Home What's Brewing? Downgrade Anti-Trust, Seattle’s Presidents

Downgrade Anti-Trust, Seattle’s Presidents

The latest round of alleged antitrust violations against Redmond come from a lawsuit filed not by the European Union but by a Seattle woman named Emma Alvarado. In court papers, Alvarado claims that she was forced to pay to downgrade a Lenovo notebook she purchased from Vista to Windows XP. According to the suit, Microsoft and its partners are able to charge fees due to the lack of competition in the OS market.

The woman says that she was charged $59.25 to downgrade to XP on her Lenovo computer and that the fee is a violation of antitrust rules. In court documents Alvarado writes, “Since the introduction of Vista, Microsoft has effectively eliminated competition in the operating system PC market and created a monopoly position for itself in that market.”Microsoft told InformationWeek in an email, “Microsoft does not have a downgrade program. It does offer downgrade rights as part of some Windows Vista licenses, including Windows Vista Business purchased through the OEM channel. Microsoft does not charge or receive any additional royalty if a customer exercises those rights.”

In other words Microsoft is saying that it did not charge Alvarado the nearly $60 it cost to downgrade to Windows XP, Lenovo did.

Alvarado goes on to claim in the court documents, “Microsoft has used its power to coerce OEMs, internet access providers and others into agreeing to restrictive and anti-competitive licensing terms for its Windows XP operating system in order to stifle competition in the market. Microsoft did so in order to maintain, protect, and extend its market power in operating systems software into the next generation of personal computing, to lessen competition, and to enhance its monopoly position.” [24×7]

Seattle’s Presidents of the United States Showing A Way Forward with iPhone Apps as Music.
Change has come to America in the form of a new president, and now change may be coming to the music industry in the form of a new marketing approach by Seattle’s Presidents of the United States

Lead singer Dave Dederer in connection with his company, Melodeo, has recently released a new iPhone app. ‘The Presidents’ Music – PUSA’ is now available on the App Store for the princely sum of $2.99. For that, you get all four PUSA albums that the band own the rights too. The whole back catalog, as well as some rarities, can be streamed over the Internet and listened to whenever and wherever you want via your iPhone. A band’s whole back catalog for $2.99? That’s a bargain right there. And due to the music being streamed rather than downloaded, PUSA don’t have to worry about their songs being instantly uploaded to a file-sharing site or made available as a torrent. [24×7]

Get more info in the Seattle24x7 blog