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Paul Merrell

Christine A. Varney to Participate in Eighth Annual International Competition Network C... - 0 views

4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com/...4200887.htm

antitrust policy Obama Administration

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 May 09 - Cached
  • Christine A. Varney, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division, will participate in the eighth annual International Competition Network (ICN) conference in Zurich, Switzerland, from June 3-5, 2009. At the conference, senior government antitrust officials, private-sector antitrust experts from around the world, and representatives from intergovernmental organizations will meet to discuss competition issues.
  • The ICN conference will focus on the recent accomplishments of its five substantive working groups which address: unilateral conduct, mergers, cartels, advocacy and competition policy implementation. Conference panels will include discussions on proposed Recommended Practices for Substantive Merger Analysis and the analysis of tying and discounting arrangements, and will promote the general exchange of views regarding competition law and policy among the participants. Members also will finalize work programs for the coming year.
  • In October 2001, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) joined with antitrust agencies from 13 other jurisdictions around the world (Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Zambia) to create the ICN. The ICN now includes 107 member agencies from 96 jurisdictions. The goal of the ICN is to provide a forum for antitrust agencies to address antitrust enforcement and policy issues of common interest and formulate proposals for procedural and substantive convergence through a results-oriented agenda and structure.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 May 09
     
    Look for more Obama Administration antitrust policy announcements to flow from the June 3-5 conference announced here. This is the annual conference where antitrust policy changes can be announced to all competition regulators globally. The Obama Administration will not waste that opportunity.
Gary Edwards

Two Microsofts: Mulling an alternate reality | ZDNet - 0 views

www.zdnet.com/n-alternate-reality-7000016916

Microsoft microsoft-monopoly Judge-Thomas-Penfield-Jackson

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Judge Jackson had it right. And the Court of Appeals? Not so much
  • Judge Jackson is an American hero and news of his passing thumped me hard. His ruling against Microsoft and the subsequent overturn of that ruling resulted, IMHO, in two extraordinary directions that changed the world. Sure the what-if game is interesting, but the reality itself is stunning enough. Of course, Judge Jackson sought to break the monopoly. The US Court of Appeals overturn resulted in the monopoly remaining intact, but the Internet remaining free and open. Judge Jackson's breakup plan had a good shot at achieving both a breakup of the monopoly and, a free and open Internet. I admit though that at the time I did not favor the Judge's plan. And i actually did submit a proposal based on Microsoft having to both support the WiNE project, and, provide a complete port to WiNE to any software provider requesting a port. I wanted to break the monopolist's hold on the Windows Productivity Environment and the hundreds of millions of investment dollars and time that had been spent on application development forever trapped on that platform. For me, it was the productivity platform that had to be broken.
  • I assume the good Judge thought that separating the Windows OS from Microsoft Office / Applications would force the OS to open up the secret API's even as the OS continued to evolve. Maybe. But a full disclosure of the API's coupled with the community service "port to WiNE" requirement might have sped up the process. Incredibly, the "Undocumented Windows Secrets" industry continues to thrive, and the legendary Andrew Schulman's number is still at the top of Silicon Valley legal profession speed dials. http://goo.gl/0UGe8 Oh well. The Court of Appeals stopped the breakup, leaving the Windows Productivity Platform intact. Microsoft continues to own the "client" in "Client/Server" computing. Although Microsoft was temporarily stopped from leveraging their desktop monopoly to an iron fisted control and dominance of the Internet, I think what were watching today with the Cloud is Judge Jackson's worst nightmare. And mine too. A great transition is now underway, as businesses and enterprises begin the move from legacy client/server business systems and processes to a newly emerging Cloud Productivity Platform. In this great transition, Microsoft holds an inside straight. They have all the aces because they own the legacy desktop productivity platform, and can control the transition to the Cloud. No doubt this transition is going to happen. And it will severely disrupt and change Microsoft's profit formula. But if the Redmond reprobate can provide a "value added" transition of legacy business systems and processes, and direct these new systems to the Microsoft Cloud, the profits will be immense.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Judge Jackson sought to break the ability of Microsoft to "leverage" their existing monopoly into the Internet and his plan was overturned and replaced by one based on judicial oversight. Microsoft got a slap on the wrist from the Court of Appeals, but were wailed on with lawsuits from the hundreds of parties injured by their rampant criminality. Some put the price of that criminality as high as $14 Billion in settlements. Plus, the shareholders forced Chairman Bill to resign. At the end of the day though, Chairman Bill was right. Keeping the monopoly intact was worth whatever penalty Microsoft was forced to pay. He knew that even the judicial over-site would end one day. Which it did. And now his company is ready to go for it all by leveraging and controlling the great productivity transition. No business wants to be hostage to a cold heart'd monopolist. But there is huge difference between a non-disruptive and cost effective, process-by-process value-added transition to a Cloud Productivity Platform, and, the very disruptive and costly "rip-out-and-replace" transition offered by Google, ZOHO, Box, SalesForce and other Cloud Productivity contenders. Microsoft, and only Microsoft, can offer the value-added transition path. If they get the Cloud even halfway right, they will own business productivity far into the future. Rest in Peace Judge Jackson. Your efforts were heroic and will be remembered as such. ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 13
     
