

Happysin[/url]":1dpe640q]

I love how you haven't seen it continuing without having ever stopped, under the current leadership.

Uh, they actually did stop doing a lot of that, in no small part because they were legally obligated to and/or because they didn't want to get mixed up with regulators again.

There's a whole new generation working at MS now that has grown professionally in a cross-platform world. They're embracing it. Naturally they're going to be MS-first (as you would expect from any company), but they've definitely acknowledged that they can't just stand alone.

Further, the companies they have bought since then have been integrated and expanded, for the most part. Great Plains, Adxapa, Navision, Solomon, FAST and Proclarity, Yammer, Skype, Visio (yup, an acquisition), numerous web search engines and tech that have become Bing, GIANT anti-spyware, etc.

MS's acquisitions these days are by and large kept and used. Worst-case, the tech and the human expertise get moved to an existing platform. Microsoft isn't near as bad as say, Yahoo, on the buy-and-kill these days.

So what you're saying is that they didn't continue to spend fortunes spreading anti-FOSS and anti-Linux propaganda? (they did)

They didn't release a known-faulty X-Box 360 and use their funds from existing monopolies to sustain an otherwise unsustainable product? (they did)

They didn't continue making unnecessary changes for the sole purpose of breaking compatibility with product offerings they didn't like (e.g. sound cards, iPods, driver signing that won't stay disabled, etc.)?

They didn't ignore multiple terms of the rulings? (browser ballot springs to mind)

Using Nokia to fight it's anti-Android war using arguments that would defeat its own defenses in its own cases.

Feeding "advocacy groups" to legislate or litigate fair competition away and keeping their own name out of it (e.g. Fair Search, among countless others).

UEFI secure boot must default to being on (and UEFI in general; holy fuck is that shit a buggy mess).

The list goes on.

As to their specific acquisitions, yes, they buy their way into a market, as per the usual. They will then do whatever is necessary, including the abuse of monopoly power in other industries to sustain it if it's unsustainable itself.

The only changes to MSFT over the years have been the bare minimum to survive. They've learned to move more quietly to avoid the break-up they were supposed to get at the turn of the millennium. They will contribute where necessary to make their own products work better in markets they can't buy marketshare in (e.g. kernel contributions to linux for their hyper-v; this is about the ONLY good change in the company).

They are still a company that will and does use any and every dirty trick they think they can get away with to succeed, regardless of the legality, and even regardless of prior rulings. There is no rehabilitating a monopolist that obtained its monopoly illicitly, just look at the telcos that have even managed to come just shy of completely re-forming Ma Bell even after the type of break-up MSFT was supposed to (and should) get. Healthy economies are not possible in the face of megacorporations infecting so many aspects of it, with so much conflict of interest between the company and the people.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

So what you're saying is that they didn't continue to spend fortunes spreading anti-FOSS and anti-Linux propaganda? (they did)

...and yet you can use lots of FOSS/Linux systems and tools just fine with Microsoft platforms, even their virtualization platforms like Hyper-V, and have their own open-source repositories like Codeplex. Oh, and have contributed non-trivially to both Linux itself and Firefox.

They didn't release a known-faulty X-Box 360 and use their funds from existing monopolies to sustain an otherwise unsustainable product? (they did)

The first part of your question is debatable, and they did the right thing by extending the warranty to cover everyone who suffered through those hardware failures. The second half of your claim is nothing more than "when did you stop beating your wife?" It presumes guilt. All large companies spend money from profitable divisions to support new platforms and business lines. That's just standard practice. Of course Microsoft did that, it's virtually impossible not to.

They didn't continue making unnecessary changes for the sole purpose of breaking compatibility with product offerings they didn't like (e.g. sound cards, iPods, driver signing that won't stay disabled, etc.)?

Do you realize how silly that sounds? Why would MS care about sound cards? driver signing is purely about managing security and stability of the system. Do you have some substantive evidence there was malfeasance for the above?

They didn't ignore multiple terms of the rulings? (browser ballot springs to mind)

Please show me how they ignored it. I remember them breaking the browser ballot once, fixing it, and then paying a fine to the EU to cover when the ballot wasn't available. Is that what you're talking about?

Using Nokia to fight it's anti-Android war using arguments that would defeat its own defenses in its own cases.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this sentence. Considering how many Android handset makers now directly license IP from Microsoft, I would think it's safe to say that MS has no problem fighting it's own battles with Android. Is there something else I'm missing?

