Microsoft Antitrust Update 290
You can't help but know that Microsoft and the Department of Justice (plus several of the states that joined in the suit) are attempting to settle their antitrust dispute. The rest of the states are holding out for a settlement with more teeth, or a continuation of the case. A few links from the past few days: The LA Times looks at the states still opposing Microsoft. Microsoft defended the settlement before a Senate committee, which was crippled by political maneuvering (see also the NYT story). The speech given by the CEO of Red Hat is online. Microsoft filed a brief with the court, unsurprisingly urging the court to accept the settlement. The Register has a story on the proposed settlement, which is available at the DOJ Antitrust website. Linuxplanet has some advice for people who want to comment on the settlement - you've got 60 days from November 28. Finally, Microsoft has named two people to help it comply with the proposed settlement.
Re:let sleeping dogs die (Score:2, Insightful)
Senate Hearings (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAL, but I wonder to what extent the presiding judge pays attention to the media and how this will affect her decision. On the one hand, judges are not supposed to be swayed by media reporting, yet the judge is supposed to consider public comments about the proposed settlement. To the extent that Senators represent their constituents' beliefs and needs, the judge may give some weight to these types of Congressional hearings.
The settlement isn't so bad (Score:4, Insightful)
(from the settlement)
This is the most important provision of the entire settlement.
This eliminates Microsoft's ability to use strong-arm tactics in the ways it has been doing -- not giving special pricing to vendors who don't stay in line with what Microsoft and friends wants to do. It says that if you buy (OEM) licenses from Microsoft that (almost) no matter what you do as long as you buy the same number of licenses as someone else you'll get the same price.
The only thing that I would like better is for the Microsoft License Schedule to be applied uniformly to all customers, regardless of OEM status. Without that, Microsoft may find loopholes to force companies out of OEM status and buy retail licenses (or whatever) but this is still a huge step.
There is lots of talk about MS Word for Linux and such, but I think that would only further the monopoly, and I just don't think it's right for the government to mandate a product line. I think that fair pricing, however, is something totally reasonable and that will, in the end, hurt Microsoft more than most unfair measures we could add.
Having uniform licensing to all (not just OEMs) would be the one change I would make if I got one choice, but if I got two changes I would make Microsoft release all the API specs in a public forum and make them freely available, instead of just on MSDN. Say, on their web site and with the clause that they must be freely distributable in an unmodified form.
I think that those two things would make this settlement even better, but as it stands I think that the settlement is a fair solution.
At least for the abuse of monopoly in the OS realm, which is what this is all about.
Re:No Competition? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at this the other way - pretty much the only successful competitor to Microsoft is giving away their product for free. The big reason that Linux is such a competitor is because the normal Microsoft tactic has failed: undercutting the competition by subsidizing their new market-breaker with money from the other parts of their empire. Also, there's no way for Microsoft to completely buy up Linux and Open Source, so they can't remove a competitor that way. You can't undercut or buy out "free", and so Microsoft is temporarily stymied, but they still have vast marketing and lobbying muscle.
Does it strike you as a particularly healthy industry if you can only gain marketshare by giving your product away? Is it reasonable that the only way to protect your product is to create it via a group of people who aren't even a company, just to avoid being swallowed by Microsoft?
Now, of course I know that RedHat charges money for some things, and they may even make a profit pretty soon, and Red Hat is in fact a company that Microsoft could buy. But Microsoft's competition isn't so much Red Hat as it is the Linux and Open Source movement. And taken overall, Linux and Open Source are largely free, and are largely producted by individuals and representatives of many companies who collectively could not be bought out. Those are the only reasons that Microsoft has any competition, and those reasons still do not add up to a healthy software industry.
Re:Senate Hearings (Score:1, Insightful)
Experienced CSPAN viewers will recall how the Senate expressed an enormous amount of outrage at Janet Reno for 8 straight years, none of which affected the DOJ that much at all.
Re:Compliance Officers? (Score:1, Insightful)
On the other hand, when a massive company like MS barges ahead as if the conclusion is foregone, it may have knowledge or at least very strong confidence that the deal is in fact done, and all that's left is to sign on the dotted line and make the appropriate "campaign donations".
Re:One thing I don't understand..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sun-AOL etc are NOT monopoly's. That is why people aren't crying out about them. Not only are they not monopoly's but they don't do anything to make us believe that they are. In the past few years microsoft has only gotten worse, not better. They have totally ignored the DOJ case and continue to try and grab every bit of market share out there (X-box,
Re:I just want to know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is not only company in any market segment they are in, thus they are not an absolute monopoly like the power companies are (and how the phone and cable companies used to be). However, because of their dominant share of the desktop PC and office suite market they have a fairly high degree of monopoly power. The barriers to entry in the industry are the entrenched applications using the the Win32 API, and the implementation of the MSOffice file formats. That being said, there are many factors that limit their monopoly power.
The bottom line? Yes, Microsoft has a high degree of monopoly power, but it's not cut-and-dry about how much power they have. And it's certainly not cut-and-dry what to do about them either. Certainly it is important to limit the impact of their potential leverage (For example that Passport, Messenger, Hotmail, and MSN Photos are bundled with XP) from their existing markets, but don't think for a minute that it is simple. It's not.
