California (Lefties) file class action lawsuit against Microsoft

calsoftwaresuit ^ | 12/28/2002 | greedy lawyers

[rivercat]

If you purchased certain Microsoft software, or a computer on which it was installed, between May 16, 2001 and December 15, 2001, this notice may affect your rights.

If you are located in California, and you purchased Microsoft Windows, MS-DOS, Word, or Excel software (including those who purchased Word or Excel separately, or as part of an office suite or group of software programs), or purchased a personal computer on which this software was already installed between May 16, 2001 and December 15, 2001, you may be affected by a class action lawsuit.  (Although Microsoft software is licensed, the simpler term "purchased" is used here.)  Click the links below to read the Court ordered notice and other materials including the Class Action Complaint, the Orders certifying the Class and modifying the Class definition* and Answers to Common Questions.  Certain documents are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If your computer is not already configured with the free Acrobat software to view and print these, you may get Acrobat by clicking the logo below.  

Class members who purchased the software between May 16, 2001 and December 15, 2001 have the option to exclude themselves from the Class by mailing an Exclusion Request postmarked by January 31, 2003.

[rivercat]

Lawyers suck. If anything, they are the cause for increased Microsoft product pricing.

[Grampa Dave]

I wonder how much these trial lawyers donated to Gray Davis, Burton and the criminal acting like our California Attorney General?

[The Obstinate Insomniac]

bump

[Lancey Howard]

I strongly suggest that Bill Gates hire an army of private investigators to dig up as much dirt as possible on any lawyers involved in this latest lawsuit jackpot scheme. Ruin their lives forever. Make their families hate them. Bury them.

[bonesmccoy]

Their website demands use of Adobe to download the pages of their claims! SUE ADOBE for MONOPOLY OF INFORMATION!

Attorneys for plaintiffs listed as
Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP
Eugene Crew
Daniel J Furniss
Richard L. Grossman
R. Scott Wales

Plaintiffs listed as
Charles J. Lingo
Clifford Kupperberg d/b/a Kupperberg and Associates
Gregory A. Bottini
Beverly Meyer

[doug from upland]

It wouldn't be a nice thing to do, but it certainly is deserved.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks, we should sue these lawyers as you noted for making Adobe the only way to view their Bravo Sierra! This is a classic reply re these scumbags, aka trial lawyers!

Their website demands use of Adobe to download the pages of their claims! SUE ADOBE for MONOPOLY OF INFORMATION!

[proxy_user]

Why do you say leftists? Many conservatives want to purchase a computer without an operating system and install Linux.

However, most of them have sued in small claims court as individuals--what do you expect from a bunch of libertarians?

[Centurion2000]

It'd probably just be cheaper for Bill Gates to hire hitmen against these lawyers.

[Teacher317]

Why does ANYONE do business in California anymore?

[bonesmccoy]

Because we're trying to stop the other guys from killing our livelihoods, our families, and our communities.

No joke.

[Libertina]

LOL I am self-censoring on this one...

[Miss Marple]

Daniel J. Furniss is also the president of the Hillsborough City School Board. He is also involved in litigation against Hyundai Electronics.

[Lancey Howard]

It wouldn't be a nice thing to do, but it certainly is deserved.

Got the idea from Clinton.

[IncredibleHulk]

You're way out in left field on this one. I'm part of this class and would be happy to get my money back. The OS they put on commercial computers now is XP but it is useless to any professional. To map drives to my servers from home, I have to upgrade to XP Professional or Win2K so the installed OS is just a ripoff to me.

[Stavka2]

Stop stop stop, don't you know, massive, entureprenual crushing monopolies are good for America, unless they are government run. /sarcasm These people seem to ignore all the underhanded and illegal business practice of Furher Gates, since he's got a corporation. They can't distinguish that corps can do illegal things too and should be kept in check just like governments.

[Stavka2]

I prefer to think of it as more of an after birth.

[Stavka2]

Welcome to reality, crooked monopolistic business practices and there fore a lack of free market competition is the cause of increased product pricing. Look it up in an economics text book.

[rivercat]

To map drives to my servers from home, I have to upgrade to XP Professional

So buy your computer with XP Pro, buy a Mac, or buy a computer and install linux. Guess what? You do have a choice!

[rivercat]

Adjusted for inflation, Windows XP is cheaper than it was in 1995, or for that matter, it's cheaper than the early versions than DOS.

[Jhoffa_]

?

