CCIA chief defends Microsoft payment
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Ed Black, president of the CCIA, has defended his organisation&#39;s decision to take a settlement payment from Microsoft. The Washington DC-based CCIA (Computer and Communications Industry Association) this month
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Claims that Ed Black, one of Microsoft&#39;s most vociferous opponents, has pocketed millions of dollars in a settlement with the software giant will be greeted with fury by the company&#39;s opponents.
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Although Microsoft Corp. has long been criticized for security flaws in its software, those days -- while not exactly over -- are receding, according to Scott Charney, corporate vice president of the company's Trustworthy Computing initiative. This is the second half of Charney's interview with Computerworld.
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In a remark reminiscent of its more confrontational days, a Microsoft representative argues that pure open-source software companies can't sustain innovation.
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Microsoft is taking action against US resellers who are using dodgy Certificates of Authenticity (COA) to pass off counterfeit software as the real deal.
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Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer says the software giant is listening to customers, and wants to make the company and its employees more accountable for delivering on its plans.
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A legal row over software ownership could hinder Microsoft&#39;s ability to offer products based on technology from its latest acquisition, anti-spyware company Giant Company Software.
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Microsoft calls in police over employee "abuse" of discount program.
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(InfoWorld) - No one used the 'L' word, but both sides in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust battle in Europe accused each other of lying about basic facts surrounding the latest twist in the long-running saga that emerged Thursday. The European Commission sent Microsoft a so-called statement of objections Thursday accusing the software vendor of failing to provide interoperability information on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." This was a requirement laid out in the landmark 2004 antitrust ruling against the company. In its statement the Commission said the software giant proposes overcharging for vital interoperability information needed by software makers to allow their products to work properly with the Windows operating system. It dismissed almost all of the information Microsoft proposed revealing as not innovative and therefore not worth the price the company wants to charge to license it. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said Microsoft had agreed that the innovativeness of the information should be the main criterion when setting the price, but in a conference call with journalists later Thursday, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith denied his company had agreed innovativeness should be the main criterion. "We told the Commission we believe innovation is one of three main elements. We don't have the same interpretation of what had been established [between Microsoft and the Commission]," he said. Then ECIS, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, accused Microsoft of misleading journalists by citing a study by accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), which, according to the software company, shows that the prices Microsoft wants to charge for licenses to the interoperability information are 30 percent below normal market rates. "It is an outrageous comparison," said Thomas Vinje, ECIS's legal advisor and a partner in the Brussels office of law firm Clifford Chance. "The PWC study compares the prices Microsoft wants to charge with the market price for much more valuable information such as software code, documentation, and full redistribution rights," he said. "What people will get with Microsoft's interoperability information is a lot less valuable. To compare it with the sort of information in the PWC study is like comparing apples with... some withered fruit," he added. The actual prices Microsoft wants to charge for licensing out the interoperability information are too complicated to share with journalists, Microsoft spokesman Tom Brookes said. He warned inquisitive journalists that there is no simple price list. The Commission believes that if all software vendors bought licenses it would amount to around 35 percent of the net profit of the industry. Microsoft's Smith dismissed this, saying: "I don't think you can conclude that." He said that if all vendors bought the licenses the total revenue Microsoft would earn would total around US$30 million -- a tiny fraction of annual software industry profits. "That $30 million figure bears no resemblance to reality, and if Microsoft can't explain how they reached this figure it has absolutely no value," Vinje said. Microsoft has four weeks to respond toÂ the latest statement of objections, after which it faces daily fines of up to â¬3 million (US$3.9 million). In the meantime, the Commission is expected to conclude its assessment of the substance of the interoperability information Microsoft submitted. It doesn't have to be innovative. In fact Microsoft's rivals, including ECIS, argue that much of the information competitors need in order to build their software so that it interoperates with the ubiquitous Windows OS on PCs is quite straightforward. Nevertheless, if it isn't revealed then rivals are stuck, Vinje said. Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told journalists Thursday that Microsoft's continued failure to comply with the antitrust ruling is unprecedented. "In the 50 years of European antitrust policy, it's the first time we've been confronted with a company that has failed to comply with an antitrust decision," he said. "You have to look at their attitude faced with other antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions. This is a company that apparently does not like to have to conform with antitrust decisions," Todd added.
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Microsoft paid $20m(Â£10.6m) to one of its fiercest critics, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, after the group dropped out of an EU anti-trust case against the software giant, it emerged today.
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The former CEO of Computer Associates International Inc. pleaded not guilty to federal securities fraud and other charges Thursday in a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal at the business software maker.
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A VeriSign Inc. official defended its contract to operate the .com domain Monday, after Network Solutions accused the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of not requiring adequate security safeguards in its registry agreements.
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NEW YORK -- The former chief executive officer of Computer Associates pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminal charges stemming from a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal.
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ORLANDO, Fla.âWindows users said actions speak louder than words when it comes to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer&#39;s promise that Microsoft will fix the various security vulnerabilities in his company&#39;s computing platform.
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Executives at Salesforce.com say they don't fear Microsoft's entry into the hosted CRM business.
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Although Microsoft has long been criticized for security flaws in its software, those days -- while not exactly over -- are receding, according to Scott Charney, corporate vice president of the company's Trustworthy Computing initiative. This is part 1 of a two-part interview.
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EU antitrust chief Neelie Kroes on   Tuesday rejected an accusation she was pursuing a vendetta   against U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O and   suspected a "coordinated campaign" to discredit her agency.