DoJ Extends Microsoft Oversight for Two Years

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Department of Justice has extended its anti-trust oversight of Microsoft by two years. This only applies to the requirement that Microsoft make protocol documentation available to competitors, though. All of the other requirements have expired, and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not give the states complaining the full five years of oversight they requested. Still, this should prove useful given that one of Microsoft's new tricks is to use OOXML extensions to tie businesses to Sharepoint."

Toothless and Pointless

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

What's the point? The DoJ has achieved less real change in the past decade than the EU has achieved in past two years.

Re:

[infonography (566403)]

What's the point? The DoJ has achieved less real change in the past decade than the EU has achieved in past two years.

No, the economy and a really terrible flagship product (Vista) have castrated them already. Linux in spite of it's Fanboys has really started to take root as an option.

Remember that most of the people currently buying computers these days don't know what the black stuff on Bill Gates' Icon is about.

The Geek in Fantasyland

[westlake (615356)]

No, the economy and a really terrible flagship product (Vista) have castrated them already. Linux in spite of it's Fanboys has really started to take root as an option.

Microsoft has posted first and second quarterly results for fiscal year 2008 that that have been nothing less than spectacular. It is debt free, paying dividends, and holds $20 billion or so in cash.

Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses. Microsoft reports record second quarter results [mcsolutions.co.uk]

If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:

Vista is the only client OS to show significant growth in years. OS Platform Stats [w3schools.com]

You can argue all you like about the specifics of the w3Schools stats but you are going to have a much harder time explaining away the long term trends exposed there.

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

Uh.. it's pretty easy to grow significantly from 0% when your creator uses their monopoly powers to make it the *only* Windows option in a lot of cases. Vista adoption is piss-poor compared to all the hype that has been surrounding Longhorn for the last few years (even I thought that maybe Microsoft had got their act together, but the fact that even the Microsoft pandering public doesn't like it has given me back a little of my faith in human kind). If it were a choice between XP and Vista then only the pos

Re:The Geek in Fantasyland

[Divebus (860563)]

Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses.

Fishy math, there. Apple has jumped several percentage points in that same year, and some Major PC vendors are now shipping Linux machines in broad daylight. I know more people running Leopard than Vista and they only sold a few million of those so far. Where's the Vista? Are they counting all the machines returned to the vendor or reverted to XP? Something funny going on here.

Re:Toothless and Pointless

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

And the EU has achieved real change, beyond fines and a separate packaged version of Windows that essentially no one uses?

Yes.

The Software Freedom Law Center got the protocol documents [samba.org] for Microsoft workgroup networking, which they were supposed to make available in 2004.

The EU agreement also weakens Microsoft's FUD about Linux and other FOSS violating its patents. They now have to disclose patents covering its workgroup protocols so developers will be able to show their code doesn't infringe.

Thats nice and all.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

The real important question: Is microsoft any less of a monopoly due to any of these remedy's?

Re:

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

Is microsoft any less of a monopoly due to any of these remedy's?

Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.

Re:

[rohan972 (880586)]

As I understand it, the courts don't aim to make them "not a monopoly", they aim to prevent them abusing that position to prevent competition.

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[rbanffy (584143)]

"The real important question: Is microsoft any less of a monopoly due to any of these remedy's?"

It's not illegal to be a monopoly. What's illegal is to leverage one monopoly to create another. The remedies are aimed at that.

Re:

[daem0n1x (748565)]

According to your thought, the vaccine for tuberculosis is completely useless because some people still catch tuberculosis today. Of course Microsoft is still a monopoly, but weakening their position is a GOOD THING. You can't take down a monopoly with some magic bullet, it takes decades.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

I just think the effect of the courts remedies does little to nothing to solve the problem. They aren't nearly as effective as the TB vaccine ( 80%). I think the main effect of the court action is similar to most civil court cases: little changes except the lawyer's bank accounts. I think firefox has proved that real competition has more effect than any court case.

Re:

[JohnBailey (1092697)]

I have baited breath. Is there anything I can do about this? Altoids don't work.

Try taking the worm out of your mouth.