    Comments on the latest SVN article mulling the effects of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's anti trust ruling and proposed break up of Microsoft. comment: "Chinese Wall" Ummm, there was a Chinese Wall between Microsoft Os and the MS Applciations layer. At least that's what Chairman Bill promised developers at a 1990 OS/2-Windows Conference I attended. It was a developers luncheon, hosted by Microsoft, with Chairman Bill speaking to about 40 developers with applications designed to run on the then soon to be released Windows 3.0. In his remarks, the Chairman described his vision of commoditizing the personal computer market through an open hardware-reference platform on the one side of the Windows OS, and provisioning an open application developers layer on the other using open and totally transparent API's. Of course the question came up concerning the obvious advantage Microsoft applications would have. Chairman Bill answered the question by describing the Chinese Wall that existed between Microsoft's OS and Apps develop departments. He promised that OS API's would be developed privately and separate from the Apps department, and publicly disclosed to ALL developers at the same time. Oh yeah. There was lots of anti IBM - evil empire stuff too :) Of course we now know this was a line of crap. Microsoft Apps was discovered to have been using undocumented and secret Window API's. http://goo.gl/0UGe8. Microsoft Apps had a distinct advantage over the competition, and eventually the entire Windows Productivity Platform became dependent on the MSOffice core. The company I worked for back then, Pyramid Data, had the first Contact Management application for Windows; PowerLeads. Every Friday night we would release bug fixes and improvements using Wildcat BBS. By Monday morning we would be slammed with calls from users complaining that they had downloaded the Friday night patch, and now some other application would not load or function properly. Eventually we tracked th
Paul Merrell

News - Antitrust - Competition - European Commission - 0 views

ec.europa.eu/...news.html

antitrust Google European Commission DG Competition Android comarison-shopping-search

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Google inquiries Commission accuses Google of systematically favouring own shopping comparison service Infographic: Google might be favouring 'Google Shopping' when displaying general search results
  • Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Google on comparison shopping service; opens separate formal investigation on AndroidWed, 15 Apr 2015 10:00:00 GMTAntitrust: Commission opens formal investigation against Google in relation to Android mobile operating systemWed, 15 Apr 2015 10:00:00 GMTAntitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Google on comparison shopping serviceWed, 15 Apr 2015 10:00:00 GMTStatement by Commissioner Vestager on antitrust decisions concerning GoogleWed, 15 Apr 2015 11:39:00 GMT
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 15
     
    The more interesting issue to me is the accusation that Google violates antitrust law by boosting its comparison shopping search results in its search results, unfairly disadvantaging competing shopping services and not delivering best results to users. What's interesting to me is that the Commission is attempting to portray general search as a separate market from comparison shopping search, accusing Google of attempting to leverage its general search monopoly into the separate comoparison shopping search market. At first blush, Iim not convinced that these are or should be regarded as separable markets. But the ramifications are enormous. If that is a separate market, then arguably so is Google's book search, its Google Scholar search, its definition search, its site search, etc. It isn't clear to me how one might draw a defensible line taht does not also sweep in every new search feature  as a separate market.   
Gary Edwards

Op-Ed Contributor - Microsoft's Creative Destruction - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04brass.html