[Karsus]

Unlike MSFT Adobe has published the full details of the PDF format. If you like, you can download quite a few programs other than Acrobat that can create and view PDF files.

[Karsus]

There are other PDF viewers other than Acrobat...

[rivercat]

Unlike MSFT Adobe has published the full details of the PDF format.

Huh? Many other word processors can read and write the MS Word format (eg. StarOffice). Your argument holds no water. :)

[Karsus]

Other word processors can read/write MOST of the DOC file format, a lot of the advanced features are not fully supported. The full format is not documented anywhere and writing a full DOC reader/writer is extremely difficult.

[Dominic Harr]

Are you of the opinion that 'policing the markets' is 'govt intervention in the economy'?

I'd argue that it is clearly a necessary purpose of govt to police the markets to prevent fraud, coercion, and other illegal actions by companies.

Microsoft has been convicted of serious criminal behavior -- the economic equivilant of assault and murder -- on a mountain of evidence reviewed by an MS-friendly appeals and supreme courts.

[Jhoffa_]

Why can't I cut and paste from this PDF?

Don't tell me it's so super secret they protected it somehow..

(that would be kind of ironic actually.)

[rivercat]

I understand that that the "open source" (socialist software) community hates Microsoft, and wants all of their software for free, but you do have a choice despite what the California-Silicon Valley-Open Source community says.

[Karsus]

Why do you consider the entire Open Source community to hate Microsoft?

[Dominic Harr]

I repeat -- should the govt 'police' companies like MS?

When a company like MS commits acts of fraud, coercion and other illegal behaviors, as was proven in court on a mountain of evidence, is it a legitimate use of govt to prosecute them?

[antaresequity]

The OS they put on commercial computers now is XP but it is useless to any professional.

There are literally millions of builders who would be happy to build you a computer without an OS...so whats the problem? You know it came with it...and nobody forced you to buy it..

[Tom Bombadil]

Lawyers suck. If anything, they are the cause for increased Microsoft product pricing.

Partly true.....I bought between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of PC's a year in a former job and was able to see the real Microsoft dictate to customers and vendors.

Although I am a "Jesse Helms Rock-ribbed-Republican" (Thank you Nina Totenburg), I feel that Microsoft has damaged the market, the industry, and the technology through its manipulations.

Some people attack Microsoft simply because it is a large corporation. They are mistaken only in motivation.

[concerned about politics]

You're way out in left field on this one. I'm part of this class and would be happy to get my money back.

Ha. You'll get about 2 cents. The lawyers will get millions.
Hope you aren't counting on any real money from this "class action." You're setting yourself up for a dissappointmemt.
The lawyers aren't doing it for you. They're doing it for them.

[John Jorsett]

Great. Line up here for your coupons for discounts on your next purchase of software from the same company that supposedly screwed you, while your lawyers collect millions in cash.

[jimtorr]

The OS they put on commercial computers now is XP but it is useless to any professional. To map drives to my servers from home, I have to upgrade to XP Professional or Win2K so the installed OS is just a ripoff to me.

I'm with you, though I wouldn't join the lawsuit. Contrary to what some posters have said, you cannot avoid buying a commercial PC with Windows already installed.

My company recently bought about 140 PCs from Compaq and Dell. The IT folks had to rebuild the hard drives with Win2KPro. If anybody thinks that IT folks making $25 per hour (low!) are going to spend their time building PCs just so they don't have to buy one with an OS already installed, they don't know business.

As I understand it, Microsoft forces Compaq and Dell to sell all PCs with OS installed. If they want to sell any PC's with a MS OS installed, then they must sell all PCs with whatever version of Windows that MS is pushing at the moment.

[John Jorsett]

You're way out in left field on this one. I'm part of this class and would be happy to get my money back.

That'd be nice, but the way these things usually turn out, you the client get some useless settlement items like discount coupons, books, or MSN account, most of which will go unredeemed, and the attorneys collect all of the actual dollars. H&R Block just settled a class action suit for millions in cash to the lawyers, plus free tax-prep computer software (most of the people receiving the settlement don't have computers, it turns out), discounts for 5 years of income-tax prep with H&R Block (which, if used, will still give Block a nice profit on the transactions), plus some books on doing your income taxes (if you wanted to do your taxes yourself, you presumably wouldn't have been going to Block in the first place).

I'm predicting that if MSFT settles, you aren't going to see a dime of cash.