Don't forget Office (Score:5, Insightful)
If M$ is going to get any fair competition, they need to open their formats on Word and Excel so people are not forced to use MS Office if they have to work with those formats. That would be a big boost for the developers of Abiword, WordPerfect for *nix, Gnumeric, Star Office, etc. They wouldn't have to spend so much time on converters. They could spend their time making great office programs that work with anything someone sends you, and make the office application software battle a fair fight.
What an amazing deal for Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
Filling our kids' classrooms with visible reminders of a company is no way to correct a monopoly any more than it's a way to keep kids from smoking.
Imagine if the tobacco companies had been allowed to settle by saying "we'll put a bunch of stuff we know you can't afford and desperately need into your schools, with our logos highly visible to impressionable young children who will grow up highly inclined to become our next generation of customers
Re:One thing I don't understand..... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm currently using Opera and just for fun opened a Netscape window to look at the MSNBC cover page, I played NFL2k2 by Sega on a friends XBox last night, don't have messenger or
Re:I just want to know... (Score:4, Insightful)
- MS threatened Compaq with withheld licenses if they didn't remove Netscape from their computers going out the door.
- MS threatened Intel management over Intel's work on multimedia software.
These are but two examples of the way MS abused their monopoly power. The fact that there might be competition on the horizon (a speculative, not certain, assertion) does not change what has occured one bit. If I robbed a bank, should I be spared a penalty because I myself might be robbed sometime in the future? I don't think so!!!
Re:Justice for the Rich (Score:3, Insightful)
Read the proposed settlement more closely. They aren't allowed to spank Mircosoft. All they can do is snitch on them. But they can't even really do that - they are under a GAG ORDER. They can only snitch to the DOJ. Considering that the DOJ came up with this settlement, somehow I'm not thrilled with a GAG ORDER saying if Microsoft breaks the lawn one else can know.
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Re:One thing I don't understand..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft is where it is primarily because of the usefulness of OS software coupled with an operating system's unparalleled potential to restrict and channel competition. Plain and simple. Making software is different from making coffee mugs; you can't program the mugs to pour milk slower than they pour coffee, or to be slightly incompatible with orange juice.
Tzu's Art of War is required reading at business schools because of the dramatic ego inflation it confers on its readers. Some personality types enjoy (and are motivated by) the thought that their gain is necessarily someone else's loss.
There was a slashdot exchange on this topic that I resonated with. It was a followup to an interview with Linus wherein he was asked what his strategies are for competing with other operating systems, and he answered "I don't actually follow other operating systems much. I don't compete - I just worry about making Linux better than itself, not others." One of the slashdot exchanges that consequently took place was the following:
first post:
response:Interesting difference: Dimitri vs MSFT (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it great what (lots of) money can buy you??
Re:I just want to know... (Score:1, Insightful)
Compaq then refused to remove Netscape.
Microsoft backed down and there were no repercussions.
You'll have to come up with better than a little heat from the marketing guys to prove there was coercion involved. Citing a single instance where Microsoft followed through on their threats would be a help.
However, nobody presents evidence of a follow-through. So you're all blowing hot air.
It's no surprise the public isn't buying it. No, it isn't just 'Astroturfers' out there. People complain about their Windows but you'd be amazed at how much more they would hate Linux if forced to use it.
Bitch and Moan... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Voicing your displeasure in Microsoft by:
a) Boycotting Microsoft Products
b) Sending Microsoft and your elected representatives messages about your personal boycott.
c) Encourage others to do the same.
2. Alternative Advocacy:
a) Put Linux on every computer you can.
b) Educate, amuse, and entertain the people you come into contact with about the alternatives. Make it fun, not a chore.
3. Quit talking out of your ass and spewing anti-MS propaganda. It's hard to make friends when you're vilifying someone else out of the other side of your mouth.
The power of the American citizen lies within his and her wallet. When we buy a product, we are sending a message to the producer that we accept *everything* they do with respect to how that product is made, marketed, and consumed. If you want to hurt Microsoft - do it with your power as a consumer. Hit them where it hurts the most - in the P&L statement. Sell your MSFT and invest the funds in a company you admire.
If you _have_ to use Microsoft products, that's fine, but I've found I can convince my employers to switch not by voicing my hatred of Microsoft, but simply comparing Microsoft products side by side with similarly capable open source alternatives.
Three words: Return on Investment.
That is all.
Re:I just want to know... (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed. Monopolies are perfectly legal.
Yes, Microsoft has a high degree of monopoly power, but it's not cut-and-dry about how much power they have.
And it doesn't matter how much monopoly power they have.
The issue is actions. Certain actions to maintain a monopoly position are illegal. Certain actions using a monopoly to create a new monopoly are illegal. Legal fact: Microsoft's actions were illegal.
it's certainly not cut-and-dry what to do
No agument there, lol.
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Re:Compliance Officers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, well they tried it in 1995. They got a settlement that time too, which Microsoft proceeded to laugh at and blatantly violate the intent of. If the settlement isn't airtight, it won't be effective. Microsoft has already illustrated that for us quite well.
"radical and punitive" (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhmmmm