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Tuesday, October 28, 2008 

Acting teacher and director Milton Katselas died Friday at age 75, after suffering from heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He began the Beverly Hills Playhouse in 1978 and taught acting classes there to noted actors including George Clooney and Gene Hackman. Katselas is survived by a sister and two brothers.

Katselas directed an off-Broadway production of Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, and received a Tony Award nomination for his 1969 direction of Butterflies are Free. Actress Blythe Danner won a Tony Award for her role in Butterflies are Free under Katselas’ direction. He moved to California to direct the film version of that play, and went on to direct films and television movies. Actress Eileen Heckart received an Academy Award for her role in the film version of Butterflies are Free.

Katselas directed the San Francisco and Los Angeles productions of the play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead! by playwright James Kirkwood, Jr. In his author’s notes in the publication of the script, Kirkwood acknowledged Katselas, and wrote that the plays were “directed with incredible energy and enthusiasm by Milton Katselas, to whom I am extremely indebted”.

Katselas directed the television movie Strangers: Story of a Mother and Daughter, and actress Bette Davis received an Emmy Award for her role in the movie. Katselas taught many famous actors including Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Gere, Robert Duvall, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Goldie Hawn, Christopher Walken, Burt Reynolds, George C. Scott, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Alec Baldwin, and Patrick Swayze. Katselas was credited with being able to nurture actors with raw talent so that they could develop strong Hollywood careers. He utilized innovative techniques in his courses – one course called “Terrorist Theatre” had a simple premise: successfully get an acting role within six weeks or leave the course.

He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to parents who had immigrated from Greece, and graduated from Carnegie Mellon. He studied acting with Lee Strasberg in New York at the Actors Studio, and received advice from directors Joshua Logan and Elia Kazan.

Katselas was a prominent Scientologist, and a July 2007 profile on Katselas in The New York Times Magazine observed that some of his students stopped taking courses at the Beverly Hills Playhouse because they felt they had been pressured to join the Church of Scientology. According to the article, Katselas credited Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard “for much of his success in life”, and one of his students works at Scientology’s Celebrity Centre. The article commented that some in Los Angeles view the Beverly Hills Playhouse as “a recruitment center for Scientology”.

Katselas met L. Ron Hubbard after moving to California, and began studying Scientology in 1965. The New York Times Magazine reported that he had reached the level of “Operating Thetan, Level 5, or O.T. V.” in 2007. According to The New York Times Magazine when Scientologists proceed up the “The Bridge to Total Freedom” they learn the story of Xenu, and that: “75 million years ago the evil alien Xenu solved galactic overpopulation by dumping 13.5 trillion beings in volcanoes on Earth, where they were vaporized, scattering their souls.” A Church of Scientology publication, Source, lists Katselas as reaching O.T. V. in 1989.

Though some actors felt pressured to join the Church of Scientology after taking courses at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, at least one individual felt Katselas was not active enough with the organization. Actress Jenna Elfman left the Beverly Hills Playhouse because she felt Katselas was not committed enough to Scientology. Katselas had previously directed Elfman in half of Visions and Lovers: Variations on a Theme, two one-act plays about relationships that he had written himself. In 1999 Katselas had planned to adapt the script of Visions and Lovers to a film version, and Elfman was set to reprise her role from the play. In an article in Variety about the project, Elfman commented on her experience working with Katselas: “He is brilliant, and knows me so well as a person and an actress that he gets the most out of me.”

Other prominent Scientologist actors who have studied under Katselas include Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Lee, and Leah Remini. According to Rolling Stone, Katselas also recruited actress Kelly Preston to Scientology. Actress Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson), told Scientology publication Celebrity that Katselas motivated her to get more active in Scientology, and she stated she took the organization’s “Purification Rundown” and her life “took off completely”.

