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T-Kir writes
"The BBC has an interesting article saying that now Microsoft has had the settlement granted in the US, it still faces EU sanctions concerning software bundling (or should that be bungling?) into its OS and deliberate attempts at inoperability with non-MS server operating systems."
Maybe the people in EU actualy have.... (Score:4, Insightful)
As for myself I would love to see some of the major computer makers (Dell, Gateway, Compaq, IBM) start pushing Linux and other OSes with their hardware.
Three problems (Score:5, Interesting)
1) US courts regularly deny the authority of courts abroad
2) US courts regularly assume their rules apply abroad.
3) When the EU has ruled against US product before (growth hormone is not allowed in beef sold in the EU) the US claims it is a restraint of trade and raises it to the EU.
So what will probably happen is MS will rightly be found guilty, they will ignore the remedy, and when it is enforced they will bleat to the president who will "defend US interests", he will ignore the rights of foreign courts and claim this is purely anti-competative and anti-US rather than being a different resolution applied to EXACTLY the same finding of guilt found in the US.
Personally I hope the EU stands up and gives them a bloody nose, and makes its move over to Open Source even quicker.
Re:Three problems (Score:5, Interesting)
All of your points are accurate. WRT the first two, however, there is no way the US could (under legal arenas) challenge an EU court ruling, and I don't think they'd be stupid enough to try. The one piece of information you didn't catch is that some four months ago, when the EU declared it's intention to pursue MS independently of the US DOJ, the State Deparmemnt immediately issued sabre-rattlings to the effect that if the EU attempted to do anything different or more realistic than the DOJ had done, the US would embark on an immediate and GDP-wide trade-war against the entire EU, covering everything from steel to immigration visas, until the EU backed off. The EUs response was to ignore them.
~cHrisRe:Three problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Three problems (Score:2)
The only thing that suprized me there is that I hadn't heard about it. Do you happen to have a good link on it?
The EUs response was to ignore them.
Cool, thanx. (And I'm an American, chuckle)
-
Re:Three problems (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Three problems (Score:4, Insightful)
2) US courts regularly assume their rules apply abroad.
The EU courts don't always agree with the courts of the member countries [reuters.com], which is fortunate since it is far from unanimous amongst voters that the EU should take precedence over national sovereignty. And EU member countries freely ignore the EU courts [bbc.co.uk].
So what will probably happen is MS will rightly be found guilty, they will ignore the remedy
More likely is that MS will ignore the EU court, as most EU members do, and nothing will happen until national governments (most likely the Germans or Spanish, who seem to be the most unfriendly to MS) take an interest.
Re:Three problems (Score:5, Informative)
2) US courts regularly assume their rules apply abroad.
This stuff doesn't really matter but the EU is dealing with trade within the EU zone. So it doesn't really matter that much what the US thinks. And don't assume that the US can just do whatever it wants and get away with it. There's something called the WTO, which has ruled heavily against the US and in favour of the EU recently with regards to steel tarrifs. It's true that the US is a big bully, but the EU is growing and seems increasingly confident fighting back.
Re:Three problems (Score:2)
This is IMHO not a restraint of trade. It just says US companies have to follow EU laws and rules, the same rules European companies have to apply to. I'm sure their are US rules (about safety of products e.g.) that force non-US companies to produce/ship different products than those sold on their home market.
US companies can export their beef, as long as it's growth hormone free. Where's the restriction? You apply to the rule.... you get to export it to the EU.
CKK's ruling in the US is just a joke. I hope the EU will do a better job.
Tough Cookie (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't know much about the EU's competition commisioner - he is a tough cookie and isn't afraid to take on large companies.
Look at what he did to Nintendo recently and also the $45bn GE and Honeywell merger - which he basically stopped - even thought the US would have allowed it. The last case shows what the competition commision thinks about "consistency".
Re:Tough Cookie (Score:2)
Re:Tough Cookie (Score:2)
If the EU would transfer to Linux or any other OS. Would you think this to be a bad thing? Consider the whole new world and market for all those ISV's who are holding out now because of Linux's market share.
(come to think of it... that wouldn't be a bad thing at all.....)
A little OT, but ... (Score:4)
At the very least, do a Google search on the phrase "ils ne passeront pas" before you post stuff like this.
