Bush Administration Stops Microsoft Breakup 980
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by the Bush Administration to cease its drive to break up Microsoft, which has already been found guilty of violating U.S. anti-trust law in a complaint filed by the Federal Government and 19 states. See the BBC or CNN for more. It isn't clear what wristslap, errr, remedy the Justice Department will seek instead. Update: 09/06 15:21 PM GMT by M : Declan McCullagh of Wired notes: "The text of the DOJ announcement is here. Wired News has an article. Also, the DOJ says a 'Senior Antitrust Division Official' will brief reporters at the department's DC headquarters at 11:30 am ET, so look for some followup stories from that."
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
What is funny to the British is often completely over the head of Americans simply because our culture is different from theirs and visa-versa.
Part of it is because even though we all speak English, the everyday language, the slang, is very different. If you ask someone for a 'fag' in England, you'll get a cigarette. If you ask the same thing in America, you might get beat up because someone thought you called them homosexual.
Sounds like they are looking for a non-existant Holy Grail. It still may be interesting to see what they come up with, though.
lost vote (Score:1, Insightful)
Bring on Gore.
Battle stations! (Score:2, Insightful)
What are you doing?
Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
We could see Microsoft above the law if this goes on.
C
Bastards (Score:2, Insightful)
Those bastards!
-Waldo
I told everyone (Score:1, Insightful)
well.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Bush is not wrong here. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you split microsoft into Windows / Apps or something like this, then you have 2 monopolies. If you go with a top down split, then you get the same thing that exists with Linux user interfaces, or that still exists with web browsers. You have KDE, GNOME and countless others, making it a bitch for developers, and for users to get used to. In some situations, you really want everything to be the same way.
Captain_Frisk
Re:Bastards (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Violation of system of checks and balances? (Score:5, Insightful)
Executive Branch - Enforces the Laws = President
Judicial Branch - Evaluates the Laws = Judges
The Department of Justice is part of the Executive branch, as well it should be. The executive branch is charged with law enforcement. Bush can't order the judge in the case to rule in a certain way, but he can tell the government lawyers prosocuting the case to proceed the way he wants them to. Checks and balances are still maintained. Even if Bush were to dangle the carrot of a higher position within the courts in front of the judge checks and balances would still be maintained because congress would still have to aprove her for her new position.
Re:Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
When Janet Reno repeatedly refused to investigate corruption within the the Clinton administration I didn't like it but she was well within her legal authority.
Its not that Bush is above the law but the President does has discretion pertaining to which cases to prosecute and to what extent.
Re:So much for being "tough on crime" (Score:3, Insightful)
See this guy's reply [slashdot.org].
Re:So much for being "tough on crime" (Score:4, Insightful)
The Democrats would have done the same thing. No sane President is going to push for the crucifiction of the one tech stock that isn't currently in the toilet with today's poor economy.
Not that it matters. Monopolies topple themselves eventually, and Microsoft is well on its way. PC sales are slow (and will remain slow despite Windows XP), corporate budgets are tight, and Microsoft is stuck in the unenviable position of having to compete not only against the growing tide of Free Software, but also against a huge installed base of it's own software.
If people don't start buying new computers or upgrading the software that they currently use then Microsoft is just as cooked as if we all switched over to Linux. And Microsoft isn't helping things either. For every nifty new feature that they have added (stability) they have added several anti-consumer features (the new registration procedure and other intellectual protection measures, higher price).
It's going to be an interesting year next year.
Re:Dude, why isn't my Micro$oft stock skyrocketing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I've already posted this, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fragile Economy big motivator to avoid breakup (Score:5, Insightful)
cz
american? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bastards (Score:3, Insightful)
The DoJ is no longer pursuing the breakup as Microsoft as a remedy. It's not dropping the case at! We all knew besides that it would probably take a decade for Microsoft to be broken up and through a long, winding appeals process. The breakup was a tempting but unrealistic result.
Instead, the Justice department is focusing on remedies that will stop Microsoft from being the greedy corporate enemy #1 that it's been. From CNN: So you see, the DoJ can now go and pursue remedies that Microsoft won't fight as hard, and would probably result is a shorter trial. Besides, did you really think TWO Microsofts would be any better than what we have now?