Re:

[SkunkPussy (85271)]

I genuinely don't believe you can effective competition in a free/regulated capitalist market unless there are a large number of players. Large to me means 5-10. My belief is that economic policy and regulation should be geared around maximising the number of competitors in a give market.

This is an issue entirely separate from monopolies abusing their supremacy in one market to gain undeserved share in another market, however the latter could not occur if the markets were regulated as described in the previ

In other news....

[Viceroy Potatohead (954845)]

In a rare "double-whammy" decision, the DOJ has ordered Steve Ballmer and Darl MacBride to co-produce (and star in) a feature length film entitled "2 CEOs, 1 Cup"... MacBride couldn't be reached for comment, but Ballmer was heard saying: "No problem. Bill has been preparing me for this for years".

Seriously, though. Why does the DOJ seem so toothless when it comes to corporations or the ultra-wealthy, yet act like right-stomping psychopaths for small players (to the point of waffling on definitions of torture, or weaseling around the constitution)? How could it be anything but corruption?

Re:

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

Because it is an American company and of course are totally ethical and obey laws just because they are not in *gasp* another country or so they think.

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[pclminion (145572)]

In a rare "double-whammy" decision, the DOJ has ordered Steve Ballmer and Darl MacBride to co-produce (and star in) a feature length film entitled "2 CEOs, 1 Cup"...

For some reason I imagined these two men struggling valiantly for control of an athletic cup. What is wrong with me?

Re:

[S.O.B. (136083)]

Seriously, though. Why does the DOJ seem so toothless when it comes to corporations or the ultra-wealthy, yet act like right-stomping psychopaths for small players (to the point of waffling on definitions of torture, or weaseling around the constitution)?

Because there is a Republican president.

BS in TFA

[peektwice (726616)]

The relevance of the consent decree sanctions is somewhat questionable under current market conditions.

TFA gives evidence to the dominance of Google in the search arena, Apple's up-and-coming market share, and Firefox's also blossoming market share. However, what they're missing is that Microsoft still holds a heavily dominant position in the O/S market and an equally dominant market position in the office applications market. I call BS.
It is clear to me that the sanctions are still relevant. What is not clear to me is how the consent decree is going to change anything, since TFA also states that "protocol specifications" were supposed to be released in 2003, and still haven't been fully released.

Sharepoint leverages OOXML?

[RobBebop (947356)]

one of Microsoft's new tricks is to use OOXML extensions to tie businesses to Sharepoint

This is news to me. If this is true, it sounds like the Microsoft is making an attempt to entrench businesses with OOXML through there popular web-based collaboration software.

A quick search on Google turns up Alfresco [alfresco.com] as a F/OSS alternative to Sharepoint. Can anybody comment on the quality and effectiveness of Alfresco, and mention if it is mature enough to be a viable (and recommendable) alternative to Sharepoint as an enterprise solution for collaboration within large businesses?

Re:Sharepoint leverages OOXML?

[coredog64 (1001648)]

As a SharePoint geek (2003 and 2007) I'm curious about what's in the new OOXML formats that's SharePoint specific. I know I haven't
seen anything in the documents -- hell, out of the box SharePoint doesn't even correctly index all the new OOXML formats like it does
for the old binary ones.

Yes, SharePoint 2007 works best with Office 2007 (DIP, better dialogs, read-only means read-only, calendar sync, etc. etc.) but I have
yet to see _anything_ in the standard collaboration functionality* that screams "OMGWTFBBQ! Why aren't you using OOXML formats?".

All that said, please don't let facts get in the way of anti-Microsoft rants. It's part of what makes /. so much fun.

*I don't consider writing features that generate OOXML to be standard collaboration. Yes, it's much easier to do OOXML than, say, WordML and/or SpreadsheetML.

P.S. As to the poster asking about Alfresco, I think the biggest hurdle there is lack of decent documentation.

Re:

[19thNervousBreakdown (768619)]

I don't know that I can pick up a 6,000 page book.

Re:

[denis-The-menace (471988)]

OOXML opens a whole lot more doors for FOSS than the binary formats ever did, [...]

That's why MS patented the fuck out of OOXML so that FOSS project couldn't touch it.

Incompetence?

[PineHall (206441)]

Is it incompetence that caused Microsoft not to get the protocol specifications documented? If that is the case Microsoft is in big trouble. Or they are illegally going slow. Either way Microsoft should be in big trouble. I think the judge needs to wake up.