Re:A little OT, but ... (Score:2)
Re:Tough Cookie (Score:2)
Yes. And no.
Any organization (company, government, religion, whatever) large enough to wield significant power over a significant number of people has the potential to become evil. If the organization uses this power to enhance itself by harming others, then it has become evil.
This should prove a more interestin legal battle (Score:3, Interesting)
Would Microsoft even have a change of getting away with that? Can our legal precidence have a major impact on the EU legal system? I seriously doubt it unless money flies in certain directions
Re:This should prove a more interestin legal battl (Score:5, Insightful)
tough one for MS (Score:3, Informative)
besides, EU has no financial interests in an US-american company.
this time, it's gonna be a tough one for M$.
Re:tough one for MS (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a big point. If EU (or any country other than US) makes a switch to Linux, they will not only save lots of money, but keep it to help the local economy.
Even if they have to pay more for supporting Linux, they will likely hire local companies.
What would happen.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally think its unlikely that they would do - but this is one of those classic "what if"'s...
Would microsoft pull windows from the EU? could they AFFORD to do that? (business wise, not money wise)
Would they use US law to somehow challenege the (legallity of?) EU restrictions (not such a stupid question... considering some of the strange legal goings on in the US of late)
Or would they just comply with the EU's restrictions?
What would happen if the EU poses restrictions which microsoft ignores?
Could we bomb redmond for failing to comply with the EU software inspections resolution?
(its a joke! well, sort of)
Re:What would happen.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Very, very risky; that would be brinkmanship of the most dangerous kind.
If MS threatens to pull Windows from the EU, then either Brussels will cave (quite possible, and in all honesty probable) or tell MS where to go.
A Europe with no new Windows licences being issued would be fatal for Microsoft. Suddenly there's a market of a third of a billion people wide open for Apple. Suddenly Suse's market share goes through the roof. How long would it take for a Europe under Microsoft interdict to produce the holy grail Linux for the masses?
Re:What would happen.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Short answer. They do more integration work and they sell more software in the EU than in the US, and have done for some time. They flat can't afford not to leverage what is now the largest unified-policy market in the developed world.
They can't. The only way they can influence the EU legitimately is via politics and diplomacy; if they actually go to a court-room and try to get a US-law case to overthrow EU law, they'll be laughed out of court. The only way they can do this is the way that Bush handled the ICC, ie. military threat rather than any pretence of legality.
They can't. Import restrictions. Point-of-sale ban. Not something they can work around, really. Unlike the US.
~cHrisRe:What would happen.... (Score:4, Funny)
What's MS going to do? Send Ballmer over there to jump up and down on the head of the chief justice, shouting "Developers! Developers!"?
Re:What would happen.... (Score:3, Funny)
That would frighten me into surrendering, and I'm not even French!
Re:What would happen.... (Score:2)
No. Short answer. They do more integration work and they sell more software in the EU than in the US
Bullshit. Where did you pull this from?
Microsoft's US revenue is huge compared to its EU revenue. You can see this in MS corporate reports. Furthermore, the US revenue has consistently grown over the past 2 to 3 years while the EU revenue is stagnant (only recently up due to the XBox).
Re:What would happen.... (Score:2)
Pulling all microsoft products from the EU or just saying new ones could not be used there would have the effect of just handing over the market to a competitior very quickly. I expect it would also cause the MS share price to crash seeing.
Pulling Microsoft products from the EU which would have a bad effect (short term) on businesses (better for the long in my book) the EU could counteract that by just declairing microsoft copyrights uninforcable within the EU. Allowing businesses to use it for free while competitors take up the slack.
The EU normally works by using fines, here is a 1bn fine but ypou get 90% off if you do XYZ. MS cannot avoid fines if they are not payed they just take assists insted, it can also get you declared an illegal trading entity, which allows them to do all kinds of fun stuff. Worldcom almost became one of these, after the MCI-Worldcom merger the EU wanted Worldcom to divest of UUNET but it didn't so just said point blank no to sprint even though it had little effect on the EU.
James
Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft is a US company. Only the US government has the power to break them up. That was the real threat.
