Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 11 March 2008 08:22
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Fast forward to 2008, and there are infinitely more Vista drivers than ever, making the Vista Capable sticker issue a problem of the past – but it’s in the past that consumers bought machines that couldn’t be upgraded to the latest and greatest OS from Microsoft.
Upgrading is a process that Microsoft had encouraged many people to go through over the years whenever a new version of Windows was released, even though conventional wisdom has always stated it’s better to buy a brand new computer with the latest Windows pre-loaded for the ‘best’ experience.
So, consumers who were affected have clearly wanted to teach Microsoft a lesson, something that is no bad thing – Microsoft did inflict us all with their buggiest, least driver friendly OS yet, and didn’t do the hard yards with all of their hardware partners to ensure they were hard at work building drivers, the most important part of the ecosystem that gets devices talking to the OS.
A comprehensive
Computerworld article has the details of what Microsoft’s lawyers are saying in an attempt to get the class action status overturned.
Some interesting quotes that they have taken from Microsoft’s legal documents are as follows, but it’s also worth reading Computerworld’s article
for their take.
In explaining why the court decision “should” be overturned, Charles Wright, a Microsoft attorney said that: "Continued proceedings here would cost Microsoft a substantial sum of money for discovery and divert key personnel from full-time tasks. [It] would intrude on sensitive pricing decisions and strategies by OEMs, wholesalers and retailers; and would jeopardize Microsoft's goodwill with class members -- all with respect to claims that might not proceed on a class basis at all."
Apparently over 50,000 pages of internal documents have already gone through the legal wringer, with even more documents and dead trees to come to the surface should the class action proceed.
Of course there would be plenty of anti-Microsoft people who would love to see more of Microsoft’s internal emails/dirty laundry enter the public domain, so how successful Wright will be with his appeals is yet to be seen.
So what else does Microsoft’s motion say? Please read onto page 3.