Re:Incompetence?

[Fireshadow (632041)]

More details can be found here from the previous round of talks: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070308-us-doj-microsoft-dragging-feet-on-documentation.html [arstechnica.com] Or the official DOJ page http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f221700/221759.htm [usdoj.gov]

not that I love MS or anything

[superwiz (655733)]

as a matter of fact, I would generally agree with all the claims that they strong arm the competition to win against better products in the marketplace. But, MS (and Bill Gates) in particular has been shilling for Democrats as of lately. He put Gore as his de facto choice of a successful politician in his retirement video. And he talked about the necessity to "contribute to society" by charity rather than by progress -- a traditional Democratic dogma. I don't want to argue politics per se here. I just

Re:I dunno...

[timmarhy (659436)]

Microsoft make lots of very good products, it's not fair to bag them on -everything-

sql server is a great product, and is certainly better then everything else in the opensource world aside from postgresql (i've used both extensively) and even then sql server trumps pg in many areas. like wise with access, say what you will about it but i don't see any OSS project that's even close to it.

many of the developer tools MS puts out are top notch as well, something OSS is still 10 years behind on - easy to use gui development, and i say that as someone who programmed in wxpython for 2 years solid on both windows and freebsd, and has since moved to a windows shop. no doubt there will be some out their who will equate this with VB programmers and the usual snobbery, but the truth is i can put together a windows apps many times faster and just as robust as anything currently out there int he linux world.

for OSS to move forward, they need to drop the stupid ego trip and look at what MS do RIGHT, or OSS will always be the poor mans 2nd choice.

oblig Ubuntu reference

[PrescriptionWarning (932687)]

*ahem* Ubuntu

quite possibly best OS distro out there, even among the likes of commercial offerings like OSX and WinXP. Sure each has its advantages in certain areas, but as a jack of all trades ubuntu can get it all done without much fuss. What it really comes down to is application support, if you are using software that absolutely requires any one OS in exclusion of all others, then you are screwing yourself for the future (this mostly applies to businesses however)

Re:

[timmarhy (659436)]

your only screwing yourself if you don't pick the right OS for your business needs, and right now that means windows and MS for most people.

OSS stuff is often too highly specialised to be a good investment for lots of businesses as well, they need to know they get the support down the track. yes there are vendors like red hat, but have you looked at their prices? it makes windows look cheap.

Re:oblig Ubuntu reference

[Ajehals (947354)]

It depends what you are looking at.

Many businesses, especially small to medium businesses have very minimal IT requirements, mail, web access and general administrative tasks. If you go the windows route that basic set up is quite expensive, prone to issues, inflexible and it will probably require more in the way of maintenance than a well configured FOSS based alternative. Many businesses have huge numbers of call centre seats that in effect need a web browser and possibly a very minimal agent application, with maybe one in 20 users requiring a spreadsheet application or a word-processor (Oh and they like to hot-seat), again, it doesn't have to be complex, and again its probably a better solution to use FOSS here too.

The truth is that for most people a non MS OS would probably do, we can both list things that are non-trivial to achieve, or possibly even impossible (running certain applications), without Windows, which is all well and good, but it is true to say that there is a large base of companies who could live without windows at all or with a mixed environment.

I'm not saying that FOSS is only suitable for small organisations, because that is not true, there is some extremely capable stuff out there, I would certainly say that there is an awful lot that is possible using FOSS that is either impossible with Windows, or prohibitively expensive, the problem as always is the fact that most businesses are entrenched in one technology or another and would find it extremely difficult to get out of it.

Anyway, this posted at a silly time in the morning, and I'm tired so excuse any rambling / grammatical errors or typo's.

Cheers.

Re:

[filbranden (1168407)]

your only screwing yourself if you don't pick the right OS for your business needs, and right now that means windows and MS for most people.

Your argument is completely flawed. You start saying that you have to pick the right OS for your business needs, and then you say that for most people it is Microsoft, in a way to imply that everyone should go with Microsoft since it's good for most so it will be good for you? It doesn't make sense. You say: 1) You should pick what is good for you; 2) Most people pick this, so you should pick it too.