[John Jorsett]

Contrary to what some posters have said, you cannot avoid buying a commercial PC with Windows already installed.

I believe WalMart is selling a $199 PC with Lindows installed.

[concerned about politics]

I didn't mind windows being installed. That way I didn't have to buy it myself. I like microsoft. I'd thank 'em!

[philetus]

I like MS too.
I've never had many problems with their OS's because I know how not to F up my computers.

The only problem I had with windows 98 was it ate up memory,so I installed (free) Maxmem, from AnalogX.

I don't like ME, so I don't use it.

I've never had a single problem with 2000 pro that I couldn't handle myself, and I'm not a computer pro.

People sue MS because they want money out of a BIG corp.

It's true that Gateway for sure and probably the other major puter builders won't sell you a puter without an OS, but why would anyone want to buy from them.

Buying quality components and building your own is way easier than people think and hundreds of dollars cheaper.

[DB]

You can "cut and paste" from a PDF.

[DB]

While I totally agree one should be able to buy a machine without an operating system (and not paying for it anyway), you can buy Dell computers with Win2kPro or XP-Pro preinstalled. So as far as your IT being forced to change 140 computers to a different Windows OS doesn't make sense to me. Somebody screwed up in purchasing. I got mine with Win2kPro and my business partner got his with XP-Pro both by choice.

In the past I've purchased Dell's with no harddrive (years ago). This let me do whatever I wanted without paying for an operating system.

[bonesmccoy]

is he a democrat?

[Jhoffa_]

You can "cut and paste" from a PDF.

Sure you can..

HERE, try it with the title

DUAL FULL-BRIDGE DRIVER

[bonesmccoy]

"Full details"... what the hell does that mean?

Do you mean source code so we can write Adobe Acrobat encoders that do the same thing that Acrobat does?

Or, do I have to put up with more of the Adobe licensing schemes?

If you "full details" on any MSFT product, go to microsoft.com and download a trial edition of the product for free, read the tech notes, and discuss the nuances of the product at the MSFT news groups hosted by MSFT and supported by FREE tech support from their company.

Apple has been attempting to monopolize the MacOS for 20 years. If Jobs had done the smart thing and permitted multiple manufacturers for Mac standard motherboards, Motorola would have been Intel and Apple would have been Microsoft. But, Nnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooo!

JOBS is the guru of OS's... the only way you get to the user is through JOBS... If Jobs doesn't OK the board and the code, then there's you don't get to play.

So, what happened?

Everybody left APPL and went to MSFT.

[HumbleIrishman]

John

If you want to get a more expensive computer, you can get a Lindows computer from Tiger Direct for $229 and above depending on options.

[HumbleIrishman]

Are you suggesting that everybody should pay for the professional version of XP, because you need the features? Next thing you will say is that the airlines should charge the business travelers the same price as vacationers who stay over a saturday night and books weeks ahead.

I have no problems buying both workstations and servers without an operating system for my customers. If you can not do that, I would suggest that you talk to a professional.

[Rodney King]

The OS they put on commercial computers now is XP but it is useless to any professional. To map drives to my servers from home, I have to upgrade to XP Professional

When I recently bought a computer from Dell, I simply selected to pay more for windows XP. Were you incapable of that? Or do you just want a better OS for the price of a cheaper one?

[Miss Marple]

Sorry, I have no idea what party. He definitely is the school board President, as his biography lists him as a member of the law firm. Party affiliations aren't listed for school board members.

I will see what else I can find out. The Townsend Law firm specializes in anti-trust litigation.

[animal172]

What I don't understand is why Microsoft doesn't pull up it's operations here in the US and move to another country where he might be appreciated. If the government dislikes him so much he should leave. Wonder what the economic impact of that move would be.

[Turbo Pig]

jimtorr wrote: "As I understand it, Microsoft forces Compaq and Dell to sell all PCs with OS installed. "

I do PC purchasing and desktop support for a mid sized company. My response to this statement is...if you don't want to buy a PC with a MS OS installed, don't buy Compaq, Dell or any other that comes with it. There are inumerable companies that provide an alternative.

I am not a fan of MS, but all my experience tells me that the only reason MS gets away with what it does; most of the time; is that the consumer is just too lazy, uninformed or scared to find an alternative. Use an alternative, hit MS in the wallet, and it stops doing business the way it does.

FWIW - I do purchase Dell PCs, because the Dell hardware and MS licensing agreements are right for the situation in my company.