Author Archives: Dan Gillmor

Seattle Times: Microsoft to modify its image. “We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn’t rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry,” Ballmer said. So Ballmer, who … Continue reading →

Wall Street Journal: How tenacity kept monopoly intact. In a classic display of Microsoft pugnacity, the company hammered opposing government lawyers on nearly every conceivable point, no matter how small. Eventually exhaustion became a factor, lawyers on the government side … Continue reading →

Mercury News: Palm CEO Yankowski resigns. It has been a brutal year for Palm. The economic slowdown and poor product planning combined to leave the company with an inventory glut. Palm stock has fallen 91 percent from its peak, and … Continue reading →

Washington Post: Troubled Security Firm Fires Its CEO. Argenbright’s repeated involvement in airport security breaches has created increasing political problems for the company. One came this week, when Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) publicly objected to the decision to … Continue reading →

Mercury News: Heir attack targets HP-Compaq deal. The family opposition also amounts to a vote of no-confidence in HP Chairman and Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, who has staked her career on the deal’s success. Puzzling stuff. Fiorina hadn’t lined up … Continue reading →

Lest you think I’m purely paranoid when I wonder what side deals Microsoft and the U.S. government may have struck relating to national security in the settlement of the antitrust case, consider the wording of one of the provisions in … Continue reading →

Washington Post: U.S. Will Monitor Calls to Lawyers. The move, which the Justice Department said was necessary “in view of the immediacy of the dangers to the public,” stunned defense lawyers and civil libertarians. They assailed it as an unconstitutional … Continue reading →

Bill Moyers: Which America Will We Be Now? Our business and political class owes us better than this. After all, it was they who declared class war twenty years ago, and it was they who won. They’re on top. If … Continue reading →

A reader from Ohio points me to a press releaseannouncing his state’s endorsement of the settlement. He points to the final line, which says: As a result of today

The Microsoft antitrust settlement, if approved, would be a potential death blow to open source and free software interoperability with Microsoft products. See this analysis by Jeremy Allison & Andrew Tridgell of the Samba project. I asked Eben Moglen, general … Continue reading →