Microsoft dick-brass innovation creative-destruction

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 10
     
    Dick Brass, former VP at Microsoft (1997-2004) unloads.  He describes how legacy product groups, like the Windows OS and MSOffice groups, conspire to defeat smaller groups focused on emerging and innovative solutions.  Excellent read. excerpt:  Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It's not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft's music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left. As a result, while the company has had a truly amazing past and an enviably prosperous present, unless it regains its creative spark, it's an open question whether it has much of a future.
Paul Merrell

Working to Fulfill our Legal Obligations in Europe for Windows 7 - Microsoft On The Issues - 0 views

microsoftontheissues.com/...s-in-europe-for-windows-7.aspx

Microsoft antitrust MSIE Windows7 EU

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Earlier today CNET reported that Microsoft had sent a memo to computer manufacturers and retailers about our plans for Windows 7 in Europe.  We’re getting quite a few calls on this, so we thought it would be helpful to explain our plans.
  • In January the European Commission provided its preliminary view that Microsoft’s “bundling” of Internet Explorer in Windows violated European competition law.
  • Windows 7 will be offered in Europe in all of the versions that will be available here in the United States, both 32- and 64-bit, with an “E” at the end of the product name (for instance, Windows 7 Home Premium E).  The E versions of Windows 7 will ship at the same time as Windows 7 ships in the rest of the world, and they will be available in 23 European languages. What does this mean for European consumers?  The E versions of Windows 7 will include all the features and functionality of Windows 7 in the rest of the world, other than browsing with Internet Explorer.  Computer manufacturers will be able to add any browser they want to their Windows 7 machines, including Internet Explorer, so European consumers who purchase new PCs will be able to access the Internet without any problem.  Consumers will also be able to add any Web browser to their PCs, to supplement or replace the browsers preinstalled by their computer manufacturer.  Most importantly, the E versions of Windows 7 will continue to provide all of the underlying platform functionality of the operating system—applications designed for Windows will run just as well on an E version as on other versions of Windows 7. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Our decision to only offer IE separately from Windows 7 in Europe cannot, of course, preclude the possibility of alternative approaches emerging through Commission processes.  Other alternatives have been raised in the Commission proceedings, including possible inclusion in Windows 7 of alternative browsers or a “ballot screen” that would prompt users to choose from a specific set of Web browsers.  Important details of these approaches would need to be worked out in coordination with the Commission, since they would have a significant impact on computer manufacturers and Web browser vendors, whose interests may differ.   Given the complexity and competing interests, we don’t believe it would be best for us to adopt such an approach unilaterally. 
  • In January 2009 the Commission sent Microsoft a “Statement of Objections.” In it the Commission advised Microsoft of its preliminary view that the inclusion of Web browsing software in Windows violates European competition law. The Commission said in this document that it intends to impose a fine for this. The Commission also said that, with hindsight, the remedy adopted in its 2004 decision was not effective because there was very limited consumer demand for the versions of Windows without media player. We were, of course, disappointed to learn that the approach we took in September 2008 would not adequately address the Commission’s concerns. Microsoft filed its response to the Commission’s Statement of Objections in April. We believe we made a strong showing that including Internet Explorer in Windows is lawful so that no remedy is needed. We hope that the Commission will ultimately agree with us. In the meantime, we have to move forward with final planning for the release of Windows 7, so we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately. As noted, we will continue to discuss browser issues and other matters with the Commission.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jun 09
     
    Note the emphasis that this is a unilateral move by Microsoft and a different remedy may still be forthcoming from DG Competition. In particular, not only the remedy as to bundling may be different, but other related issues remain, such as Opera's complaint that Microsoft had been undermining Open Web standards with inadequate support.
Paul Merrell

Excite News - EU files antitrust charges against Google - 0 views

apnews.excite.com/...-europe-google-bd4bb7b354.html

Google European Commission antitrust search Android DG-Competition

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's competition chief is filing an antitrust complaint alleging Google has been abusing its dominance in Internet searches and is opening a probe into its Android mobile system.EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Wednesday she is "concerned that the company has given an unfair advantage to its own comparison shopping service."Vestager said the separate antitrust probe into Android will investigate whether the Internet giant relies on anti-competitive deals and abuses its dominant position in Europe's mobile market.Vestager said her chief goal was to make sure multinationals "do not artificially deny European consumers as wide a choice as possible or stifle innovation".Google's general counsel Kent Walker wrote late Tuesday that a "statement of objections" to Google's business practices was to be released by Vestager Wednesday.
Paul Merrell

