Bill Gates: "Why would the office group be giving out the Office 2000 formats to
competitors. to me this seems crazy"
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03078.pdf
Lets face it: they didn't learn their lesson till then. Anti-competitive behavior and fighting against open standards became an essential part of their business model. They are very ideological about it. They seem to know that software patents are an insult to creative programmers but still they promote them abroad. They seem to know what open standards are but let their lobbyists advocate corrupted definitions. They hired all relevant specialists in Europe who can explain to them how competition policy works but still they insult our authorities and ignore rulings in an autistic way.
"In 50 years of EU antitrust policy we have never before encountered a company that has refused to comply with a Commission decision"
They hired the low end of US lobbying and sent it to Europe including the Exxon style guys who insulted decent FFII people in ignorance regarding European history
I suppose they know very well that OOXML is a bad "standard" and ECMA didn't do its draft job, but still they fast-tracked it. And now they want to get away with it.
They didn't become crazy but reacted to public and market pressure. No party except a single company gains when standard committees bow in and grant approval for their broken standard without anything in return.
We know what the Navision PR specialist reported to Borsen: Mr. Gates blackmailed the Government of Denmark. And it was Denmark that broke its own laws and ignored a binding decision from Parliament and did not call for a vote on the Council version! No consequences were drawn due to a very special power constellation, no one ever started a criminal investigation into the incident.
Many Europeans are still outraged about the ruthless activities in the software patent struggle that are believed by some to be a threat to an open society. I can only hope that the Us governments will make a wise decision and abstain from making political presents.
Interesting Patent from Gates himself, August 2
Abstract: The claimed subject matter can provide a mechanism that facilitates a new advertising and/or referral architecture in the Internet advertising space, e.g., for advertising on search engine web pages and/or on content web pages. A mechanism is provided to confirm transactions even without monitoring them e.g., by issuing perishable, non-redeemable points to a merchant based upon an advertising budget. The points can then be issued as redeemable points to a customer, e.g., based upon the customer makes a purchase from the merchant. Points transferred to the customer can verify that a transaction occurred, and can be redeemed for products/services, including a convenient "micro-payment" mechanism."
We don't want this in Europe, Mr. Gates!