In contrast, all the EU can do is fine Microsoft. Big deal. They can fork out millions of dollars to buy out a competitor, so why should they worry about EU fines? They'll probably just buy a couple of officials to make sure whatever they are fined is in a reasonable ballpark. Then they can happily go ahead with their monopolistic practices. For them it's just like buying a permit to behave as they do. I'm even sure they have a budget for that! :-)
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
In contrast, all the EU can do is fine Microsoft. Big deal.
Well, no. We can stop them selling Windows insie the EU, or stopping them selling Windows until they unbundle the media player and other things the EU has decided its anti-competiative to have bundled with the OS.
Thats worse for them than a fine, it does in fact go right to the heart of the problem and attacks their market share.
Al.Interesting problem for Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Could Microsoft end up proving that it is possible to ship their OS without all that software bundled contrary to their testimony in the US so that they'll be able to ship to the EU? That could put them right back in court in the US, right?
2) Could Microsoft end up shipping region-specific versions of Windows that check for some type of region code on the computer similar to DVDs are done?
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:3, Troll)
No it doesn't. Consider: if tariffs are placed on Microsoft products, yet users do not migrate away (even if they want to, there's a finite time that takes to happen) the net result is simply to transfer money from EU business to EU taxcollectors. It would represent a tangible competitive disadvantage to EU businesses against businesses who are able to buy without tariffs.
The Slashbots all assume that people would abandon MS products in a second, but that simply isn't true. Even if Open Source software is better (and it often isn't, compare any free spreadsheet to Excel) there's still training, support, existing documents, and applications. Anyone who tells you they can replace MS-SQL with MySQL either doesn't know what they are talking about, or really shouldn't have spent their money on MS-SQL in the first place. Sure sendmail can do mail, but it can't do what Exchange does for groupware.... etc.
It will be very difficult for the EU to "punish" MS without damaging the EU's economy to boot. If they're smart, they'll do nothing openly now and quietly accelerate migration to alternatives (where they exist) in the background.
Not Quite. (Score:2)
Then it simply hurts MS buisness and none of the EU buisness. Other Software company till sales their MS compatibles products, and normal buisness get even more time and a good reason to stop the upgrade to the new licence schemes.
It is true that people would no abandon their products. But they would stop to upgrade and this would mean Nothing wrong or bad for any firms , except MS.
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:2)
It will be very difficult for the EU to "punish" MS without damaging the EU's economy to boot. If they're smart, they'll do nothing openly now and quietly accelerate migration to alternatives (where they exist) in the background.
Which would be best accomplished by fining Microsoft heavily and putting those funds into alternatives to migrate to.
-- Azaroth
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
If the EU went and said to microsoft that they needed to totally seperate ms-office and ms-windows and make sure that developer/ideas/APIs/etc did not cross between the two, ms would need to do that or not offer thier products for sale in the EU.
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:2)
You're assuming the EU isn't serious about stopping the problem. They have all sorts of options, but even if they just stick to fines, they can escalate the fine until MS complies.
How much would it take? One billion? 100 Billion? Doesn't matter really.
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:2)
Big difference. X-Box is a loss leader. They lose money on each box they sell, so there's no big loss if they pull X-Box from Oz.
Windows and Office are cash cows. If they pull those from the EU, they lose beaucoup bucks.
Re:Not a big deal for Microsoft (Score:2)
In contrast, all the EU can do is fine Microsoft. Big deal. They can fork out millions of dollars to buy out a competitor, so why should they worry about EU fines?
About the only thing the EU cannot do is break up Microsoft.
In addition to fines they can deny Microsoft the ability to conduct business in the EU, strike down any parts of Microsoft's EULAs, void any Micosoft copyright or patent, deny the entry of any American (or other none EU national) entry to any EU member state.
Different point of view (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it is.
For Europe the question is more like:
Do we want an american company to control nearly all desktops in Europe (in the world) ?
The answer in the US might be "yes, that's fine". But I hope we'll do better in Europe.
Remember Echelon?
This will hopefully put M$ in the right place (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe by 2010... (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything, MS will try to break compatibility somehow using their "Trusted Computing" newspeak, before the Linux marked share gets too big to handle. While Linux might not be the big home desktop hit, it is making inroads in the corporate and educational community.
