Vista Capable case no longer class action
MICROSOFT BREATHED A SIGH OF RELIEF YESTERDAY as Marsha Pechman, the judge at the centre of the Vista Capable court case, ruled during a pre-trial hearing that the lawsuit could not go ahead as a 'class action'.
Now, rather than facing tens of thousands of potential complainants all holding out their hands for a little bit of Microsoft's huge pile of cash, the case will probably go to court with the claims of just six individuals to answer.
The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft, in cahoots with a number of box builders, misled consumers by claiming that some less powerful computers were capable of running its Vista operating system when, in fact, they were only capable of running a compromised and cut-down version missing many key features.
But the victory of the class action decertification was short lived as the judge denied Microsft's motion for summary judgement. It now seems likely that the case will go to court, leaving the company open to more of the kind of scrutiny which has led to a stream of highly embarrasing emails being made public.
Spokesvole David Bowermaster said in a statement, "We're pleased that the court granted our motion to decertify the class, leaving only the claims of six individuals. We look forward to presenting our case to the jury, should the plaintiffs elect to pursue their individual claims."
L'Inq
Techflash
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
Hush Goes Over Crowd, Olympics of Bejing, Watch It, Ultee' 7 Finally /A?rrived & works on first of Mains that Microsoft SOLD Thru Microsofts TECH Tour 2007 When Ultimate & Tour Chromos where Running as fast as possible to come up with something, Now 7 Ultimate is FAR Better. Media Center dosn't take hours to nudge into existance, 7 just pops to Media Center Life. Microsofts' Worked on Vista Long Time, Taking it Well Beyond Hardware of Day. in 2005 KBupdate 946--- issued,Vole asked by self to display those advanced working number came out when entire field was KB~905---, so Writing is about 3 years ahead in MicroUltee' Den, Yet 7 is proof that its Much Ado About PAST, 7 is Delightful & Vista Ultimate32 was learning experience. Ultee'_Tom of Drashek
How is MS branding the minimum system requirment reaching systems as Vista Capable any different than the game and software companies listing minimum system requirements?
Lets take a look at Crysis
Minimum System Requirements:
OS - Windows XP or Windows Vista
Processor - 2.8 GHz or faster (XP) or 3.2 GHz or faster* (Vista)
Memory - 1.0 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
Video Card -256 MB**
Hard Drive - 12GB
Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c compatible
If you run Crysis with that hardware it will start but I am silling to bet you will be limited to VERY low frame rates, poor AI, bad sound, and simply abyssmal performance.
Does this mean I can sue Crytek?
The suits are a crock, can you install and run Vista? Yes, ok then it is Vista Ready.
It would be different if it said Vista Aero Ready, or Vista Ultimate Ready (which I have run on an EEEPC with out aero)
Aero is not required to run Vista. it is a feature. Just like DX10 in Crysis, Just like 5.1 surround. You do not need them to run the game.
These people need to pull their heads out and crawl back into their holes.
Typical back room shenanigans in our court system like they do in congress with back room deals. Then the talking heads in the so called unbiased news wonder why the people don't trust our screwed up judicial system and politicians who put many of them (judges) there. Appointed not elected for life, last time I checked that is a dictator. Last post was wrong, MS and those stores knew exactly what they were doing. They pushed low powered hardware probably at a good price do unsuspected users and it could not run Aero. They made sure to leave that out of the Vista Ready speech and or stickers on the rigs. Commo sense has been replaced by legalistic lawyer mumbo jumbo. Too bad, I wanted to see the convicted monopolist MS pay for this too. I don't worry because our messiah Oboma will wave his Marxist magic arm and all will be good again.
Explain how I am wrong?
Here is the webpage with the system requirements
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/system-requirements.aspx
You are not going to get Aero on 32MB of video RAM but Vista will run.
Again Aero is NOT required to run Vista.
In case you have trouble reading here is the bare minimum to run Vista Plainly spelled out:
Windows Vista minimum supported system requirements
Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for Super VGA graphics
CD-ROM drive
Just like a game or software company would do it.
Whilst ever the legal system allows lawyer to chase these types of cases on the basis that they can make money even if their client does not (or worse) then they will continue to incite ‘class action’ cases on even the most flimsy of pretext.
This sort of action only serves to distract from those few cases that actually deserve attention, and tends to tar all anti-MS cases with the same 'ambulance chasing' status.
This is a major, major victory for MSFT, with little downside.
Even if these six people win, it's still only six times . . . what, $50 in damages each? $500 in damages each? It's chicken feed. I doubt the plaintiffs will, combined, win more than $10,000.
Microsoft has already paid more in legal fees than it's going to pay out at the end of this lawsuit. (And MSFT got its money's worth.)
The amount of money at stake per injured person is so low that no lawyer is going to want to bring any new suits against MSFT over Vista-capable deception.
The only way that MSFT could get hurt on this case is if it went through as a class action. Instead of six plaintiffs, there would be closer to 600k. $50 times 600k is 3 million dollars.
At this point, Microsoft will want to settle the case to avoid going through any further discovery or spending any more money on legal bills. Expect a quiet, confidential settlement.
yet again we lose an opportunity to see Microsoft's "dirty washing". There is strong evidence of collusion between MS and Intel to reduce the hardware requirements just so Intel didn't get stuck with a lot of Vista incapable chipsets
Expect the evidence that has already been seen to quickly get shredded as part of any settlement agreement...
At least these gaming companies put down what the recommended specs are. I don't see Microsoft doing that at all.
Also those minimum specs are a joke. A CDROM drive???? Surely you jest. So if somebody who only has access to a CD ROM drive, how exactly are they expected to install ANY edition of Vista?
I have never seen a Vista install disc on CD. So those minimum specs are laughable and misleading.