HP's Fury At Vista Capable Downgrade 499
More documents are coming out in court proceedings over the Vista Capable debacle. Internetnews.com has good coverage of HP's fury over Microsoft lowering the requirements for a Vista Capable sticker, at Intel's request. "Intel officials may have been pleased that Microsoft lowered standards for obtaining the company's Windows Vista Capable logo program sticker, but the same can't be said about HP's execs. 'I can't be more clear than to say you not only let us down by reneging on your commitment to stand behind the [device driver model] requirement, you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process,' said one e-mail from Richard Walker, the senior vice president of HP's consumer business unit, to [Microsoft executives]." PCPro.co.uk follows the trail of accusatory emails inside Microsoft from there: "HP's email prompted then Microsoft co-President, Jim Allchin, to send a furious email of his own to company CEO Steve Ballmer. Allchin's email suggests the decision to lower the requirements was made in his absence by Ballmer, following 'a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO].' 'I am beyond being upset here,' Allchin wrote to Ballmer. 'What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic], as well as my own credibility shot.' Ballmer, in turn, blamed another Microsoft executive, Will Poole, in a rather erratically typed reply to Allchin."
Email from Steve (Score:5, Funny)
Jim,
I most certainly did not... *picks up chair*
It was *throws chair* Will Poole who made the decision. Blame him.
Sorry I have to run. My anger management class starts in 5 minutes.
Steve
DRA-MA (Score:5, Funny)
This sounds more like high school than execs and CEOs... Sounds like you guys lost credibility a long time ago.
Credibility? (Score:3, Funny)
Balmer could have gone another route... (Score:3, Funny)
And thrown a chair at Allchin.
At least he's emailing now.
Popcorn anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DRA-MA (Score:3, Funny)
It's supposed to be a major plot point in High School Musical V(ista)
Re:Popcorn anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:SUSE laptops (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hot dog, OH DADDY! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:SUSE laptops (Score:5, Funny)
They've clearly been fooled (at least) once now, will they let themselves be fooled twice?
There's an old saying in Redmond - I know it's in Palo Alto, probably in Redmond - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - I can't get fooled again.
Re:Hot dog, OH DADDY! (Score:4, Funny)
How did you fail THIS badly?
I'm guessing lots of practice
Re:My complaint about Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
I occasionally receive inquiries from people who have read my previous letters and want to know why I insist that Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator is eminently incoherent. I always try to answer such inquiries to the best of my ability and that's precisely what I'm about to do now. I assume you already know that I was sincerely appalled when I first learned that Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's stooges want to lower this country's moral tone and depreciate its commercial integrity, but I have something more important to tell you.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it true that Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator should be in better control of its hormones? Nice try to step on other people's toes, Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator. I find that stuck-up adulterers are no different from mindless bloodsuckers. Let me explain. People tell me that Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's putrid rejoinders do not comport with my policy always to build a world overflowing with compassion and tolerance. And the people who tell me this are correct, of course.
I feel no shame in writing that Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator is still going around insisting that it's okay to leave the educational and emotional needs of our children in the ghastly hands of contemptuous nebbishes. Jeez, I thought I had made it perfectly clear to it that its spokesmen don't represent an ideology. They don't represent a legitimate political group of people. They're just flat headlong. It is never easy to judge what the most appropriate or effective response to Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's backwards sermons is but one unfortunate fact remains clear: Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator has a natural talent for complaining. It can find any aspect of life and whine about it for hours upon hours.
This moral issue will eventually be rendered academic by the fact that to get even the simplest message into the consciousness of the most insincere tyrants you'll ever see it has to be repeated at least fifty times. Now, I don't want to insult your intelligence by telling you the following fifty times, but Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator will stop at nothing to understate the negative impact of simplism. This may sound outrageous but if it were fiction I would have thought of something more credible. As it stands, one of the goals of absolutism is to render meaningless the words "best" and "worst". Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator admires that philosophy because, by annihilating human perceptions of quality, Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's own mediocrity can flourish. Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's unimaginative half-measures can be quite educational. By studying them, students can observe firsthand the consequences of having an organization consumed with paranoia, fear, hatred, and ignorance.
It's not a question of if but only of when Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator will steal the fruits of other people's labor, but I won't linger on that. While we all despair over Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's polyloquent, muzzy-headed quips, we must also remember the principles that will guide our better behaviors and higher aspirations. This may sound like caricature, but the pen is a powerful tool. Why don't we use that tool to balkanize Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's chauvinistic junta into an etiolated and sapless agglomeration? I can't possibly believe Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator's claim that coercion in the name of liberty is a valid use of state power. If someone can convince me otherwise, I'll eat my hat. Heck, I'll eat a whole closetful of hats. That's a pretty safe bet because anyone who hasn't been living in a cave with his eyes shut and his ears plugged knows that you should never forget the three most important facets of Scott Pakin's automa
Re:What really fucking sucks (Score:3, Funny)
It is a frigging disaster. I want monsters, bullets, and landscapes jumping out of my flat monitor in Windows XP. It is not longer possible. That sucks.
Re:SUSE laptops (Score:3, Funny)
I like this version:
Fool me once shame on you
Fool me twice shame on me
Only the folks in Palo Alto will fall for number three.
it was somewhat gratifying to learn (Score:3, Funny)
That Ballmer is close to illiterate. Unsurprising, though.
Steves... (Score:4, Funny)
I've noticed there are an awful lot of Steves in the industry. Ballmer, Wozniak and Jobs, plus a handful of others that I probably don't know about. I think Jobs and Wozniak (and others) should hold a vote to make Ballmer change his first name to something else. I'm sure he embarrasses them.
Re:My complaint about Slashdot (Score:0, Funny)
My boss believes in god, so so do I.
Re:My complaint about Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
so in a group of free thinkers someone that doesnt think like the rest is not a free thinker? That is rather limited thinking.
TTY practice (Score:5, Funny)
[...]MS's anticompetitive^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H incentive[...]
Are you aware that you can erase an entire word with ^W instead?
Re:My complaint about Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
Re:SUSE laptops (Score:1, Funny)
Look at the reasons Mac owners say they prefer Macs. No malware is one of them.
This needs to change and soon.
I should learn to code to do just this.
Re:What really fucking sucks (Score:3, Funny)
"In terms of sheep numbers, Linux supports more hardware than any one Windows version."
This metric is new to me.
Re:What really fucking sucks (Score:3, Funny)
"In terms of sheep numbers, Linux supports more hardware than any one Windows version."
This metric is new to me.
It refers to the number of units you can count before falling asleep.
Re:Hot dog, OH DADDY! (Score:2, Funny)
They just can't catch a break since His Emperor Gates III stepped down from the Red, Green, Yellow and Blue throne. Enter the same internal bickering and power struggles that nearly destroyed IBM in the 90's. They'll pull through, we'll probably all be better off because of it, but Gates had a certain perfection in business that I'm going to miss.
Re:Microsoft on the brink (Score:5, Funny)
Year after year, I maintain the feeling that Windows is teetering on the brink.
Reading a lot of Slashdot will do that to you :D