Finally my state puts some effort into litigation that MATTERS...
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1640501,00.asp Now comes the part where I tear their trained rodent a new one. This should be fun.
Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said the company's lawyers hadn't fully reviewed the lawsuit, but she defended the company's prices.
Let me open by saying that THERE IS NO DEFENSE for charging people $500 for a $20 piece of software that took maybe a week and a pack of rhesus monkeys to develop. I'd LOVE to see how people would react if any other community - be it Linux, Solaris, or Macintosh - tried to get away with releasing such shoddy workmanship (the service pack needed a service pack in THE FIRST WEEK!) at such ludicrous prices.
"We value our relationships with these cities and have been grateful for the opportunity to provide them with great software at reasonable prices," Drake said.
Allow me to translate: "we value our ability to ream these cities whenever we so desire and are grateful for the opportunity to impose crappy software on all their systems at unreasonable prices on the extremely tenuous correlation between 'Windows' and 'any legitimate computing device.'" Right, maybe we should have GameCubes running your overpriced OS too?
"We firmly believe that we have provided very competitive prices and great solutions to our customers."
Ha. Ha ha. HAHAHAHAHA.
*ahem* "WE firmly believe that we have provided very competitive prices, considering we're the only real game in town, and even if we haven't, our 'great solutions' will soon ensure our would-be lost customers will use our shoddy product anyway."
"In fact, we've built our business on delivering innovative software at low prices, and have been the market leader in reducing prices while increasing the value contained in software."
No, you've built your business on buying out any and all POSSIBLE competition at any given point in time, announcing breakthrough releases that never materialize (that is, vaporware) in every field from aircraft design to pantyhose in order to kill off competition, and consistently undercut those precious few companies that remain or forced them into illegal EULAs (yes, "exclusivity" is NOT valid legal context for an END USER - read West's some time, they're only binding as SEPARATE LEGAL CONTRACTS). As for the value front, that's true. By driving everybody else either out of business or into signing legally questionable contracts, you've ensured your continued existance on that front. At least until some pushy "anti-American" organization like THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT decides you're a bunch of assholes that should be shot in the ankles and hung upside down next to rotting goat carcasses in the sweltering desert sun.
E.O.R. -- End Of Rant