Rural America and the 5G Digital Divide. Telecoms Expanding Their "Toxic Infrastructure... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5684074

broadband wireless rural 5G regulation

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 19 - No Cached
  • While there is considerable telecom hubris regarding the 5G rollout and increasing speculation that the next generation of wireless is not yet ready for Prime Time, the industry continues to make promises to Rural America that it has no intention of fulfilling. Decades-long promises to deliver digital Utopia to rural America by T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T have never materialized.  
  • In 2017, the USDA reported that 29% of American farms had no internet access. The FCC says that 14 million rural Americans and 1.2 million Americans living on tribal lands do not have 4G LTE on their phones, and that 30 million rural residents do not have broadband service compared to 2% of urban residents.  It’s beginning to sound like a Third World country. Despite an FCC $4.5 billion annual subsidy to carriers to provide broadband service in rural areas, the FCC reports that ‘over 24 million Americans do not have access to high-speed internet service, the bulk of them in rural area”while a  Microsoft Study found that  “162 million people across the US do not have internet service at broadband speeds.” At the same time, only three cable companies have access to 70% of the market in a sweetheart deal to hike rates as they avoid competition and the FCC looks the other way.  The FCC believes that it would cost $40 billion to bring broadband access to 98% of the country with expansion in rural America even more expensive.  While the FCC has pledged a $2 billion, ten year plan to identify rural wireless locations, only 4 million rural American businesses and homes will be targeted, a mere drop in the bucket. Which brings us to rural mapping: Since the advent of the digital age, there have been no accurate maps identifying where broadband service is available in rural America and where it is not available.  The FCC has a long history of promulgating unreliable and unverified carrier-provided numbers as the Commission has repeatedly ‘bungled efforts to produce accurate broadband maps” that would have facilitated rural coverage. During the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on April 10th regarding broadband mapping, critical testimony questioned whether the FCC and/or the telecom industry have either the commitment or the proficiency to provide 5G to rural America.  Members of the Committee shared concerns that 5G might put rural America further behind the curve so as to never catch up with the rest of the country
Paul Merrell

States to launch antitrust investigation into big tech companies, reports say | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...big-tech-companies-reports-say

antitrust investigations Google Facebook Amazon Apple

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • The state attorneys in more than a dozen states are preparing to begin an antitrust investigation of the tech giants, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported Monday, putting the spotlight on an industry that is already facing federal scrutiny.The bipartisan group of attorneys from as many as 20 states is expected to formally launch a probe as soon as next month to assess whether tech companies are using their dominant market position to hurt competition, the WSJ reported.If true, the move follows the Department of Justice, which last month announced its own antitrust review of how online platforms scaled to their gigantic sizes and whether they are using their power to curb competition and stifle innovation. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission formed a task force to monitor competition among tech platforms.
Paul Merrell

48 States Investigating Whether Google's Dominance Hurts Competition : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...es-dominance-hurts-competition

Google Facebook antitrust-investigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • State attorneys general of 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia announced a major probe Monday into Google's dominance in search and advertising for practices that harm competition as well as consumers. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading the bipartisan pack.
  • The investigation includes all the states, except for California and Alabama.
  • Google has the power to put a user on page 1 or 100. European regulators have charged Google with abusing that power and, following years-long investigations, they issued multi-billion-dollar fines. The tech giant, along with Facebook, controls nearly 60% of all digital advertising, according to eMarketer. A wide range of businesses that must publicize their services — be it a hair stylist, a hospital or a Fortune 500 company — must abide by the terms and prices set by two companies. But, as eMarketer notes, the duopoly's control is diminishing as Amazon grows.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Last week Google disclosed that, in addition to state-level government action, the Justice Department has asked the company to hand over documents.
  • Led by New York, attorneys general from eight states and the District of Columbia announced a probe into Facebook as well.
Gary Edwards

