Tag: Microsoft
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Microsoft hands Google the future of digital books
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Andrew Orlowski
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While Bill Gates now holds a lucrative monopoly on digital images, his successors don’t see the same prosperous future for the digital word. Microsoft is withdrawing from the Open Content Alliance digitisation project and will cease to scan books, the company said on Friday. It’s abandoning its Live Book Search venture – a curious decision,…
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How Web 2.0 concentrates power, and makes Microsoft stronger
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Andrew Orlowski
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One IT Manager, bemoaning his lot to me, recently compared the rise of Web 2.0 enthusiasts to the problem the Police has with Freemasons. The blog and wiki evangelists within are not as secretive, of course, but they’re equally cult-like: speaking their own language, and using the populist rhetoric of “empowerment” for relentless self-advancement. He…
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Why ‘Microsoft vs Mankind’ still matters
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Andrew Orlowski
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For all but three of the past 17 years, Microsoft has been involved in antitrust litigation with government agencies. That’s enough to wear anyone down. But as Europe’s highest appeals court delivered its judgement on Monday, I did notice some ennui – not from dogged old hacks, but from a new generation of pundits. Take…
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Yes, we have no incompatibilties
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Andrew Orlowski
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Savour this irony. Last week, we learned that incompatibilities Microsoft hadn’t written into its operating system posed a grave threat to users. Last week, we also learned that genuine incompatibilities Microsoft had deliberately written into its operating system posed no threat at all.… Read More
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Addicted to antitrust, Microsoft outlines 12-Step Recovery
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Andrew Orlowski
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Antitrust addict Microsoft has outlined a 12-Step Recovery Program, which it says will help prevent it from lapsing back into anti-competitive practices in the future. The declaration follows three major “interventions” in fifteen years. A 1991 investigation by the Federal Trade Commission resulted in a Consent Decree signed in 1995. A 1997 investigation by the…
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Microsoft’s future file system dies, again
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Andrew Orlowski
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Microsoft’s most ambitious software plan – to base Windows on a native database – has died again. The feature was originally touted in 1991 for ‘Cairo’, which Microsoft then described as an object-oriented operating system, built on top of Windows NT. Cairo was sidelined as a result of Microsoft’s focus on the internet, and the…