Anne Archer was introduced to Scientology while studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, as was former Scientologist and now outspoken critic actor Jason Beghe. Beghe told Roger Friedman of FOX News in April 2008 that “He [Katselas] gets kickbacks”, and that he was brought to a Scientology center by fellow Beverly Hills Playhouse classmate Bodhi Elfman, Jenna Elfman’s husband. In a 1998 article for Buzz Magazine, Randye Hoder wrote “In his class, Katselas is careful not to label anything as a tenet of Scientology, but there is no question that the church’s influence seeps into the playhouse.”

Anne Archer’s husband and fellow Scientologist, producer Terry Jastrow, commented to The New York Times Magazine that Katselas changed the way he experiences life on a day-to-day basis: “I go out in the world and look at human behavior now. I see a woman or man interacting with a saleslady, and I see the artistry in it. Life is an endless unspooling of art, of acting, of painting, of architecture. And where did I learn that? From Milton.”

Actor Anthony Head of Buffy the Vampire Slayer spoke highly of Katselas in a 2002 interview with San Francisco Chronicle: “He’s this wonderfully intuitive teacher and his premise is basically: The only real barriers are the ones we put in front of ourselves. If you say, ‘My character wouldn’t do that’ — bollocks! Ultimately it’s you who wouldn’t say that. Who knows what your character might do.” In the acknowledgements of her 2004 autobiography Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs, and Lasagna, actress Doris Roberts wrote: “I thank my friend and acting teacher, the incredible Milton Katselas, for his insights, wisdom, and inspiration, which have helped make me the actress that I am.”

Katselas authored two books: Dreams Into Action: Getting What You Want, first published in 1996 by Dove Books, and Acting Class: Take a Seat, which came out earlier this month. Dreams Into Action, a New York Times Bestseller, sought to modify motivational acting exercises to the field of business.

In an interview in the 2007 book Acting Teachers of America, Katselas commented on his experiences as an acting teacher over the years: “I have very special teachers here at the Beverly Hills Playhouse—some have been with me for over twenty-five years. I believe that to make a difference over the long haul, we need to train teachers. I really care about the craft of acting. It’s absolutely necessary to take the time and patience to really develop an actor.”

Sunday, September 7, 2014 

Plans for a radio dramatisation of the novel Good Omens, co-written by prominent UK fantasy authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, were confirmed on Friday by BBC Radio 4.

Published in 1990, Good Omens tells the story of the impending Apocalypse, and the efforts of one angel and one demon to save the world.

Neil Gaiman has previously had one of his books, Neverwhere, adapted for radio. The director of that adaptation, Dirk Maggs, is also working on Good Omens.

Terry Pratchett is well known for his Discworld novels, of which the first one, Colour of Magic, was published in 1983.

Recording for what would be the first ever dramatisation of the cult-classic began on Friday, with broadcast dates unconfirmed but said to be in December. The show is expected to broadcast over five days throughout the week and an hour-long finale on the Saturday.

Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz have been cast in the lead roles, with other actors on the cast list including Colin Morgan, Josie Lawrence and Clive Russell. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are also expected to make cameo appearances.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products in the country. The company operates 658 retail stores (as of August 2, 2014^[update]) in all 50 U.S. states in addition to 705 college bookstores that serve over 5 million students and more than 250,000 faculty members across the country.^[4] Barnes & Noble also operates BN.com.

Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores and the company’s headquarters are at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Ladies’ Mile Historic District in Manhattan in New York City.^[5] Barnes & Noble College Booksellers is headquartered in Basking Ridge, NJ.

After a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, Barnes & Noble stands as America’s last remaining national bookstore chain.^[6][7] Previously, Barnes and Noble operated the chain of small B. Dalton Booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain. The company is known for large retail outlets, many of which contain a café serving Starbucks coffee. Most stores sell books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, music, and Nook eReaders and tablets. Video games and related items were sold in the company’s GameStop retail outlets until October 2004, when the division was spun off into an independent company.