The End of the Battery - Getting All Charged Up over Supercapacitors - Casey Research - 0 views

www.caseyresearch.com/cdd

Casey-Research Technology Alex-Daley SuperCapacitors

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Apr 13
     
    Very interesting article describing the near market ready potential of "supercapacitor" batteries.   This is truly game changer stuff, and very interesting to me since i've been following the research and development of "graphene technologies" for some time.  The graphene superconductor targets the future of both energy and computing.  But graphene is also at the cutting edge of "faster, better, cheaper" water desalinization!  Nor does it take a rocket scientist to see that a graphene nano latice will have an enormous impact on methods of separating water (H2O) atoms to create an electical current - a cost free flow of electons.   Very well written research! excerpt: "an article in the recent issue of Nature Communications on a novel way to mass-produce so-called superconductors on the super-cheap - using no more equipment than the average home CD/DVD burner. Hacked together by a group of research scientists at UCLA, the ingenious technique is a way of producing layers of microscopically nuanced lattices called graphene, an essential component of many superconductor designs. It holds the promise of rapidly dropping prices for what was until now a very expensive process. You see, we've known about the concept of supercapacitors for decades. In fact, their antecedent, the capacitor, is one of the fundamental building blocks of electronics. Long before the Energizer Bunny starting banging its away around our television screens, engineers had been using capacitors to store electrical charge - originally as filters to help tune signals clearly on wireless radios of all sorts. The devices did so by storing and releasing excess energy, but only teeny amounts of it... we're talking millions of them to hold what a simple AA battery can. Over the years, however, scientists worked on increasing their storage capacity. Way back in 1957, engineers at General Electric came up with the first supercapacitor... but back then there were no uses for it. So, the technology
Gary Edwards

FeedHenry Secures $9M Funding Led By Intel Capital To Feed Boom in Mobile Enterprise | ... - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...feed-boom-in-mobile-enterprise

FeedHenry Mobile-Application-Platform Integrated-Cloud BaaS

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 May 13
     
    FeedHenry provides a cloud Mobile Application Platform that simplifies the development, integration, deployment and management of secure mobile apps for business. This mobile platform-as-a-service (PaaS) allows apps to be developed in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS and deployed to multiple mobile devices from a single code base. The node.js backend service offers a complete range of APIs designed to simplify and secure the connectivity of mobile apps to backend and third party systems. The platform can be deployed to private, public or hybrid clouds. FeedHenry's PaaS offers developers speed of development, instant scalability, device and cloud independence, and the ability to easily integrate to backend information. ................................ If, say, a company uses both Sharepoint and Salesforce inside a mobile app, to get that data into one app they need multiple levels of API integration. Because of the enormous boom in mobile and tablet apps, so-called 'back-end as a service' (BaaS) platforms like FeedHenry - which solve these problems - are hugely expanding. Thus, today FeedHenry has secured $9M (€7M) in a funding round led by Intel Capital, alongside a "seven figure" investment from existing investor Kernel Capital. Other existing investors VMware Inc., Enterprise Ireland and private investors also participated and were joined by new investment from ACT Venture Capital. The funds will be used on an international roll out. FeedHenry's mobile application platform - built between Ireland and the U.S. - helps businesses build mobile apps that integrate securely to their business through the cloud. This is a competitive market that includes StackMob, Usergrid, Appcelerator, Sencha.io, Applicasa ,Parse, CloudMine , CloudyRec , iKnode, yorAPI, Buddy and ScottyApp.
Gary Edwards

