In the midst of being indignant over the death of the BeOS, Scot Hacker talks about Microsoft's OEM license with hardware vendors. Although Microsoft claims the terms of the agreement are a "trade secret," preventing it from making appearnce in the DOJ circus, apparently it prevents OEMs from installing any non-Microsoft OS along side a Microsoft OS... If true, the "browser integration" thing's just a minor annoyance - this would be monopolistic and anti-competitive... via rc3.org
posted by m.polo on Aug 31, 2001 - 9 comments

Microsoft fires the final bullet into it's head. As of April 1st, OEMs may no longer ship a CD-ROM containing a full-installable copy of Windows with the machines they build. They can ship a "recovery CD", or just a "recovery partition". So, what did you get for your $90?

You got to rent Windows until you upgraded your machine.
posted by baylink on Jun 8, 2000 - 15 comments