From: Adam 

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37091

"MICROSOFT HAS JUST made one of the wormiest excuses for an
explanation of the Vista DRM infection I have ever read. It is one of the
saddest attempts I have ever seen for a lawyer written piece of spin put
out as a blog and these things should be content labeled.

Remember the MS suicide note about the DRM infection? Well, Microsoft tries
to "refute" that with a stomach-churning piece of spin, but ends
up confirming everything. Earlier I said that Vista wasn't for me, and I
meant just that, for me, not that it wasn't suitable for everyone.
Microsoft's latest piece just convinced me I was wrong, Vista is unsuitable
for everyone.

Read this piece on Microsoft's "blog" site, cunningly labled
"Windows Vista Content Protection – Twenty Questions (and
answers)", and make sure you read the comments fully. Because right
now, not a single one agrees with ots take on things, but I am sure the
astroturfing will change that.

There are enough problems with this pablum to choke a horse. It is
presented as a candid Q&A session with nice people trying to educate
you about the goodness that is Vista. Read the Q&A and ask yourself
"who the
#(&$ talks like that?", I mean when you are talking to your friends, do
talk like that? No, but lawyers writing up a carefully crafted piece of spin do. .

But it gets funnier, Microsoft confirms just about every point in the
Gutmann pieceand tries to spin it as good. It is one of the most amazing
piece of PR weaselwork I have seen for years. Try this one on for size.

Will echo cancellation work less well for premium content? We believe that
Windows Vista provides applications with access to sufficient information
to successfully build high quality echo cancellation functionality.

*BLINK* Less well?!?"


WRT us poor sods in Health IT.....

" Look at the part about medical imaging. Microsoft says it won't
degrade medical imaging. Or will it? "For example, if a user were
viewing medical imagery concurrently with playback of video which required
image constraint, only the commercial video would be constrained -- not the
medical image or other things on the user's desktop."

All is peachy, right? No problem there right? Scroll down to the comment by Panderso:

Since when did you think that DRM would not apply to medical imaging.
Speaking as a physician, we ALREADY have this problem. The medical image
DICOM format has been split into various flavors by competing software
vendors who do their best to make sure that you have to have THEIR viewer
in order to see files saved in their version of the format. Further
competing hospitals are choosing not to install viewers that would allow
MD's to look at films that were taken at their competition ( or perhaps
their IT staff can't be bothered to install them -- either way the result
is the same). This proprietary behavior is already hindering patient care.
Vista's enhanced DRM only aggravates this nonsense!!

So, Microsoft isn't screwing you, it has set up enough plausible
deniablilty, when you get screwed, it isn't its fault, honest. "

Hummmmmmm.....once more it's one thing we looked at because if we transmit
some bloody enormous medical image to some user at great expense then we
want (& the Clinicians demand) that they can see every damn captured
piece of info & not something determined via a OS & a vid card
& a monitor to keep some movie mogul happy.

& in summary....

"Microsoft can't come clean, can't talk honestly, and won't do
anything to protect its customers. Keep that in mind when you are buying
your next PC, if you buy one with Vista pre-installed, you are funding the
very people who are actively hurting you."

Adam

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5