Heh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yogi Berra said it "Deja Vu all over again" (Score:2, Insightful)
I am sorry to say that Microsoft regards rules, custom, law, and everything else as something that are to be circumvented. Bill Gate's version is that everyone has the "Total Microsoft Experience" and that he has all the money. Its word is the expediant of the moment and it will refuse to follow any law. Microsoft obviously thumbed its nose at the legal system during appeal by refusing to follow Judge Jackson's orders in preparing for the breakup. As such it is corporately in contempt of court (and should be held so thank you, as you and I woulld under the same circumstances). I would love to see them broken up by the new Judge (which she can do thanks) no matter what the Justice (or lack there of) department decides. Short of that it has now placed itself in a position where it will dictate what you use, not you deciding what is your best solution.
A prediction (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is what I know to be true.
Microsoft will release Windows XP on time, with all of the features it alone intends to incorporate. There will be some slight cosmetic changes meant to give the misleading impression that the Bush Justice Dep't was able to reach some sort of deal with Gates et.al. It will be an almost bald-faced lie that nobody in the non-slashdot world will give a second thought to.
In truth, XP will be within approximation exactly what Microsoft intended it to be, its crowbar to begin leveraging their control of the individual PC desktop into dominance of the internet's protocols themselves and thus the server market. Microsoft will attempt to become the IBM of the 21st century, with all of the attendant lethargy, intransigence, and dictatorial control of what may and may not be done with the equipment that old dinosaur used to have. This'll be explained as the best of all possible outcomes for the consumer because it introduces "consistent standards for the protection of intellectual property and the security of personal data."
----------
Their ploy, most likely, will work. You see, I really think that there's not enough appreciation on Slashdot for the crushing masses of people who never, ever think about free software, open standards, or whether or not there are whatever sorts of privacy or antitrust issues involved with XP. They just want to use their computers to do stuff, and if XP makes it easier for them to do things online, work with video, etc, then they will use it even if installing it's a pain in the ass. And it looks all neat and new, too. For them, Linux is geek stuff. They know that Windows is "the only real OS". They've been using Windows and are quite comfortable with it, warts and all. All their friends use it. They don't want to mess with their computers all the time or have to find out what free program is available to do X, Y, or Z. They're just not at all curious about it as we are.
And MS, with a crack marketing dep't, knows all of this and more about their consumers. Linux can't even make a decent distro for idiots yet, nevermind that relatively prodigious learning curve. Linux has its market, sure, but so far it's not even on the same map as Windows & MS's efforts, and I speak as a complete advocate of open OSes. We MUST be honest with ourselves about the extent of permeation Windows enjoys and not fool ourselves with fantasies about how a government that only reflects the aforementioned popular disinterest is gigon to do anything real, anything solid, to stop the big bad company from making & selling its product.
Excuse my rant.
Good, Now a real remedy can be found (or not) (Score:2, Insightful)
A real solution would be passing a law that all commercial Word Processing/Spreadsheet/Presentation applications(Office Apps) regardless of manufacturer, would have to support a standard format defined by a standards body. The standard would be freely available. The standard must also be the default and natively supported format. The penalty to MS would be that they are forced to release their current Office file formats to this standards body to be the baseline for the standard.
Any and all companies (including MS) would not be prevented from extended the formats or developing something new. However, their products must support the standard first. For the user to use the proprietary formats the user would be forced to manually chose a different file format. Like selecting ".rtf" instead of ".doc" is now. Practically, no one would do it, and anyone acheiving a monopoly on file formats would effectively be blocked.
This would spur an enormous amount of competition in the office/productivity software space. And we would be guarenteed that StarOffice, KOffice, WordPerfect, and the like, could become 100% compatible.
Come on, people. (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft is not off the hook. The DoJ merely came to the conclusion that a breakup of MS would solve NOTHING. Do any of you really think that would have made a difference, or did you just see it as a way to stick it to Big Bad Bill?
This whole tying-the-browser-to-the-OS thing was BS from the get-go. No one was stopping anybody from downloading and installing Netscape or any other browser. I actually thought it was rather USEFUL that a browser was preinstalled so that I could go out and download Netscape!
Regarding the political stuff, don't get any happy thoughts about Clinton starting this suit to protect the consumer. As if he cared about the consumers - the same ones he screwed by enthusiastically signing the DMCA? This whole thing was class warfare from the get-go. The bottom 50% loves it when the guy at the top at the food chain gets pie in his face, don't they? So Slick Willie bolsters his poll numbers by going after MS for some trumped-up crap and gets full cooperation from their competitors, of course. Just try to be honest with yourselves here.