Problem is, that these lawsuits are kinda like submarine patent suits.
1. They take way too long before they are filed (by desire by the submariners, by beaurocracy by EU/US)
2. By the time they actually do everybody is using it (gif patent or IE)
3. Any ruling won't do anything about that, and when they try to resolve it the technology has evolved beyond that point to new problems (.gif patent by
Don't expect laws to help Linux. If anything, pray that the pirates won't find any ways to pirate secure Windows/Office/whatever. Then we'll see how many who will truly cough up $$$ for those products.
Kjella
Re:Maybe by 2010... (Score:3, Insightful)
2001 Simultaneously introduce new currency across 11 countries
2004 Expand union to include another 10 countries
Yep, they sure look like slow movers to me.
Re:Maybe by 2010... (Score:2)
Uh, yeah, it is. I uninstalled Messenger from my machine. RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
That's it. Gone. And I don't want any complaining from the Linux fanboys -- you should be used to the command line.
Re:Maybe by 2010... (Score:2)
Yeah, Linux guys are used to the command line, but stuff *DOES* tend to be documented (even if done poorly) in HOWTOs or man pages.
They can't stop MS.. (Score:4, Interesting)
You see, the world's offices run on Office. Deny them that, and they get cranky. They start making campaign contributions, and suddenly, laws everywhere become the plaything of Microsoft.
Even if it'd cost more to buy some politicians than to switch to Open Office or something else, businesses won't stand for it. Why? Because - business despises the idea of governments telling them what they can and can't do. Businesses like *telling* governments what they can and can't do.
What would be great is if the EU frees European OEMs from the threats of Microsoft. Now, that would cause slight pain.
You see, consumers dislike the idea of paying for things they believe they do not need. How many of you here know people who still run Win 98? I can't count the people I know who are still running it. Each one of those is money that's not being sent to One Microsoft Way.
Will people, given the choice, stop buying upgrades with each computer? Yes, they will. Installing an operating system is *NOT* rocket science, and almost everyone has a kid down the street who will do it for $10.
$10, versus the Microsoft Tax. Sounds like a sweet deal, eh?
Re:They can't stop MS.. (Score:2)
But think of those poor macro virus writers
and then it's only going to annoy the morons that have too much time on their hands making a tool that is not designed for a certian job work (word and excel are NOT data collection apps.. and idiots use them that way with OLE)
Nor is Access a multi-user database for storing vital data. Idiots try and do that too.
If microsoft word was removed from every PC in your office and replaced with OO.o I guarentee that productivity will remain at it's current levels and nobody will really care..
Possibly productivity would be better. Since there are quite a few things which are easier to do in Star/Open Office than in Word.
EU is different from US courts (Score:5, Informative)
M$ is not an corporation from an EU country, there is no direct economic advantage to the EU of supporting M$'s illegal activities.
The powerful EU officials are not directly elected by the populace; so they are not quite so easy to buy.
A change of administration in one EU country is not so far reaching as the change in a single country (ie the US).
The EU has deomstrated an interest in Open Source:
EU Studies Linux Migration [slashdot.org]
Individual countries have also expressed strong interest in Open Source.
Re:EU is different from US courts (Score:2, Interesting)
The big reason why the US law decided to be so nice with MS is because Microsoft is on of Americas leading company outside of the US.
If it were a European company hurting the US and the world the US legal jabbers would be the first one to cry for justice.
Re:EU is different from US courts (Score:2)
Probably quite an economic advantage to be rid of Microsoft. Since their net economic contribution is to suck money across the Atlantic.
The powerful EU officials are not directly elected by the populace; so they are not quite so easy to buy.
There are far more political parties in EU member states than in the US.
A change of administration in one EU country is not so far reaching as the change in a single country (ie the US).
There arn't trans-Europe political parties. Even if these were to come into existance there would probably be more than two of them. It's a lot easier to buy off political parties when you only need to do it with two.
When it comes to political parties and voting systems the US and the EU are very different.
Most likely EU response (Score:5, Insightful)
The US response will be very significant. If the US government complains and retaliates, its intentions WRT Microsoft will be clear.
If OTOH the US government keeps quiet, as it did with the Honeywell case, MS is in for a beating in Europe.