Barnes & Noble originated in 1886 with a bookstore called Arthur Hinds & Company, located in the Cooper Union Building in New York City.^[8][9] In the fall of 1886, Gilbert Clifford Noble, a then-recent Harvard graduate from Westfield, Massachusetts, was hired to work there as a clerk.^[10] In 1894 Noble was made a partner, and the name of the shop was changed to Hinds & Noble.^[11] In 1901 Hinds & Noble moved to 31–35 W. 15th Street.^[12]

In 1917, Noble bought out Hinds and entered into a partnership with William Barnes, son of his old friend Charles; the name of the store was changed accordingly to Barnes & Noble.^[13][14] Charles Barnes had opened a book-printing business in Wheaton, Illinois in 1873; William Barnes divested himself of his ownership interest in his father’s firm just before his partnership with Noble and it would go on to become Follett Corporation. Although the flagship store once featured the motto “founded in 1873,” the C. M. Barnes-Wilcox Company never had any connection to Barnes & Noble other than the fact that both were partly owned (at different times) by William Barnes.

In 1930, Noble sold his share of the company to William Barnes’ son John Wilcox Barnes.^[15] Noble died on June 6, 1936, at the age of 72..^[16] In the long history of the bookstore, the namesake partnership was a brief interlude of thirteen years.

In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the bookstore was moved to a flagship location on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue,^[17] which served as such until it closed in 2014. The Noble family retained ownership of an associated publishing business and Barnes & Noble opened a new publishing division in 1931.^[15] In 1940, the store was one of the first businesses to feature Muzak; it underwent a major renovation the following year.^[18] That decade the company opened stores in Brooklyn and Chicago.^[19] William Barnes died in 1945 at the age of 78 and his son John Wilcox Barnes assumed full control.^[19] The company underwent a significant expansion in the 1950s and 1960s, opening an additional retail store on Twenty-third Street in Manhattan and shops near the City University of New York, Harvard and other Northeast college campuses.^[20] John Barnes died in 1969 and the company was sold to the conglomerate Amtel.^[21]

The business was purchased in 1971 by Leonard Riggio for $1.2 million.^[20] By then it had been badly mismanaged over the prior two years and consisted only of “a significantly reduced wholesale operation and a single retail location—the store at 105 Fifth Avenue.”^[20] In 1974, Barnes & Noble became the first bookstore to advertise on television and a year later, the company became the first bookseller in America to discount books, by selling The New York Times best-selling titles at 40% off the publishers’ list price.^[22] During the 1970s and 1980s, Barnes & Noble opened smaller discount stores, which were eventually phased out in favor of larger stores. They also began to publish their own books to be sold to mail-order customers. These titles were primarily affordable reissues of out-of-print titles and selling them through mail-order catalogs allowed Barnes & Noble to reach new customers nationwide.^[22]

In November 1974, in response to a question from a member of the studio audience, the British twin brothers Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter, who were editors of the British-produced Guinness Book of Records, claimed on the BBC One television programme Record Breakers that the Fifth Avenue store of Barnes and Noble had overtaken that of London’s Foyles bookshop to become the world’s biggest bookstore.^[23]

Barnes & Noble continued to expand throughout the 1980s and in 1987 purchased the primarily shopping mall-based B. Dalton chain from Dayton Hudson. The last B. Dalton stores were slated to close in January 2010.^[24] In 1989 Barnes and Noble had purchased the 22-store chain Bookstop. Solveig Robinson, author of The Book in Society: An Introduction to Print Culture, wrote that the purchase “gave [Barnes and Nobile] the necessary know-how and infrastructure to create what, in 1992, became the definitive bookselling superstore.”^[25] The acquisition of 797 bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer and as of the end of fiscal year 1999, the second-largest online bookseller in the United States.^[24] B&N’s critics claim that it has contributed to the decline of local and independent booksellers.^[26]

Before Barnes & Noble created its web site, it sold books directly to customers through mail-order catalogs. It first began selling books online in the late 1980s, in an early generation venue called Trintex, a joint venture between Sears and IBM, but the company’s website was not launched until May 1997.^[27] According to the site, it now carries over 2 million titles.^[28]

