Jerry,

>As far as lost rights are concerned there are many (just read a recent EULA to see what you cannot do) but, how about this one: If your company tests MS product A against 3rd Party product A', and the tests are not favorable to Microsoft's A, then try to post them on a company Internet website without Microsoft's permission. But, since Microsoft started this practice other third party software companies have followed suit, hence the claim that "everyone is doing it".

I would consider this smart for Microsoft or any other company. If some party runs a test how are you going to guarantee it's fair? What if somebody took Outlook and installed it on a P60 and compared it to Notes running on a P4 1.7 and published that Notes opened e-mail 100 times quicker than Outlook. Sure, if there a good tester they'll use the same harware, etc., etc. What if Lotus ran the tests? Do you think there would be bias in the results?

If somebody was going to test your code against another's wouldn't you like to know about it? What if millions of dollars would be lost because of an unfair test?

Dan