It cannot afford to stop trading in Europe. It cannot escape a fine, since it has a financial presence in Europe.
The EU may choose to combine this with other moves, such as a well-timed announcement that Windows will be phased out in favor of Linux, Sun, and IBM products in the EU itself.
Microsoft only really has one card to play, and that is bribery and corruption.
Re:Most likely EU response (Score:2)
Microsoft (1) pays the fine out of its current cash reserve of ~40,000,000,000 USD (2) the following January 1st, notifies all their customers in the United States, Asia, and South America that in order to pay the "unjust fine levied by European bureaucrats", they will have to raise the price of Office 15%.
Result: amount of fine earned back in two years, huge resentment created by Microsoft against EU.
Net benefit to EU?
sPh
Re:Most likely EU response (Score:3, Interesting)
Result: .
a) South America switches completely to Open Source as they have already threathened so often. No more sales in South America
b) Asia could do the same, or heck, with China developping their own OS at least China -a big market after all- could switch to something else entirely. The rest of Asia might just say? "Copyright"? We dunno what that means... and pirate happily. Result: much less sales in Asia.
c) North America: whines and bitches, and with the current economical slup they are in many companies that freeze the IT budget entirely and will continue to work with currently existing installations. Heck, many still are using Office 97 on NT4 which is perfectly viable. Net result: much less sales in North America.
Now who do you think Microsoft will hurt when they would pull a stunt like that?
Re:Most likely EU response (Score:3, Insightful)
And realistically, does the typical purchaser care if he pays $213 or $232 for that bundled copy of Office on his shiny new Dude PC? Does he even know?
I am afraid that while there may be some smoke around the idea of replacing Microsoft on the desktop, it isn't happening yet.
sPh
Airbus, Eurofighter, A400M (Score:4, Insightful)
The A400M is particularly instructive: the required capabilities are available today, off-the-shelf, at lower cost, in the form of the C-17 and C-130J. But the EU continues to push the A400 project despite it being 10 years late and at least 8 years from availability. And I suspect they will get their plane, in the end.
So, does the EU plan the same process with Microsoft? Remember that those who direct the EU behind the scenes don't have the same concerns about "cost" as managers of private companies, because they impose "directives" that governments and private companies must obey. Are the recent announcements by SuSE a testing of the waters for the imposition of a Linux desktop on EU organizations?
sPh
Re:Airbus, Eurofighter, A400M (Score:2)
Doubt the US would want to make itself dependent upon the EU either.
And that that they are willing to pay (or have their taxpayers pay) a substantial price to avoid that dependence.
Hardly unique to the EU. IIRC the US Congress just decided that it would be a good idea to lease some brand new aircraft from Boeing to the USAF. Even though the USAF dosn't actually need them and it's a "buyers market" for second hand wide bodied jets right now.
The A400M is particularly instructive: the required capabilities are available today, off-the-shelf, at lower cost, in the form of the C-17 and C-130J.
Or for that matter from the Ukraine. It's more a case of not being dependent on those outside of the EU than anything else.
Stick it to them (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft split in Europe (Score:2)
European countries have always been very tough on monopolies so a split is not out of the question.
Requirements (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Requirements (Score:2, Insightful)
Reasons:
The one customer I have who has gone 100% Linux, server desktop and all rates it for:
1: Stability - No crashes in months
2: Lack of Viruses - No Viruses in over a year
3: Cost - They couldn't have afforded the network they have with MS licence fees
4: Flexibility - We can write them scripts to do pretty much anything they want.
5: Positive attitude of community to cries for help
Downsides:
1: Had to redo Publisher docs in OO.org Draw
2: Old MS Office docs come out mangled on OO.org if anything beyond text,tables and pics are used.
Messgae to the EU competition commision:
FORCE THE FILE FORMATS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND THE MONOPOLY WILL BE BROKEN!!!!!!
This includes IE5/6 extensions.
Re:Requirements (Score:2)
1: Had to redo Publisher docs in OO.org Draw
Publisher is a pain in the neck, about the only program which will open publisher documents with any degree of reliability is the same version of publisher they were created with.
As well as having a strange mode where it will refuse to save.
2: Old MS Office docs come out mangled on OO.org if anything beyond text,tables and pics are used.