In 2002, Leonard Riggio’s brother Stephen Riggio was named CEO, a position he held until 2010.^[29] The Barnes & Noble Review, an online literary site, was launched in October 2007. It featured book reviews, columns, and interview from critics and authors such as Michael Dirda, John Freeman, A.C. Grayling, Ezra Klein, Paul LaFarge, Mark Sarvas, Dava Sobel, Neal Stephenson, Stephen King, and Greil Marcus.^[30] Music critic Robert Christgau has also written essays for the site.^[31]

In March 2010, William Lynch, formerly the president of the company’s website, was appointed CEO. He is credited with helping launch the company’s electronic book store and overseeing the introduction of its electronic book reader, the Nook. Many observers saw his appointment as underscoring the importance of digital books to Barnes & Noble’s future. Steve Riggio stayed on as vice chairman.^[32]

After the bankruptcy and closure of its chief competitor, Borders Group, in 2011,^[33] Barnes & Noble became the last remaining national bookstore chain in America.^[6][7] This followed a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, which also saw the demise of Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble’s own subsidiary B. Dalton and Crown Books, among others. Barnes & Noble’s largest physical bookstore rival is now Books-A-Million, which does not operate in the Western US. Barnes & Noble also faces competition from general retailers, especially from Amazon.com, and from regional and independent booksellers.

On October 23, 2012 the New York Times reported that credit card information was stolen in 63 stores.^[34]

On July 8, 2013, the company announced the resignation of William Lynch as Barnes & Noble CEO and board member, effective immediately. No immediate replacement was named.^[35]

On January 8, 2014 it was announced that Michael P. Huseby would become the new CEO of Barnes and Noble. Huseby had joined Barnes & Noble as Chief Financial Officer in March, 2012, and led the Company’s financial organization until his appointment as President in July, 2013. Prior to joining Barnes & Noble, he worked in the media communications industry, most recently having served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cablevision Systems Corporation.^[36]

On June 25, 2014 it was announced that Barnes & Noble will spin off the Nook Media division into an independent publicly traded company.^[37] In the summer of 2014, Barnes & Noble partnered with Google Shopping Express in some U.S. cities to offer same-day delivery for books and other products. In 2014 it also teamed up with Samsung (which manufactures B&N’s Nook device) and also launched a print-on-demand service for aspiring authors.^[38]

Barnes & Noble publishes some of the books it sells, inexpensively reprinting non-copyrighted titles or acquiring the U.S. or English language rights from another publisher. In addition, Barnes & Noble commissions reprint anthologies and omnibus editions using in-house editors.^{[citation needed]}

One of these titles, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin, has sold over 250,000 copies.^[27] The reissued edition of The Columbia History of the World by John Garrity, for example has sold over 1 million copies.^[27]

Since then, the company has expanded its publishing operation. This expansion was aided by the company’s acquisition of SparkNotes, an educational website and publishing company. Further expansions of the company’s publishing business include the purchase of how-to publisher Sterling Publishing in 2003.^[27]

From around 1992 through early 2003, Barnes & Noble released a series of literary classics for adults and children under the imprint Barnes & Noble Classics. Originally available only in hardcover, most titles came in a black or cream-colored dustjacket edition. In 2003, Barnes & Noble revamped and expanded its line of literature classics, releasing books in hardcover, trade paperback and mass-market editions.^{[citation needed]}

In addition, Barnes & Noble has a second paperback series called the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading.^[39]

The first store to feature a café serving Starbucks beverages was in Springfield, New Jersey in 1993. Since then, most stores have been amended or constructed specifically to feature a cafe serving Starbucks beverages, Harney & Sons or Tazo Tea, FIJI Bottled Water, bakery goods from The Cheesecake Factory, candy from Godiva Chocolatiers, sandwiches and other specialty products. Although the cafés are owned and operated by Barnes & Noble, servers follow Starbucks’ standards in beverage preparation.^{[citation needed]} The Barnes & Noble membership card is accepted to receive a discount on any café related goods.^[40]

In 2004, Barnes & Noble began offering Wi-Fi in the café area of selected stores, using SBC FreedomLink (now the AT&T Wi-Fi network). All stores currently offer Wi-Fi, an effort which was completed in 2006. As of July 27, 2009, Wi-Fi is offered for free to all customers.^[41]

