MS scarier than the CIA, Gateway exec says

One of the more controversial items in the Microsoft v. Stubborn States hearing is the uniform licensing agreement with OEMs, which, depending on who you talk to, is either a triumph of egalitarianism, or a Trojan horse designed to rein in the most successful OEMs by lowering their contract terms to the level of the small fry.

Obviously, if MS is going to offer everyone the same deal, they can't give Dell terms to some punk outfit doing fifty thousand boxes a year. The solution of course is to round everything down. Way down.

This and several other insights into the uniform license which MS and the DoJ collaborated on as part of the settlement were elaborated in an exchange between MS lawyer Rick Pepperman and Gateway lawyer Anthony Fama this week. The dispute is significant because MS got slagged in court by a customer, rather than by a competitor.

News source: The Register