Look, sure MS is evil. XP is full evidence that they're evil. So don't upgrade. You know what happens to products that screw the user? They don't sell. Look at DIVX. That sure didn't go far. XP is the OS equivalent of DIVX, from what I've read so far. Let the market do its thing.
This is really a good thing. Please Read! (Score:2, Insightful)
Think about it. A embolden M$ is more likely to think that it can (and more importantly will) get away with its Monopoly (TM ParkerBros), and proceed to enslave the corporate world. This will do two things, make Linux (TM Linus Torvolds) more popular, and secondly (and more importantly), allow new charges of monopolistic behavior against M$?
The core of the US case against M$ was the stupidest level of incompetance (browser wars?) I have ever seen. Judge Jackson was the only one in the courtroom to see the true implications of the M$ Monopoly (TM ParkerBros). The US Justice Dept. was completely clueless and out of touch with the real issues in the case.
Re:Guys, you're missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's take a hypothetical example of a small start-up worth $50 million at its peak which was brutally hammered by Microsoft's unethical business practices. This start-up might not be worth anything anymore, but whoever's handling the start-up's business affairs (even though it's defunct and bankrupt) can sue Microsoft for a hundred fifty million in damages.
Let's take a look at Be, which was worth (at its peak) $120 mil--or, at least, that's the highest price Apple ever offered for them. Be is currently worth less than a six-pack of Budweiser. Since Be was crushed in large part due to Microsoft's unethical business practices, that's $360 million dollars in damages right there--or a third of a billion.
Now let's take Sun Microsystems, which is unarguably going to be hurt by Microsoft refusing to include Java in WinXP. How many billions of dollars can Sun claim in damages? Now triple that, and you get an idea of how large Microsoft's Sun-induced headache is going to be.
The interesting thing is not going to be the breakup, or the conduct remedies, or anything else. It's when the dust finally settles and this is all over, the US government is going to wind up placing big-ass, gnarled, iron-studded clubs into the hands of the Mongol Hordes who hate Microsoft.
That's gonna hurt.
And let's not even get into the copyright issue. Under American law, any monopoly which leverages intellectual property to preserve their monopoly has their work turned over to the public domain. This isn't something the Feds or the state AGs are pursuing, because they probably think that would kill Microsoft outright, and they don't want to do that. But how long until Sun, or IBM, or someone else, discovers this--I'd be surprised if they didn't know it already--and files a suit in Federal court to get Windows turned over to the public domain, and thus slaughters Microsoft outright?
For Microsoft, the pain isn't really going to begin until after the trial ends. That's why they're stalling as long as they can--because when the trial ends, that's when the Mongol Hordes arrayed against them start chanting, Bring the Pain, Bring the Pain.
(And yes, the DOJ has used that nifty bit of copyright law as leverage to get RIAA to do things the DOJ's way. If the DOJ can use it against RIAA, then anyone can use it against Microsoft.)
Ever heard "The buck stops here"? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like Ashcroft is some gunslinging maverick who doesn't toe the party line- he does what Bush wants, or he is replaced by someone who will.
Bryguy
I'm glad the broswer tying argment is over (Score:3, Insightful)
What's bothered me is that nearly every linux distribution includes one or more web browsers. Recently they also include spreadsheets, graphic manipulation (gimp), and soon they'll all include word processors similar to MS Word and email/calendar/contact magangement similar to MS Outlook.
It seems quite dangerous to establish a legal precedent against including a popular application with the "operating system". At the rate things are going, in a few years a Linux distribution will probably come with work-a-like replacements for every major proprietary application.
Is anyone else waiting for... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of the fine print on this decision, I expect MS to spin it as a victory. Most notably, when the Appeals Court overturned the penalty while upholding the verdict, MS went out with the trumpets. Furthermore, their ACTIONS went along with what their WORDS were saying. It appears that they really believed that they had won the appeal.
So no matter what conduct remedies will be, what do you think their actions are going to be, now?
My remedies:
Open up file formats of monopoly-scale products.
Open up protocols of monopoly-scale products.
Open up contract details for monopoly-scale products.
Actually, don't think anything is going to work in the US. It's up to the rest of the world to make up for our ethical laziness.