Barnes & Noble hires community relations managers to engage in community outreach. These managers’ responsibilities include organizing in-store events, such as author appearances, children’s storytimes and book groups. Community relations managers also work closely with local schools and groups to promote literacy and the arts. For example, Barnes & Noble sponsors a children’s summer reading program that promotes literacy and puts over 2 million books into the hands of the children each year.^[42] Barnes & Noble also hosts bookfairs, which raise funds for schools and libraries and an annual holiday book drive to collect books for disadvantaged children. 1.16 million books were collected and distributed in 2007.^[43] To promote nationwide literacy among 1st to 6th graders and encourage more reading during the summer, Barnes & Noble has implemented a summer challenge: if children read 8 books and write about their reading, Barnes & Noble will give the readers a free book.^[44]

Barnes & Noble Nook is a suite of electronic book readers developed by the company,^[45] based on the Android platform. The first device was announced in the United States on October 20, 2009 and was released November 30, 2009, for $259.^[46] On June 21, 2010 Barnes & Noble reduced the Nook’s price to $199, as well as launched a new Wi-Fi-only model, for $149 and released a Nook colored touch screen for $249.^[47]

The Nook competes with the Amazon Kindle, Kobo eReader, Sony Reader, and color devices used sometimes as readers like Apple’s iBooks for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and other e-readers. Various Nook models feature a 6-inch or 7-inch touchscreen.^[48] Version 1.3 of the Nook introduced Wi-Fi connectivity, a web browser, a dictionary, chess and sudoku games and a separate, smaller color touchscreen that serves as the primary input device. The Nook also features a Read in Store capability that allows visitors to stream and read any book for up to one hour while shopping in a Barnes & Noble Store. According to a June 2010 CNet article, the company plans to expand this feature to include periodicals in the near future.^[49] The color version of the Nook introduced a 7-inch color touchscreen and the ability to view at a portrait or landscape orientation.^[50]

On April 30, 2012, Microsoft invested $300 million for a 17.6% stake in Nook, which valued the business at about $1.7 billion.^[51]

In November 2012, the technology publications Techdirt and Mashable criticized the license agreement with which Barnes & Noble sells ebooks to consumers, pointing out that the rights to re-download a purchased ebook expire when the customer’s credit card expires and a valid credit card must be added to the account to restore this functionality.^[52][53]

In June 2014, the company announced a partnership with Samsung Electronics to make Nook tablets, as the bookseller moves forward with plans to revamp its digital business.^[54] Samsung and Barnes & Noble introduced the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 7.0 in August 2014, followed by the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 10.1 in October 2014.

Barnes & Noble has also announced that it will spin off its Nook Media division into a separate publicly traded company. The company’s objective is to take the steps necessary to complete the separation by the end of the first quarter of 2015. In December 2014, Barnes & Noble announced that it has ended its partnership with Microsoft connected to the Nook e-reader.^[55]

Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, Inc., headquartered in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, is a subsidiary of the company which operates bookstores at more than 700 institutions of higher education. College Bookstores was previously owned by company chairman Leonard Riggio.

Barnes & Noble College Booksellers also operated the self-proclaimed “world’s largest bookstore” on Fifth Avenue and 18th Street in New York City from 1932 to 2014. This flagship store carried a large variety of textbooks, medical and legal books and medical supplies in addition to the various trade titles carried at the company’s main stores.^[56]

Tuesday, October 9, 2007 

Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an office action, which confirmed the patentability of claims 6 to 10 of the Amazon 1-Click patent, US 5,960,411. The patent examiner, however, rejected claims 1 to 5 and 11 to 15. Amazon now has up to six months to amend the rejected claims to overcome the examiner’s rejection, provide arguments to demonstrate that the examiner is in error and/or provide evidence to demonstrate the patentability of their claims. During this period, the entire patent is still considered valid under US patent law.

