Microsoft amenza a Caldera con quitar sus licencias

["seyaman" <atamsut en sa omnes net>]

Microsoft no monopoliza el mercado pues lean esto:
						atte
						Lord of Hell 

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/inwo/0427/310649.html



Caldera CEO says MS 
threatening PC makers
By Will Rodger, Inter@ctive Week Online
April 28, 1998 8:22 AM PDT

Microsoft Corp. is threatening to suspend 
the contract of at least one of the United 
States' largest computer manufacturers in a 
dispute over bundling a competing 
operating system, Caldera Inc. CEO Bryan 
Sparks alleged Monday. 

Caldera, together with more than a dozen other 
companies, produces a version of Linux, a 
low-cost, collaboratively developed version of 
the popular Unix operating system. Linux was 
the only operating system not owned by 
Microsoft that gained market share in 1997. 

"Microsoft has gone and threatened to pull their 
license -- and I know it happened," Sparks told 
Inter@ctive Week. "It's one of the top five."

 
 'Microsoft has 
 gone and 
 threatened to 
 pull their license 
 -- and I know it 
 happened.'
 -- Caldera CEO Bryan 
 Sparks


Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's 
Consumer Project on Technology, said his 
group will ask Justice Department officials to 
look into the allegations -- perhaps as early as 
Wednesday. 

"It's completely outrageous," he said. "You hear 
consumers are choosing Microsoft one day, and 
then you hear (Microsoft) is threatening to pull 
licenses if anyone tries to offer anything else." 

Caldera's complaint is not the first time a 
competitor has accused Microsoft (MSFT) of 
hardball marketing tactics. For years, rivals 
including Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) and 
Netscape Communications Corp. (NSCP) have 
complained that Microsoft has used exclusive 
contracts, bundling agreements and threats of 
retaliation to force companies to take software 
programs they didn't want as a condition of 
licensing its Windows operating systems. 

Until now, however, competitors had stopped 
short of saying Microsoft had its sights on Linux 
-- a cooperatively developed, low-cost clone of 
the Unix operating system -- in addition to other 
operating systems common to the servers that 
make the Internet run. 

MS rejects charges
Microsoft officials dismissed Sparks' 
complaints. 

"It's a little odd that a CEO would talk about 
hearsay," Microsoft Spokesman Jim Cullinan 
said. "Here they're issuing a blanket statement 
and they're just running roughshod." 

Microsoft has previously acknowledged giving 
discounts to manufacturers that put more than 
one of its products on their computers, but has 
steadfastly denied forcing the hand of computer 
makers.

 
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Claims that Linux may be the victim of predatory 
tactics take on special meaning in light of the 
ongoing federal and state investigation of 
Microsoft's business practices. 

In addition to making up as much as 5 percent of 
the market for microcomputer operating 
systems, Linux figures prominently in the plans 
of Netscape, arguably the most outspoken of all 
Microsoft rivals. 

Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen last 
week told a gathering of software developers 
that the company wants its suite of Internet 
software to be the standard interface for the 
fast-growing Linux market. 

Sparks refused to say which computer 
manufacturer had been threatened by Microsoft. 
Nonetheless, he said, fear of Microsoft has 
grown so widespread in the computer industry 
that marketing personnel at large makers 
routinely reject overtures to consider selling any 
operating system for fear of damaging their 
relations with the company. 

Officials at Dell Computer Inc. (DELL), he said, 
told him they couldn't accept a proposal from his 
company for fear of offending the Washington 
state company. 

Dell: No restrictions on contract 
Dell Spokesman T.R. Reid said Dell's contract 
with Microsoft contained no restrictions on any 
operating systems used by company. If Dell 
wasn't interested in selling computers that run 
Linux, lack of demand -- not pressure from 
Microsoft -- was the more likely reason for the 
decision. 

He denied the company had been pressured to 
turn down alternative operating systems by 
Microsoft 

Though some estimates place the current 
population of Linux users at 5 million to 10 
million, "I haven't been able to find any examples 
of customers requesting Linux," Reid said. "If we 
felt as if we were turning down business 
because we don't default to Linux, we would 
rectify that," he said. 

Packard Bell NEC spokeswoman Sherri 
Benninghoven likewise said Packard Bell had 
seen no signs of pressure by Microsoft. 

"It hasn't been implied -- we haven't had any 
comments that we aren't free to use anything we 
want," she said. 

Officials at IBM, Compaq Computer Corp. and 
Gateway Inc., which round out the top five PC 
makers, did not return calls by press time. 

Two companies have clashed before
This isn't the first time Caldera has tangled with 
Microsoft. Last year, the company filed suit 
against its larger rival in a separate action, 
alleging that Microsoft had engaged in a number 
of anti-competitive practices to kill off Caldera's 
DR-DOS operating system. 

Among other things, the company charged 
Microsoft had inserted into the Windows 
program code whose sole function was to make 
it impossible to run Windows on top of 
DR-DOS. 

Since its introduction in the mid 1980s, 
Windows has operated only when a 
non-graphical operating system such as 
MS-DOS was also installed on the computer. 

Caldera claims the packaging of Windows with 
the underlying MS-DOS operating system 
constitutes an unfair "bundling" practice that 
makes it impossible to sell DR-DOS to a wide 
variety of users.