Office to finally fully support ODF, Open XML, and PDF formats | ZDNet - 0 views

www.zdnet.com/xml-and-pdf-formats-7000002696

ODF ODF-interop MSOffice-productivity Cloud-Compound-Document

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 22 Aug 12
     
    The king of clicks returns!  No doubt there was a time when the mere mention of ODF and the now legendary XML "document" format wars with Microsoft could drive click counts into the statisphere.  Sorry to say though, those times are long gone. It's still a good story though.  Even if the fate of mankind and the future of the Internet no longer hinges on the outcome.  There is that question that continues defy answer; "Did Microsoft win or lose?"  So the mere announcement of supported formats in MSOffice XX is guaranteed to rev the clicks somewhat. Veteran ODF clickmeister SVN does make an interesting observation though: "The ironic thing is that, while this was as hotly debated am issue in the mid-2000s as are mobile patents and cloud implementation is today, this news was barely noticed. That's a mistake. Updegrove points out, "document interoperability and vendor neutrality matter more now than ever before as paper archives disappear and literally all of human knowledge is entrusted to electronic storage." He concluded, "Only if documents can be easily exchanged and reliably accessed on an ongoing basis will competition in the present be preserved, and the availability of knowledge down through the ages be assured. Without robust, universally adopted document formats, both of those goals will be impossible to attain." Updegrove's right of course. Don't believe me? Go into your office's archives and try to bring up documents your wrote in the 90s in WordPerfect or papers your staff created in the 80s with WordStar. If you don't want to lose your institutional memory, open document standards support is more important than ever. "....................................... Sorry but Updegrove is wrong.  Woefully wrong. The Web is the future.  Sure interoperability matters, but only as far as the Web and the future of Cloud Computing is concerned.  Sadly neither ODF or Open XML are Web ready.  The language of the Web is famously HTML, now HTML5+
Paul Merrell

Which HTML5? - WHATWG and W3C Split - 0 views

www.i-programmer.info/...tml5-whatwg-and-w3c-split.html

HTML5 fork WHATWG W3C antitrust conspiracy

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 12
     
    A "Living Standard?" Sorry, WHATWG, but "standard" has a legal definition and minimum requirements; you're operating outside the law. WHATWG chooses what they think they can get away with and ignoring competition law.
Paul Merrell

Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers | Ars Technica - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...g-all-images-on-google-servers

Google Gmail images antitrust

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 13
     
    There's an antitrust angle to this; it could be viewed by a court as anti-competitive. But given the prevailing winds on digital privacy, my guess would be that Google would slide by.
Paul Merrell

FCC 'very much' eyeing Web rules shakeup | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...-much-eyeing-web-rules-shakeup

net-neutrality FCC cable-ISPs

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 14
     
    Of course Comcast, et ilk don't want Title II regulation. "Hey, just because we've divvied up the turf so that we've got geographical monopolies doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to leverage our monopolies into new monopolies." But the big cable companies got where they are by buying up community-granted and regulated monopoly utility companies. As part of consolidating those markets, the soon-to-be-gnormous cable companies, lobbied to get community regulation weakened and here we are with the FCC, with the cable companies now acting as ISPs too, which is straightforward telecommunications provider service, and these guys want to be able to charge a premium to the big internet content companies for fast-service after their ISP customers have already paid for fast service? So they can slow down the competition for their own content services.  Heck, yes, FCC. No one forced Comcast and crew to become telecommunications providers. Make 'em live with telecommunications regulation like all the other telcos. They are government-created monopolies and they should be regulated as such.   
Gary Edwards

Google's iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary | Ars Tec... - 1 views

arstechnica.com/...-source-by-any-means-necessary

AOSP Android-Google Google

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Nov 13
     
    Perhaps the best article about Google that I've ever read. The author describes the many insidious methods and requirements that Google uses to dominate and totally control the Android Open Source Project, and the incredible Android ecosystem that has grown up around that oss project. This is a must read! Intro: "Six years ago, in November 2007, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. The original iPhone came out just a few months earlier, capturing people's imaginations and ushering in the modern smartphone era. While Google was an app partner for the original iPhone, it could see what a future of unchecked iPhone competition would be like. Vic Gundotra, recalling Andy Rubin's initial pitch for Android, stated: He argued that if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice. Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold whatsoever, Android was launched as an open source project. In that era, Google had nothing, so any adoption-any shred of market share-was welcome. Google decided to give Android away for free and use it as a trojan horse for Google services. The thinking went that if Google Search was one day locked out of the iPhone, people would stop using Google Search on the desktop. Android was the "moat" around the Google Search "castle"-it would exist to protect Google's online properties in the mobile world."
Gary Edwards