The USPTO is reconsidering the patentability of the claims due to a request for reexamination filed by New Zealander Peter Calveley. Mr. Calveley used internet archives to show that defunct company Digi Cash used a similar technique prior to Amazon. Despite costing a substantial sum of cash and requiring donations to prepare and file the request for reexamination, Calveley said he did it as a game and hopes that his success inspires others to play the same game.

“One Click” shopping is an ecommerce technique, which allows a customer to purchase products via the Internet without repeatedly entering personal information such as name and address. At the time it was introduced it eased the frustration of on-line shopping.

Amazon filed the patent application for 1-click shopping in early 1997 and was granted the patent in September 1999. 23 days later Amazon sued rival Barnes & Noble for alleged infringement by its “Express Lane” ordering which was introduced in 1998. In December 1999 Amazon won an interim injunction against Barnes & Noble but the USA Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit lifted this injunction in February 2001. The parties then settled their dispute for undisclosed terms. Amazon has since successfully licensed the technique to other e-sellers such as Apple.

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I am too chronically ill to do much over here, when I already can’t predict which en.WP edits that I start will be the ones I have to abandon. (If curious, see User:Geekdiva at en.WP for info on my limitations.)

But when working on the External links section of Scientology controversies, I saw that the Template:Wikinewshas/Scientology only had articles from 2012 and prior.

Google News shows there have been stories on Scientology since 2012. So:

Thanks for all your hard work over here and sorry I couldn’t figure this out on my own, though I did look. –Geekdiva (talk) 22:06, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. Lock-in costs which create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly.

SIM locking may be considered a vendor lock-in tactic, since phones purchased from the vendor will work with SIM cards only from the same network. This creates additional inconvenience to the buyer, as the phone cannot use a prepaid SIM from a different vendor while on vacation. As a result, the subscriber must also sign up for the often expensive roaming service offered by the vendor. Additionally, should the subscriber wish to take out a second line for any reason, they must also get the line from the same vendor, as the SIM card of a competing vendor will not work. Sometimes, even the SIM card from the same vendor will not work and the buyer will be forced into buying another phone.^{[citation needed]}

Gift certificates are textbook examples of vendor lock-in as they can be used solely in the vendor’s shops. Gift certificates are typically only worth their face price (no bonus credit is added), so generally, they do not represent any financial advantage over money.

Also, some vendors practice a store-credit/gift certificate refund policy in the time of warranty if they can’t replace or repair the product. This is illegal in many jurisdictions as it forces the client to buy a different article in the same shop possibly for lower price/quality ratio. It’s also possible that the client is forced to buy a completely different product if the original product line is no longer sold.

This policy is different from the refund policy in case of dissatisfaction. In this case, the vendor offers to exchange the article in a typically short time frame. If the article is not faulty then the vendor has no obligation to exchange or refund it unless they’re committed to do so in advance.

In the United States, for many years the Bell System monopoly refused to allow anyone to interconnect their network to other networks or to non-Bell equipment. This was overturned by the Hush-A-Phone v. United States federal court ruling and the Carterfone FCC regulatory rulings.

The Bell System allowed interconnection to third-party equipment only through the added expense of protective acoustic couplers, while Bell equipment could be directly electrically connected to the network, until a later FCC order which led to standardized modular connectors.

Vendor lock-in is widespread in the computer and electronics industries.

In the computer industry, both hardware and software, vendor lock-in can be used to describe situations in which there is a lack of compatibility or interoperability between equivalent components.

This can make it difficult to switch systems at many levels; the application program, the file format, the operating system, or various pieces of computer hardware ranging from a video card to a whole computer or even an entire network of computers. Note that in many cases, there are no technical standards that would allow creation of interoperable systems. At nearly any level of systems architecture, lock-in may occur. This creates a situation where lock-in is often used as leverage to get market share, often leading to monopolies and antitrust actions.

