Microsoft refuses to ‘spam’ Update users
Microsoft lawyers have filed an official objection to a demand for the firm to use the Windows Update service to contact potential claimants in the ‘Vista Capable’ case. They’ve also outlined their arguments against the case itself.
As we reported last week, lawyers representing the customers had asked a court to order Microsoft to send a message through the monthly update inviting anyone affected to join the class action suit (which combines individual claims into one case).
In a court filing rejecting this idea, Microsoft points out that even if you believe the argument that 19 million customers may have been misled by the ‘Vista Capable’ stickers (which only referred to the Home Basic edition and not the full-blown versions which have all the features mentioned in advertising), sending a message through Windows Update would mean 120 million people got a completely irrelevant message.
Microsoft also argues that sending such a message would break its repeated promises not to use Windows Update for any purpose other than legitimate software updates. The firm points out that it already got into legal trouble sending out Windows Genuine Advantage (software which checks for machines running pirated copies of Windows) through the system.
The firm is willing, in principle, to agree to the demand that it place adverts in newspapers and online to contact potential claimants. However, it wants several changes to the proposed wording (mainly to avoid anything which could be seen as admitting wrongdoing), and is insistent that the lawyers bringing the case foot the bill, which is the legal norm.
In a separate development, Microsoft has filed a legal response to a request for summary judgment. That’s a fairly standard legal procedure in which the side bringing the case effectively argues that it’s so clear-cut, the court should rule in its favor without a formal trial. The defending side then argues its own case is strong enough that there should be a full hearing.
The result is that Microsoft has outlined its case formally for the first time. In short, it’s saying its own publicity did make clear to consumers what ‘Vista Capable’ meant, that media reports explained the term’s meaning, and that one of the key claimants whose case helped spark off the class action case didn’t even know she’d bought a ‘Vista Capable’ machine anyway.
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October 16th, 2008
Honestly, this is a bunch a whiners who bought low end crap pc’s and once they find out what being a cheapskate means when buying a pc, want anyone but themselves to blame. I saw all the ads, and researched before I bought. I am no big fan of MS, but I hope these people get NOTHING. All they are doing is making it for certain that it will take longer to get a successor to Vista, and that it will cost the rest of us more than it should if MS has to pay out on such frivilous grounds as these suits.
October 16th, 2008
MSFT should have been straight with their customers and not deliver empty promises with Vista capable. To state something works and sell it, when apparently it does not perform as stated is a poor business practice at best.
What they should have done, is to continue to release XP on marginal computers and Vista on high end computers only when Vista was officially released, then wait to the OEM’s played catch up. It would have saved them a lot of grief in the long term.
MSFT had the money and resources to test Vista properly before they released it. We are not talking about some small obscure company here.