Feeding "advocacy groups" to legislate or litigate fair competition away and keeping their own name out of it (e.g. Fair Search, among countless others).

While I agree these are rather silly, they're a direct result of the DOJ investigation, when MS realized that they're playing in the big leagues, and need to actually pay attention to what happens in Washington DC. Every company the size of Microsoft has advocacy groups and lobbyists. It's how the game is played at that level.

UEFI secure boot must default to being on (and UEFI in general; holy fuck is that shit a buggy mess).

...and? UEFI isn't a Microsoft invention. Apple started using before MS even supported it, as I recall. So its status as a buggy mess is hardly relevant to an MS conversation. Further, so what if UEFI is secure by default? It doesn't stop Linux/FOSS hackers from using the device as they want, so I'm not sure what the issue is here.

So I don't see anything in your list that isn't either you tilting at windmills, or falls into the "well duh, they're a large business and that's what you do as a large business". If you have some specific examples I'm missing, I'd be glad to take a look.

And to be clear, I am not saying MS is a perfect little angel of a company now. They're a lumbering behemoth with an outsize influence on the industry. They still step on toes and cross lines, my only claim is they aren't any worse than any other large company now. A claim that wasn't true in the '90s, when they really did exploit their position. Oh, and that the internal culture of the company has fundamentally changed to avoid practices that's going to land them on the wrong side of the DOJ or EU again.

 

[sporkwitch]

@happysin

You're welcome to live your dreams. I'll keep watching them continue "competing" the same way they've done since their incorporation.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

sporkwitch[/url]":1e9kaige]@happysin

You're welcome to live your dreams. I'll keep watching them continue "competing" the same way they've done since their incorporation.

...except they literally aren't. There are no contracts that prevent competing OSs from OEMs. You can claim they are "competing" in was similar to how they did, but in a very real way, they aren't doing anything like what they got called to task for by the DOJ and the EU.

 

[sporkwitch]

Happysin[/url]":2mdx48yc]

sporkwitch[/url]":2mdx48yc]@happysin

You're welcome to live your dreams. I'll keep watching them continue "competing" the same way they've done since their incorporation.

...except they literally aren't. There are no contracts that prevent competing OSs from OEMs. You can claim they are "competing" in was similar to how they did, but in a very real way, they aren't doing anything like what they got called to task for by the DOJ and the EU.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

You do realize how much the EU regulatory commission has a hardon for fining MS, right? If MS doesn't toe the line, they're going to get hit. They're not going to get away with the stuff they did in the '90s. There's simply too much oversight now compared to then.

 

[sporkwitch]

Happysin[/url]":3oqtu7ld]

You do realize how much the EU regulatory commission has a hardon for fining MS, right? If MS doesn't toe the line, they're going to get hit. They're not going to get away with the stuff they did in the '90s. There's simply too much oversight now compared to then.

By "oversight," do you mean letting them self-report their own compliance?

Seriously now, about that bridge...

 

[yet_another_wumpus]

ws3[/url]":29q2q9cg]

SogiYa[/url]":29q2q9cg]This pisses me off; the main reason Borders got killed off is because market analysts downgraded them for not staying competitive with the nook.

Now, barely two-ish years later, B&N is admitting that the Nook is a pile of shit and killing it off.

WTF; I WANT MY BORDERS BACK!

Eh, Borders sucked too.

If you weren't around before B&N and Borders together killed off all the good independent bookstores, then I'm sorry for you.

[I know about later commentary, but this is what I have a problem with].

The other catch is that "all the good independent bookstores" seem to be deep downtown. Back during the rise of Borders, my local bookstores were Waldenbooks and B.J.Dalton's. The difference between a Borders and them was night and day.

I should also point out that when I first encountered a Borders, it was before K-Mart bought them out. For all I know, it was started and staffed before Borders went public. Some years later (well after the buyout) that same store moved across the road and was built as a standard corporate Borders. The difference was staggering. The old one was like independent bookstore done right, the new one was a corporate big box. I should also point out that by the time I saw the new one, I could walk to both an official and unofficial college book store, so it took way more than just "better than a Waldenbooks" to impress me at that point (although I would be happy for even that level during breaks).

 

[reflex-croft]

sporkwitch[/url]":301v9yyi]@happysin

You're welcome to live your dreams. I'll keep watching them continue "competing" the same way they've done since their incorporation.

"I reject your reality and substitute it for my own!"