IBM was subject to a series of the longest and most complex monopoly antitrust actions in United States history, and presented the first significant model for understanding of how lock-in affected the computer industry. IBM had significant lock-in of the punched card industry from its earliest days: before computers as we recognize them today even existed. From dominance of the card punches, readers, tabulators, and printers, IBM extended to dominance of the mainframe computer market, and then to the operating systems and application programs for computers. Third party products existed for some areas, but customers then faced the prospect of having to prove which vendor was at fault if, say, a third party printer didn’t work correctly with an IBM computer, and IBM’s warranties and service agreements often stipulated that they would not support systems with non-IBM components attached. This put customers into an all-or-nothing situation.

Microsoft software carries a high level of vendor lock-in, based on its extensive set of proprietary APIs. Their degree of lock-in combined with their market share has made them subject to a number of antitrust lawsuits.

The European Commission, in its March 24, 2004 decision on Microsoft’s business practices,^[4] quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in a February 21, 1997 internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates:

The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead … .

It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties … . Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.

Microsoft’s application software also exhibits lock-in through the use of proprietary file formats. Microsoft Outlook uses a proprietary datastore file and interface which are impossible to read without being parsed. Present versions of Microsoft Word have introduced a new format MS-OOXML. This may make it easier for competitors to write documents compatible with Microsoft Office in the future by reducing lock-in. Microsoft released full descriptions of the file formats for earlier versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in February 2008.^[5]

Apple Inc. has historically been well known for its lock-in practices. For a long time their market share has been small enough that their anti-trust exposure has been substantially less than that of Microsoft or IBM.

Prior to March 2009, digital music files with digital rights management were available for purchase from the iTunes Store, encoded in a proprietary derivative of the AAC format that used Apple’s FairPlay DRM system. These files are compatible only with Apple’s iTunes media player software on Macs and Windows, their iPod portable digital music players, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, and the Motorola ROKR E1 and SLVR mobile phones. As a result, that music was locked into this ecosystem and available for portable use only through the purchase of one of the above devices,^[6] or by burning to CD and optionally re-ripping to a DRM-free format such as MP3 or WAV.

In January, 2005, an iPod purchaser named Thomas Slattery filed a suit against Apple for the “unlawful bundling” of their iTunes Music Store and iPod device. He stated in his brief: “Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice.” At the time Apple was stated to have an 80% market share of digital music sales and a 90% share of sales of new music players, which he claimed allowed Apple to horizontally leverage its dominant positions in both markets to lock consumers into its complementary offerings.^[7] In September 2005, U.S. District Judge James Ware approved Slattery v. Apple Computer Inc. to proceed with monopoly charges against Apple in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.^[8]

On June 7, 2006, the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon stated that Apple’s iTunes Music Store violates Norwegian law. The contract conditions were vague and “clearly unbalanced to disfavor the customer”.^[9] The retroactive changes to the Digital Rights Management conditions and the incompatibility with other music players are the major points of concern.^{[citation needed]}

As of 29 May 2007^[update], tracks on the EMI label became available in a DRM-free format called iTunes Plus. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kilobits per second, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service. iTunes accounts can be set to display either standard or iTunes Plus formats for tracks where both formats exist.^[10] These files can be used with any player that supports the AAC file format and are not locked to Apple hardware. They can be converted to MP3 format if desired.

As of January 6, 2009, all four big music studios (Warner Bros., Sony BMG, Universal, and EMI) have signed up to remove the DRM from their tracks, at no extra cost. However, Apple charges consumers to have previously purchased DRM music restrictions removed.^[11]

As of the end of March, 2009, all music available on iTunes is DRM-free.^[11] However, digital downloads of television shows, movies, and iOS mobile apps through iTunes are still DRM-protected (at the insistence of the content producers who make it a prerequisite for distribution on most systems, including Apple’s).

