Criticism

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of Microsoft

Anti-competitive

Since the 1980s, Microsoft has been the focus of much controversy in the computer industry. The majority of criticism has been for its business tactics, often described with the motto "embrace, extend and extinguish". Microsoft initially embraces a competing standard or product, then extends it to produce their own version which is then incompatible with the standard, which in time extinguishes competition that does not or cannot use Microsoft's new version.[97] These and other tactics have resulted in lawsuits brought by companies and governments, and billions of dollars in rulings against Microsoft.[98][46][14] In January 2009, Opera Software ASA filed a complaint to the European Commission stating that Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows-based personal computers is a violation of European competition laws.[99]

Freedom and privacy

Free software proponents point to the company's joining of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) as a cause of concern. A group of companies that seek to implement an initiative called Trusted Computing (which is claimed to set out to increase security and privacy in a user's computer), the TCPA is decried by critics as a means to allow software developers to enforce any sort of restriction they wish over how their customers use the software they purchased.

“ Large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you.”

Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation[100]

Advocates of free software also take issue with Microsoft's promotion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and total cost of ownership (TCO) comparisons with its "Get the facts" campaign. Digital Rights Management is a technology that allows content providers to impose restrictions on the methods by which their products are used on consumer hardware; and subsequently, detractors contend that such technology may infringe on fair use and other rights, especially given that it restricts legal activities such as re-mixing or reproduction of material for use in slide shows or the resale of the goods by the customer.[101]

Misrepresentation

The "Get the facts" campaign argues that Windows Server has a lower TCO than Linux and lists a variety of studies in order to prove its case.[102] Proponents of Linux unveiled their own study arguing that, contrary to one of Microsoft's claims, Linux has lower management costs than Windows Server.[103] Another study by the Yankee Group claims that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a significant fraction (a quarter to a third) of the switching costs from Windows Server to Linux, even for large enterprises, and that the other major reasons for a switch away from Windows servers were the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and a chance to escape the Microsoft "lock-in".[104]

In 2004, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the UK warned Microsoft that an ad from the campaign which claimed that "Linux was ... 10 times more expensive than Windows Server 2003", was "misleading", as the hardware chosen for the Linux server was needlessly expensive.[105] The ASA's complaint was that "the measurements for Linux were performed on an IBM zSeries [mainframe], which was more expensive and did not perform as well as other IBM series." The comparison was to Windows Server 2003 running on two 900 MHz Intel Xeon CPUs.[106]

David Meyer writing on Zdnet.com pointed out that, "Microsoft has a long history of applying for, and being granted patents for, inventions that many argue--and can sometimes demonstrate--were based on earlier work carried out by others, or based on a common, self-evident idea."[107] This was in response to its 2008 patent application for the ability to progress in page-up or page-down increments with a single keystroke — a method that has been pervasive for decades. [108]