IBM Declares War on Standards Process | BNET - 0 views

industry.bnet.com/...lares-war-on-standards-process

ibm standards

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 30 Sep 09
     
    Is this the wrath of Sutor?  Last week he threw the Linux desktop under the bus.  And now this?  No wonder @rcweir  has shut down the slime machine. excerpt:  IBM has essentially declared war on the technical standards process. The words seem supportive enough, but when you read between them, you can see that a systematic round of arm-twisting is likely about to happen. Anyone who knows tech is used to the dance that standard setting is. Experts from various companies serve on the committees, each with a sense of what ought to work "best" and trying to wrangle decisions in their direction. This is competitive dominance in action and the stakes are high. That's what makes Big Blue's more-collegial-than-thou stance so amusing, with the following "tenets":
Gary Edwards

Windows Phone 7: An In-depth Look at the Features and Interface - PCWorld - 0 views

www.pcworld.com/...he_features_and_interface.html

BPOS Windows-7 Office-Hub People-Hub Sharepoint

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Microsoft's hardware partners include Dell, HTC, Garmin ASUS, LG, Samsung, SE, Toshiba, HP and Qualcomm. NVIDIA, which provided the Tegra chip in the Zune HD hardware, is noticeably absent. Microsoft had no comment.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Feb 10
       
      This is interesting!  Nvidia not invited to Microsoft's Windows 7 coming out?  Things must be heating up on the gaming platform.  
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Feb 10
     
    The Barcelona World Mobility Conference is under way, and Microsoft is making a show of force.  They are hitting with features that support both "Social Network Hubs" (People Hub) and "Productivity Hubs" (Office Hub).  The key to Microsoft's Windows 7 Smartphone success is not that of new and exciting features competitive with Apple and Google smartphones.  No, the key feature that Microsoft owns is that of integration into legacy desktop productivity business systems based on the MSOffice productivity platform, and, more importantly, integration into the emerging Web centered but proprietary Microsoft Business Productivity Platform.  Stay tuned. excerpt on the new Windows 7 feature set:  The Office Hub lets you easily sync your documents between your phone and your PC. Office Hub comes with OneNote, for notetaking, Documents and Sharepoint for presentation collaboration. Users will also have access to an Outlook Mail application which gives similar features, like flagging important e-mails, that you'd find on the desktop version.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft vs. EU Case T-201/04 WorkGroup Servers and Interoperability - 0 views

curia.europa.eu/...gettext.pl

interop workgroup anti-trust Microsoft

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Dec 09 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Dec 09
     
    JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Grand Chamber) 17 September 2007 (*) (Competition - Abuse of dominant position - Client PC operating systems - Work group server operating systems - Streaming media players - Decision finding infringements of Article 82 EC - Refusal of the dominant undertaking to supply and authorise the use of interoperability information - Supply by the dominant undertaking of its client PC operating system conditional on the simultaneous acquisition of its media player - Remedies - Appointment of an independent monitoring trustee - Fine - Determination of the amount - Proportionality) In Case T-201/04, Microsoft Corp., established in Redmond, Washington (United States), represented by J.-F. Bellis, lawyer, and I. Forrester QC,
Gary Edwards

Google acquisitions may signal big push against Microsoft Office | VentureBeat - 0 views

deals.venturebeat.com/...s-acquisitions-office-docverse

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shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Dec 09
     
    Google has been making a number of acquisitions that are clearly Docs-related. Over the weekend, TechCrunch reported that the search giant is in the final stages of talks to acquire DocVerse, a startup that lets users collaborate around Office documents, for $25 million. The deal would also bring Google some key hires, since the startup's co-founders were managers on SharePoint, Microsoft's popular collaboration service. This follows the November acquisition of AppJet, a company founded by former Googlers that created a collaborative word processor. (It's worth noting that Google Docs itself was the offspring of several acquisitions, including Google's purchase of Writely.) Meanwhile, Google has been talking up the splash it wants Google Docs to make in 2010. Don Dodge, who just made the move from Microsoft to Google, recently told me, "2010 is going to be the year of Gmail and Google Docs and Google Apps." Even more concretely, Enterprise President Dave Girouard said last month that Docs will see 30 to 50 improvements over the next year, at which point big companies will be able to "get rid of Office if they choose to." Presumably features from AppJet and DocVerse will be among those improvements. I'd certainly be thrilled to see the battle between Office Docs become a real competition, rather than upstart Google slowly chipping away at Microsoft's Office behemoth.
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