Sony has used lock-in as a business tool in many other applications, and has a long history of engineering proprietary solutions to enforce lock-in. For many cases, Sony licenses its technology to a limited number of other vendors, which creates a situation in which it controls a cartel that collectively has lock-in on the product. Sony is frequently at the heart of format wars, in which two or more such cartels battle to capture a market and win the lock.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of Sony’s formats include:

As of 2006^[update], Sony digital cameras and a number of other Sony products typically use Memory Stick cards that can be manufactured only by Sony, co-developer SanDisk, and select licensees. This memory can be more expensive in some markets when compared to alternative memory types that exhibit similar characteristics such as data transfer speeds. This is an example of vendor lock-in, as existing users of Sony products are less likely to purchase a competitor’s product that uses a different storage medium due to the extra cost of acquiring a differing storage media. Similarly, this can discourage consumers with non-Sony merchandise from purchasing Sony products.

In contrast, Blu-ray Disc was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association where Sony is a member, but does not have a controlling position.

Manufacturers of computer hardware sometimes design unusual or proprietary connectors. The reasons for such designs vary; some are intended to force customers quietly into a vendor lock-in situation, or force upgrading customers to replace more components than would otherwise be necessary; others are the result of practical considerations such as cost, packaging, ease of design, unusual or enhanced features; and still others result from an ignorance of standards, or even an absence of standards. There may be little immediate financial incentive for a vendor to provide backward compatibility or interoperability, while considerable (though unethical) gain may be had from preventing compatibility.

The term connector conspiracy^[12] was coined to describe this situation, and (generally humorously) implies the worst-case scenario of a cabal of manufacturers colluding in secret to sell incompatible connectors. In many “connector conspiracy” cases, vendor lock-in can be avoided by use of adapters.

Converting lossily compressed data into another format usually either increases its size, or further decreases its quality.^[13] Thus compatibility with data in the old format may need to be kept when switching to a different format, even when decoding from (as with many MPEG formats), or distribution in (as has at least been planned with H.264) the old format requires paying royalties.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public, royalty-free standards were hailed as the best solution to vendor lock-in. But there is still a possibility that one software vendor could use “embrace, extend and extinguish” (EEE) tactics to achieve a dominant market share, which could render the standard obsolete. The history of SQL is an archetypal example.^{[citation needed]}

Since the late 1990s, the use of free and open source software (FOSS), such as operating systems built on the Linux kernel, free software by teams such as the GNU Project, and free desktop environments created by projects such as KDE and GNOME, have arisen as a potential solution to some forms of vendor lock-in. Such software is typically licensed under one of several variants of the GNU General Public License, a license that prevents vendor lock-in by design: software licensed under the GPL may be freely modified and redistributed, but may not be transformed into proprietary software without violating the terms of the license.

As such, users and developers of software licensed under the GPL are legally able to “fork” a software project if they are unhappy with the direction, goals, or priorities of the original project. Typical examples of “forks” of GPL-licensed software include the Linux Mint team’s creation of the Cinnamon desktop environment, which arose as a fork of GNOME Shell, and The Document Foundation’s creation of the LibreOffice office suite, which arose as a fork of OpenOffice.org in 2010.

As a result, software licensed under the GPL is especially resistant to vendor lock-in, since any individual or company that distributes original or modified versions of such software cannot legally prevent further modification and redistribution of the original source code.^{[citation needed]}

The razor and blades business model involves products which regularly consume some material, part, or supply. In this system, a reusable or durable product is inexpensive, and the company draws its profits from the sale of consumable parts that the product uses. To ensure the original company alone receives the profits from the sales of consumable, they use a proprietary approach to exclude other companies. Inkjet computer printers are a common example of this model.

One way to create artificial lock-in for items without it is to create loyalty schemes. Examples include frequent flier miles or points systems associated with credit card offers that can be used only with the original company, creating a perceived loss or cost when switching to a competitor.

Friday, April 4, 2008 

The fifth annual Sony Fair, established and organized by Sony Taiwan Limited in Taipei, Taiwan since 2004, started at the North Square of Taipei 101 near the TWTC Hall 3 from April 3 to 13. With more opportunities and chances of Blu-ray and High-definition markets, the organizer named its theme slogan with “High-definition Entertainment Park”.

Not only executives supported this show, and high-definition AV-media showcases, but Sony BMG Taiwan will also invite several vocalists to hold some mini concerts in the Sony Fair 2008 to bring up the visitors during holiday nights.