[plug] SOSO: the Borg greases its Palms

[Leon Brooks]

    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8928

    Pop on over to the previously well liked MapBlast route planner
    and you're in for a bit of a shock. You'll now find yourself on
    an MSN page. MapBlast was bought by the Vole and assimilated.
    The system has been tarted up a bit to make it fit with
    Microsoft's look but, other than that, it still appears to be
    the same engine underneath. With a couple of exceptions.

    What a surprise, MapBlast now only works properly with Internet
    Explorer. The dazzling omission is the 'Save to PDA' button.
    Load up IE and the button is there but it's now called 'Save
    to Pocket PC.' That's right, no more saving it out to your
    Palm, Microsoft has cut out a chunk of code that was working
    just fine. But that code was working fine for a competitor's
    product so wave goodbye to it. 

    To make matters even more embarrassingly obvious that this is
    a simple monopoly abuse, the thing that it's not letting you
    save is an HTML page with a picture of the start and end of
    your journey. 

    Once again Microsoft has made a fool of the US legal system,
    this time with the collusion of that self-same legal system.
    There can be no doubt that the now ironically named Department
    of Justice should hang its head in shame. This is the sort of
    behaviour the antitrust case was supposed to prevent.

Looking forward to the day when you need a fully-licenced 
Palladium-enabled machine in order to be able to read a map, buy a 
drink or unlock the door to the small room (woe betide you should your 
licence expire while you're *in* that small room).

Evidently, this kind of thing's been going on for at least 3,000 years, 
'coz, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? 
then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." has been 
around for about that long. And isn't that just a perfect description 
of Microsoft's position?

Cheers; Leon