Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
There can be little argument that Mr Gorbachev is right. Yet his appeal
to the richest man in the world appears to have fallen on deaf ears
judging by statements out of the Paris-based European office of
Microsoft. According to Microsoft, Mr Ponosov's case is a criminal case
and is a matter for the Russian courts. A teacher who unwittingly buys
computers pre-loaded with pirated Microsoft software for his school is
a criminal?
Well yes, according to Microsoft he is and,
instead of being given a commission for introducing a new generation of
potential Microsoft users to the company's software, he should be
publicly humiliated and sent to Siberia for five years with other
dangerous criminals.
In previous stories, I have mentioned the much heralded case guitar
strings manufacturer Ernie Ball. In 2000, the mid-sized, much respected
company was raided without warning by law enforcement officers at the
behest of the Microsoft funded BSA (Business Software Association). A
few dozen copies of out of license software was found on some of the
company's computers.
As the company's CEO Sterling Ball explained later, as the company
bought new computers, it would pass old computers to employees down the
food chain who would use them for other purposes. Quite often software
that was no longer being used on those computers would not be erased
off the hard drive. If the company had been contacted and been told it
had a compliance problem it would have acted, according to Ball.
However, no matter, BSA and Microsoft got their mark and made a big
noise about it on prime time news.
As a result, Ernie Ball moved all of its computers to Linux and Microsoft lost a previously loyal customer for life.
Fast forward seven years and move across to Eastern Europe.
A dedicated provincial teacher uses scarce funds to buy computers for
his students unbeknownst to him loaded with pirated Microsoft software.
Law enforcement officers pounce with the blessing of Microsoft. The
news travels around the world. Other teachers in emerging economies
watch and wonder whether they can afford to go the Microsoft route or
whether they should check this Linux thing out.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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