The problem today is that Microsoft has a monopoly for so long that people start thinking that their way

Re:

[timmarhy (659436)]

I think you missed the entire point, please reread what i said without the rabid anti-ms bias and you'll see i said 1. pick the best tool for the job and 2. most people pick MS for this reason, it's simply what they need to run their business. don't hate me because i'm right k?

Re:

[jimicus (737525)]

2 does not necessarily follow on from 1.

Lots of people pick MS without really evaluating whether or not there are any alternatives which may suit them better. Furthermore, a lot of small businesses get their IT supplied by the local chap down the road who happens to know a bit about computers - and 9 times out of 10, what that means is he'll install Windows SBS because it's what he knows.

Re:

[Macthorpe (960048)]

Can you really blame Microsoft for people not taking the time to research their choices? Let's be honest, the fact that people don't bother evaluating would suggest either:-

A) they don't know of alternatives, or
B) they're happy with what they have right now.

Given the rise of knowledge of Linux's existence and yet the lack of progress with gaining marketshare from Microsoft, it grows more and more likely that it's B.

Re:

[jimicus (737525)]

Of course I can't. But I wasn't.

Smaller businesses are happy with what they have right now - probably because quite honestly, the level of functionality SBS gives you for the money is actually pretty damn good. I defy anyone to build a Linux-based solution with the same level of functionality for less cost when the cost of their time is taken into account.

The things you'll have trouble with are:

- Exchange - there's no Free equivalent which integrates as sweetly with Outlook and a web based client

Re:

[GaryPatterson (852699)]

I like SQL Server, and have developed extensively for it, but this statement "certainly better then everything else in the opensource" is wrong because it infers SQL Server is an open sourced product. If you're going to compare am expensive DBMS to a free one, you need to account for the free one being free to install with a $0 per user cost. SQL Server is over-used in business today, with managers buying it for small projects where it's not warranted.

SQL Server is better for some applications than many ope

Re:

[Shados (741919)]

You do realise that for small installations and small projects, SQL Server is free, yes?

Re:

[GaryPatterson (852699)]

I do now!

Well, I've only used it in businesses where some IT guy adds a cost to the project.

Would the free licence extend to (say) a small set of 5-10 users in a business? With DTS packages, schedules, and all the nice bits?

Re:I dunno...

[Shados (741919)]

Unlimited users, but its a bit limited on how much hardware and RAM you can throw at it. Also limited to 4 gigs in size. Reporting Services is in, DTS (Which, as of SQL Server 2005, has been remade from scratch into the vastly superior SSIS) is NOT in (and that makes me very, very sad, since SSIS is my favorite ETL tool).

I'm not sure about the scheduling and stuff, but quite a bit of these features are there. The development tools for it are also free (they're part of a free version of Visual Studio). No Analysis Service and OLAP cubes either.

It is definately not for all scenarios, but considering the ease of development, it serves a lot of purposes. I still push the open source offering when we need an enterprise-class solution and the customer's being cheap though :) Postgres has OK dev tools, and onces its hidden behind an ORM like Hibernate or LLBLGEN, it all looks the same, aside for the business intelligence bits.

Re:

[Shados (741919)]

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx [microsoft.com]

There. It has the service broker, doesn't have data driven notification... One thing thats nice, is that it can deal with "on the fly" attaching of database files...so you can use SQL Server databases a bit like you'd be using MS Access databases, or (I beleive, I've never used it) SQLite. Ship the application with the database file, and it will use it like (but not quite) it was an embedded database... Thats something the full version of S

Re:I dunno...

[filbranden (1168407)]

For OSS to move forward, they need to drop the stupid ego trip and look at what MS do RIGHT, or OSS will always be the poor mans 2nd choice.

On the contrary.

There are misguided FOSS attempts on going after what Microsoft is doing, but overall all they achieve is a loss of time for everyone. Why lose time replicating crappy technology? In this bag, I include, for instance, Mono and Moonlight. And, of course, the efforts on implementing MSOOXML, by Gnome, for instance. MSOOXML should be seen as a deprecated legacy format, for which only a half-assed converter should be created.