The reason IS the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems to me this wishy-washy behavior is just the start of simply letting the entire monopoly thing go unpunished.
I'll be fair, its a decently sound theory to say the reason this is happening is to not hurt the economy anymore, but isn't that the reason the trial happened anyway? To prevent one company from having such a large economic presence as to be immune to the law? To singlehandedly drive or slow the economy?
is it terribly unreasonable to expect someone to make a decision and then follow through?
Re:Guys, you're missing the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the breakup...Microsoft has demonstrated that it can and will ignore (not flout, not workaround, but outright ignore) any conduct remedy imposed on it that inconveniences it. Let's take a look at the conduct remedies listed in the CNN article as examples:
- prohibiting Microsoft from punishing companies working on competing products - a business deal is a business deal. If Microsoft starts giving away Office - one of its currently most profitable products - to try to eliminate competition, the government may eventually sue them (if they can be convinced to)...but merely filing the lawsuit and getting things to court will take long enough that any non-free competitors would be dead well before opening arguments were heard.
- prohibiting it from favoring companies that helped Microsoft exclude competitors - same deal. If Microsoft were to hand the MPAA or RIAA, or even just Real, a billion dollars tomorrow, the money would be invested and gone before the government even noticed.
- requiring Microsoft to license Windows to PC makers under uniform prices and terms according to a publicly available schedule - watch Microsoft simple ignore this, and go on as if this order never existed. Alternately, perhaps it will comply...by posting all kinds of different editions of Windows, 100% identical except for certain logos and title strings, but with prices varying by as much as 1000%. The higher-priced ones are readily available to anyone, while the lower-priced ones are by special order only...and only certain companies ever seem to have these special orders processed, or even seem able to find out how to place orders for them to begin with.
- barring Microsoft from interfering with the way PC makers set up startup screens et al - and what happens when Microsoft's contracts continue to enforce this? Government sues to get enforcement...and the contracts persist. Government sues again...and the contracts persist.
In short: laws only matter if they can be enforced. Conduct remedies can't effectively be enforced in this case, therefore they are equivalent to nothing.Re:Bush? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the DOJ is run by John Ashcroft, a Bush appointee. And Bush, like any President, appointed an Attorney General with views in alignment with his party's platform. In this case, conservative Republican, which prefers to let the market police itself. Which means Bush would have some influence on DOJ v Microsoft.
But there's a world of difference between indirect influence and direct instruction, which Michael claims. By fabricating direct action by President Bush, Michael is, once again, discarding what little journalistic integrity Slashdot has, in favor of anti-Microsoft rhetoric so relentless, it has become irrational. Malda needs to bring the hammer down on Michael, and that right soon.
Venting done. Back on topic.
Would Bill Clinton or Janet Reno have enough patience to see the original break-up order this far? Or would they opt, as the Ashcroft DOJ has done, to forego the break-up and the now-moot browser commingling point in favor of a new remedy based on Microsoft's latest round of predatory behavior? Hard to say. At the very least, Microsoft still isn't off the hook.
And I was never convinced an OS/Office split would have been an effective remedy. The two BabySofts would still have monopolies in their respective markets. This lets the DOJ go after a more meaningful remedy.
Bush + M$ (Score:1, Insightful)
This is bad news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously the DOJ Finally realized that the worse thing they could do is break up Microsoft.
For example, they were talking about breaking up MS into a Windows division and an Office Division. If they would have done that, then all they would have done is break up the one big monopoly and split it up into 2 Big monopolies which would put them in the same boat two to three years from now fighting two Microsoft's over monopolistic practices.
Keep in mind that the DOJ is still on the MS case, they have only ruled out the Breakup because they realized that it was just not the logical way to deal with the Windows Monopoly.
The Best remedy that they could choose to breakup the Windows monopoly is to force them to open source everything in current and future Versions of Windows and allow it to be freely downloadable. This takes the Windows Monopoly out of Microsoft's Hands because anyone now can make changes to the Windows Kernel and software and sell their version as a Windows Distrubution (Much like Linux is done now)
Once you take the Windows Monopoly out of Microsoft's Hands and allow other companies to make Windows Distributions, you will get a more competitive marketplace for Operating Systems, more Choices, Less Bullying, Higher quality software overall, and a much higher quality operating system than you could ever get with just MS supplying the OS code.