You can't be sure that they wouldn't come out mangled with a different version of Word, sometimes even one with a different default printer setting can cause the most strange manglings.
Media is wrong. Microsoft will be broken up. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:5, Informative)
Tell that to Nintendo [slashdot.org].
What the EU can do... (Score:5, Informative)
2) Reorganise the way MS products are classified which could change the way they are taxed.
3) Ban certain products from being sold in the EU.
4) Declare certain individuals to be culpable for the violations and have them subject to arrest if they enter the EU.
Quite a few other things, saying they can't do much is like when President Bush demanded the Chinese do nothing to that spy plane.... so they sent it back in crates.
Re:What the EU can do... (Score:2)
To me, it seems like the EU is powerless to stop MS monopolistic practices.
What they should do... (Score:3, Informative)
It would have the tripple advantage of:
But I don't think punishment should be the top priority, I would rather see them aim for less vulnerability to future abuses of the MS monopoly.
Re:What the EU can do... (Score:3, Insightful)
I assume they can also impose conditions that Microsoft have to meet to avoid the above.
They might also be able to recommend that EU governments stop using Microsoft products.
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:5, Informative)
They can't split Microsoft, because they're a foreign corporation. They can, however, impose conditions on Microsoft which they will have to obey if they want to continue doing business in the EU.
It's unlikely to come to a trade war; EU business is too addicted to MS software to allow Brussels to impose punitive tariffs, for instance. Chances are MS will be fined a comparatively small amount and told not to do it again...
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2)
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me like they couldn't do much...
Microsoft could be in line for fines totalling up to $2.5bn (£1.75bn) levied by the European Commission. [bbc.co.uk]
Nuff said.
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2)
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides this, more and more EU countries are switching to Linux solutions (see previous
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that Europe is growing bigger than the US every minute, not only in population, which will soon be over 500 million (200million more than the US, IIRC), but also economically. Europe isn't some small kid the US can wack down! It's insane to think that Europe doesn't have any power and pretty US-narrow-minded.
Of course (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, some EU members could disobey this ban but then they would face severe penalties. It happens all the time.
Anyway, no country seems to be very happy with M$ here in Europe these days so i'd bet there wouldn't be any complains if EU comission bans M$ products.
Re:Of course (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, they can ban sales of bundled os + integrated apps within the EU by MS. And they can do it without having any impact on people like SuSE; that is in fact one of the courses already discussed by the commissioner in question.
Thirdly, they can adjudge MS' EULA's illegal under EU human rights laws. This is another remedy which has been discussed.
Basically, they can make life very hard for MS in the market from which MS derives it's larges revenues (they sell more software here than there).
~cHris
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2)
The EU can fine Microsoft upto I believe 10% of its global revenue, so it is a very big deal indeed.
Don't underestimate them. They have shown there teeth on several occasions recently and seem less frightened to use their powers than the authorities in the USA have shown. It's not so easy for corporations to engage in "lobbying" to get their own way in the EU as it is in the USA.
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2, Informative)
> to do?
>
> Seems to me like they couldn't do much...
Check out the General Electric and Honeywell merger attempt recently. The US authorities said OK to the deal, but the EU authorities refused it on anti-competitive grounds. End of merger! You gotta love a global economy...
As well as ignorant
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2, Interesting)
Could someone explain what the EU has power to do?
Seems to me like they couldn't do much...
European courts could find that Microsoft was engaging in illegal practices and void part, or all, of the EULAs involved. That could create a gray market of epic proportions. It would also allow european software houses to embrace and extend the microsoft products in ways that would be illegal elsewhere.
I'm not saying that this is a likely outcome, but it is one of the things that a band of sovereign nations could do.
Re:Does the EU have power? (Score:2, Funny)
We, the people of the Caribbean and Latin America have more than enough bananas. Please send no more.
Re:Damnit (Score:5, Insightful)
EU Court may not approve of Commision (Score:3, Informative)
It's not about you... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what those 60 000 people do, or more to the point, what their executives do effects millions of people all over the world in a negative way. No wonder people are "anti-microsoft".
I have no beef with MS emplyees, but the pracices of MS the company is a daily annoyance to me and gets _me_ home later to _my_ family.