Take Samba, for instance. It's a great piece of software! But for what? For implementing a proprietary file sharing protocol, that is so flawed that it has to be changed with every major version of Microsoft's OS, many times with incompatibilities with previous versions. I mean, of course Samba made viable the implementation of Linux on the enterprise, on Windows networks, and should be praised for that. But, overall, isn't it a waste for these very talented guys to lose all this time coding this crappy protocol, when they could in fact be putting their effort on something other than following what Microsoft is doing?

Microsoft make lots of very good products, it's not fair to bag them on -everything-

I don't agree. I don't know any Microsoft product that I could call "very good".

The reason to "bag them" is not because of their products, but because of their business practics, which are not based on competing on merits, but on spreading FUD and locking in customers as much as they can. Just see ODF/MSOOXML and the OLPC/Classmate for two great examples of why Microsoft is not to be trusted.

Re:

[CannonballHead (842625)]

Uhhh... not every OSS "company" is in it for pure good will and peace toward mankind. For that matter, Apple isn't either.

I don't think everything Microsoft does is ethical, by a long shot, but hey, Starbucks isn't the nicest either.

But that doesn't really matter. A LOT of people use Microsoft Office. You can't just suddenly introduce a new OSS standard and expect someone to suddenly drop MS Office entirely and move. That's why Open Office has some success - it is somewaht compatible with MS Office

Re:

[Toreo asesino (951231)]

I don't agree. I don't know any Microsoft product that I could call "very good".

That's a bit harsh. Some products that spring to mind that are very good are IIS6 and SQL Server 2005. Pick an inherent flaw in either product that makes it suck compared to another. And before you jump the gun, remember neither will ever be made open-source nor "free" as such, so that'll be outside the scope of both. They were designed to be solid server products, and both have now a proven track-record in terms of security and

Re:

[pembo13 (770295)]

Here's my list of Microsoft products that I like (and I have used _alot_ of their software)

• Notepad
• Calc
• Wordpad
• Remote Desktop
• Control Panel

Re:

[mcrbids (148650)]

sql server is a great product, and is certainly better then everything else in the opensource world aside from postgresql

I would argue with that, since it depends on your requirements for "better".

PostgreSQL is a high-quality database. I managed millions of dollars worth of data on Postgres. It runs fast with complex queries (11-table joins with millions of records on each) when lots of RAM is available. Better, it's free, takes about 10 minutes to install when you include its download time via yum on the f

Re:

[timmarhy (659436)]

so your saying you agree with me? because in that very sentence you quoted me on i said "better then anything ASIDE from postgresql".

sql server has reporting services, to which postgresql has no answer, and frankly in my current position i shudder to think what OSS would have me using. i will certainly pay that managing licenses is a pain in the ass. i certainly miss that side of things when i was using freebsd/postgresql/python - definately headache free to manage. i'm not so sure about sqlite though. i u

Re:

[rbanffy (584143)]

"Microsoft make lots of very good products, it's not fair to bag them on -everything-"

"sql server is a great product, and is certainly better then everything else in the opensource world aside from postgresql"

While I agree SQL Server is their best product, I don't quite agree it's better than anything open-source. There are a lot of other options besides PostgreSQL (which is great and I love it) that are as good as SQL Server that have the added bonus of not being limited to Windows and what Windows can run

Re:

[daem0n1x (748565)]

Do you actually LIKE SQL Server and Access?

I've developed with Oracle for years and then moved to a team of Microsoft drones some years ago. They loved MSSQL but I hated it with all my guts. After Oracle, developing with it was horrid. I begged to be moved away from the team but it took 2 years to years.

I must agree developing stuff with MSVS is cool but only if you want to stay strictly in the M$ world. Microsoft did a great job to make all their tools completely incompatible with anything else.

B

Re:

[timmarhy (659436)]

For a start there's no such thing as "best" there's only "most apropriate", and please post examples of whats wrong with sql server, visual studio and .net? with your vast experience please enlighten me with all the problems you've come across.

i'd also like to point out that 2 of the top 5 sites on netcraft are windows os http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html [netcraft.com]

what do you /. nerds alwasy say? "i'll believe it when netcraft confirms it"?

Re:

[wizardforce (1005805)]

40 pieces of silver
-Judas