Dustin and John, You are quite correct regarding the battle grounds heating up. The following is from Michael Robinson of Lindows and disregarding what one may think about him, his OS, or his marketing tactics, you have to hand it to the guy, he is gutsy and stands behind his business partners.
Wacky International Expansion Date Published: Nov 25, 2003 I had just finished a Michael's Minute about our international growth when a disturbing incident crossed my desk which actually verifies that we are gaining meaningful international business that Microsoft wishes to halt. Below are the emails that describe the situation, followed by my original Michael's Minute. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: November 25, 2003 13:01 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Microsoft Trial Hello Kendall, i,ve got a strange phone call this morning from Microsoft Netherlands. They are saying that they are preparing a trial here agains lindows and they want to involve my company DV Computer Systems (www.dvcs.nl) in this trial because i sell my computers with Lindows Operating System (I'm am the only bronze builder here). Next Friday they are coming to me , to talk to me about this. What i understand from that phonecall is that they want that i stop selling Lindows OS computers. I don't like this but when they are taking this to court and involve me then i must stop selling Lindows OS because i don't have the money for lawyers. I hope you or your staff have any suggestions. Grtx Hans de Vries DV Computer Systems Below is the reply I sent to Hans de Vries. I also CCed the CEO of Microsoft, the head of MicrosoftEurope and a representative of EU commission investigating MS's anti-competitive behavior in Europe. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Microsoft Trial-- Hans, First, thanks for working with Lindows.com as an international partner. Your email was very disconcerting to read because it seems like another example of Microsoft attempting to eradicate all competition through any means. While they say they invite competition, behind the scenes they seem willing to take any actions - including blatant extortion - to squash competition. I want to assure you that we will do what we can to support you. I understand you have a meeting this Friday. Although it's the Thanksgiving day holiday weekend here in the US and I was hoping to spend time with my family, I will commit to personally attend that meeting and sit alongside you. Please confirm the meeting today with the Microsoft representative and I'll make travel plans accordingly. Thanks again for being our partners. Together we are bringing CHOICE back to the PC business. -- MR This email, including any attached files, may contain confidential and privileged information. Any review, use, distribution or disclosure of included information by unintended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you are not a named recipient or authorized to receive and / or act on information sent to a named recipient, or have reason to believe you are not or should not be one of the named recipients, please notify sender accordingly by reply email and delete all copies of this message prior to forwarding, copying or otherwise reproducing this message or attachments thereto. For information regarding the export control status of items discussed in this document, please refer to the project control list. Thank you.
