Frankly, this fits with the pattern of dirty tricks attributed to Microsoft, many of which come from court documents.

\r\nelements that tax credulity:\r\n

I agree absolutely. [link|http://aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html|Microsoft's documented\r\nillegal behavior track record from 1982 through 2002 taxes\r\ncredulity]. Your point?

While Kirk will vouch for his story (ask him yourself, I have), his\r\nnondisclosure prevents him from mentioning specifics of the client.

\r\nretraining 260,000 employees -- for upgrades to Windows and Office, is\r\nthe company I work for the only one that installs these upgrades without\r\nneeding to retrain, somehow I doubt it. There are many office workers\r\nhere who have gone from NT to 2000 to XP without a single session not to\r\nmention going up the ladder of Office versions\r\n

And what's your company?

This was a major international oil company. From context, I gather\r\nthe company was forced either to make major upgrades in MSFT office\r\nproducts, or switch from another vendors' office products. I don't have\r\nspecifics on this. I'm asking for clarification.

\r\nliterally billions of files that needed translating from existing\r\nformats -- very doubtful -- does this require further explanation?\r\n

That's on the order of 4,000 documents per employee. With file\r\nproliferation and a complex operation, that's a credible figure.

\r\ntransitioning 260,000 desktops -- this does not belong on the litany of\r\ncomplaints -- the company had decided to this already, regardless of the\r\nNovell-NT issue\r\n

No, and this is important, so I'll type slowly for you:

\r\nThe company had no choice but to make the upgrade. Microsoft\r\n"forced a large multi-national oil company to eliminate all the Novell\r\nservers, and move to NT, as Micro$oft refused to sell them 260,000\r\nupgraded copies of legacy MS Windows and Office unless they did\r\nso." What part of illegal coercion don't you understand? \r\n

\r\nDealing with data incompatibility issues with non-Microsoft applications\r\nthat are the de-facto-standard with the companies that they interact\r\nwith -- this too is part of the decision to upgrade Windows and Office\r\ndiscussed in the original article, there must have been a reason for the\r\nupgrade.\r\n

Microsoft "forced a large multi-national oil company to\r\neliminate all the Novell servers, and move to NT, as Micro$oft refused\r\nto sell them 260,000 upgraded copies of legacy MS legacy MS Windows and\r\nOffice unless they did so."

\r\nAnyway: this incident is out of the past otherwise MS would have\r\ninsisted on Windows 2000 Advanced Server or if the other day Windows\r\nServer 2003. I have no idea whether MS uses this form of 'marketing'\r\ntoday (that is not on the curriculum at Shill Tech) or whether they used\r\nit in the first place I wonder what the definition of 'forced' is, in\r\nthis case? Was it just the offer of a lower price if the NT servers\r\nwere included? Was there an MS compliance officer who witnessed the\r\ndismantling of all Novell servers?\r\n

[link|http://aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html|Now and then.\r\nNothing's changed.]. Tell you what. Since we've got a [link|http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm|criminal\r\nmonopolist], \r\n\r\na [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22684.html|stunning cave-in by the DoJ in the final 2001\r\nsettlement] of the antitrust case,\r\n\r\n[link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13514.html|staggering\r\namounts of political contributions from Microsoft] which [link|http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-835267.html|eclipse Enron],\r\n\r\ndefection of numerous state attorneys general, including: \r\n\r\n[link|http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg07443.html|Charlie\r\nCondon (South Carolina)];\r\n\r\n[link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14214.html|Mark Tobey\r\n(Texas)] ([link|http://slate.msn.com/id/2315/|more]) at the\r\nurging of Dell and Compaq;\r\n\r\nas well as the other settling states, \r\n\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+kentucky|Kentucky],\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+louisiana|Louisiana],\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+maryland|Maryland],\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+michigan|Michigan],\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+new+york|New York],\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+north+carolina|North Carolina],\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+ohio|Ohio], and\r\n[link|http://google.com/?q=microsoft+wisconsin|Wisconsin].\r\n

Of course, if you want to know what behavior's still going on, you'll\r\nhave to crack the [link|http://www.microsoft-antitrust.gov/|Coordinated State Enforcement\r\nof Microsoft Antitrust Judgements website]. There's no report of\r\ncurrent status from this page, unfortunately.

However we do have that little matter of the [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29192.html|Sendo\r\ncase] (Microsoft alleged to have misappropriated cell phone trade\r\nsecrets), and a [link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/FUD|metric buttload of FUD] which would indicate a staying of the course.

What's your counter-evidence, Andrea?

First: The upgrade was cooerced. There was no option to purchase needed additional licenses without purchasing unnecessary upgrades to all systems. I'll also note that you ask for evidence, then gainsay it. So: you're calling me and Mr. Rheinlander liars? Is that it?

File conversions and retraining costs apply to the option of switching to an alternate office suite / operating environment. This is what would have been incurred Plan B (switching to a non-Microsoft suite and/or OS) were elected. Plan C is, of course, the forced upgrade. Plan A was the option prohibited by Microsoft: retain existing infrastructure and aquire additional software. As the original post makes clear: nuke Novell, purchase 260,000 upgrades, and buy a fleet of helicoptors was cheaper than the option of moving away from Microsoft.

Of course, we wouldn't expect you to read with comprehension.

And you flat out lie: the company did not need to transition 260,000 dekstops. It was attempting to upgrade them and was refused the upgrades unless Novell were banished.

Your comments suggest that forcing aquisition of sufficient numbers of Microsoft server licenses to replace 1,600 Novell instances is somehow acceptable business practices. Is this a valid interpretation of your comments, Andrea? If not, please clarify.

And as a clue to you: [link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/AyeWeeCodes|Wee Codes]. Particularly [quote\\]The quote tag[quote\\]. Or <blockquote type="cite">blockquote</blockquote>.

In one of the follow-on documents, apparently Win98 didn't "support" the e-procurement apps BP was considering. How the fsck they failed support isn't particularly clear. But that still only covers the desktop. No need to toss Novell. Though that's clearly what happened.