Even if you work at MS you must be blind not to see why a lot of computer professionals have no trouble finding reasons to dislike MS products.
...and of course there is the howling mass of teenage slashroids. They annoy me too sometimes.
The parable of the selfish pricks (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a story...
One upon a time there was a dangerous slippery cliff at the end of a road before a little village.
Every so often travellers along the road would slip, slip, slip over the cliff edge and fall to their deaths; and be collected by the village funeral director. Or they would slip, slip, slip over the edge and be badly injured; and the village doctors and nurses would tend to their wounds.
Eventually the mayor of the town announced a fence should be built at the top of the cliff, warning people of the danger.
"No!" cried the doctors and nurses. "We have families and mortgages to pay with the money we get for treating the injured!"
"No!" cried the funeral directors and morgue attendants. "We need the money from the funerals to support our families and mortgages too!"
The mayor was saddened by this reaction, but decided upon a compromise. The fence would not be built, but a sign would be erected saying "please support the local economy - jump off the cliff!"
The sign was erected, and is still there this very day.
Re:Muhaha! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Muhaha! (Score:4, Insightful)
In a word, yes. Netscape was available on just about everything, BeOS obviously spent a great deal of their time supporting non-MS Windows platforms, given that they were one themselves (WTF?). Corel not only had WordPerfect running on Linux (albeit with WINE), they even had a linux distro. SGI, apart from their IRIX platform has a technology called OpenGL that is available on just about anything. What was your point again?
here's the deal... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, that's the way it is. The internet is for EVERYONE, not for just MICROSOFT. They don't OWN it much as they would like to and have actively sought to. Their efforts are severly mucking up the ability of non microsoft ANYTHING to do anything, and if palladium gets mandated directly into hardware... huh?
You drive to work? You want the road you are on to only be allowed to owners of belchfire cars, and all the gas stations to only have gas that works only in belchfire cars? Oh what's that, you don't want to run a belchfire because you notice that every belchfire needs it's own full time mechanic to keep it running and not blowing up, you can't lock the doors so every time you stop and park and go into a store you come out and your stuff is stolen, the car stops working every 2 years requiring a new engine, it then takes a "new" kind of gas, and their gas comes chunky style with crud and whatnot floating in it every single new version of gas?
Too bad, see, belchfire is "the standard" now, even if you want to buy another brand of car-which you still can- soon you'll need a "passport" to use the road, you'll need to filter your gas, and well, the drivetrain is still gonna be a palladiumBelchfire drivetrain and you'll be required to only drive on belchfire tollroads and only stop at belchfire stores. Oh ya, the want to know every place you go to, this info gets sent automatically back to belchfire headquarters. Every_place_you_go. Oh, you added a non belchfire fender to replace the one that got banged up? Too bad, your car won't start now. On and on. You want that kind of "choice"?
Sure, you still got a choice, go get your non belchfire car, good luck running it soon after the new tollroads for belchfire-only are in place and all you can get is belchfire gas. We aren't 100% of the way there yet, but we are over 90% of the way there.. No belchfire car running belchfire gas, soon you'll be hitchhiking to work, not driving, or I guess you can just buy a belchfire, right? I mean it's "fair" and you got that choice....
I'm not an IT guy just a "car driver". I actually don't like belchfires, they have never worked all that well for me when I tried them out. yes I've owned and driven belchfires. Hmm, they actually don't work that well. In fact I've tried several belchfires, the "new and improved" are pretty much old belchfires with new body styles, the door locks don't work, I can't use anything but belchfire gas in them, and dang if every third tank of gas I put in it seemed to bust another part. That sorta suxs. I just find this sorta weird and annoying. So far I can struggle by with non belchfire, but I'm not looking forward to the new toll roads, and dang I'm getting tired of dodging all the broken down belchfires spread out on the road, and gee whizz, half the traffic is tow trucks towing in belchfires, all those broken belchfires are hurting the economy, which is hurting me in general, the real work delivery trucks can't hardly get through anymore, and I got to keep looking further and further for non belchfire gas.
Enough's enough, become part of the solution, stop being part of the problem. This belchfire leopard ain't changing it's spots, slap new paint on it, it's still a belchfire. They been asked nicey nice for years now, to PLEASE just change a few things abvout how they go about this business, they refused and even got nastier, they ain't changing except for MORE belchfire. Give it up, accept reality, belchfires useability is broken and is hindering everyone else. Your profits aren't worth the grief everyone is going through. It's just plain rank nasty wrong.
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:5, Interesting)
The GM food issue isn't just a government issue it is a populace issue. If the government accepts gm food here they will have voters voting them out. The people don't want GM food at this point in time, the governments generally want the GM food business but they don't have the popular support to do it. So the ban on GM food isn't a trade issue as it is a consumer issue. Consumers won't buy food.
The banan fiasco was that, but the US has some silly trade mark games not
Check out this [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2)
The people don't want GM food at this point in time
Who is telling the people what they want? What groups are pushing against GMed food? I'm having trouble imagining spontaneous anti-GM sentiment.
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2)
It is really a question of trust.
I don't see any evidence damning GM food, nor do I see any evidence for the need of GM food.
But the companies who manufacture GM food created large publicity problems for themselves by having ad campaigns and policies that made people not trust them. And food is something where the level of trust from the end user is needed for the product to sell. If you can't trust your food sources you do look around for an alternative quickly.
Basically the question that needs to be answered is the GM qualities put into food, to better the food or to protect the interset of the company producing the seed. I won't trust a food unless the let it seed in the wild. The risk of monopolising the food chain is much worse than the risk of monopolising the software industry. Real or imagined threat it is worth safeguarding against now before it becomes an issue.
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2)
But the companies who manufacture GM food created large publicity problems for themselves by having ad campaigns and policies that made people not trust them.
Who brought the shadyness in the ad campaigns and policies to light? Surely every single European didn't do his own investigation into the ads and policies. Who's spotlighting the problems? From where does the word of mouth begin?
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2)
Sometimes people do think for themselves (I'm shocked at that, too
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2)
Especially farmers who see stories like certain GM crops having been windblown into a farmers field and then having to pay for copyright infringement.
Who publishes the stories? Are you telling me that the mainstream media is on the side of the farmers and freedom of information instead of the corporations? That must be nice.
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:3, Informative)
As for the food issue, another poster here is quite correct that the push to ban GM foods and meat raised with antibiotics comes from the people, not from the member governments or EU itself. Another sticking point is that according to most member states' laws, all foods (from within EU or from without) must be declared where it was grown or raised, and american producers have resisted, fearing (perhaps rightly) that consumers will choose not to by american produce.
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2, Insightful)
What makes you think so, Qwerpafw? Is it that we Europeans are so much less educated than you americans are?
The EU "decision makers" as you call them have started this ordeal by ordering a study on the case. This for the sole purpose of having experts judge.
I, as an European Citizen[tm], sometimes find the views of some of you americans on the EU and our legislation quite pitiable, because people such as you in particular share uneducated views without hesitation:
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:3, Informative)
So - no - the EU is not essentially mean to US companies. However, it has high standards, sometimes higher than the US standards. When US companies face EU standards, they prefer to confront the standards as anticompetitive, rather than raise their own standards. That approach is much cheaper.
You troll, I byte (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the EU (or better, their competition commision) is mean to anybody who violates the law. Ask Volkswagen, Tetra Pack or Roche, which are all European companies (they are nummerous more).
Ah, here we go again. The Airbus consortium is a private company which received funding capital as a credit. Airbus is in no way subsidized nowadays as opposed to (e.g.) Boieng which relies heavily on defense contracts, which can be construed a subsidy in itself.
The reason why Airbus is vastly successful is that they sell better planes which are cheaper to maintain. At least that's the take of a lot of airlines, including major ones in the US.
The issue is (same as with growth hormones, which are banned here) that European consumers just don't want to buy this crap. Don't you think it's a little bit odd that Novartis is heavily opposed towards GM crop in Europe and tell an entire different story in the US? In a nutshell: It's not an evil conspiracy towards the good people of the US (Novartis and Aventis are European companies after all) it's just that consumers - with the ultimate buying power - don't want this shit here; end of story.
If they violated the law, which is subject of an ongoing investigation, you can bank on it that they won't get off easy.
I'm sure you can provide us with data to back up this assessment; because otherwise: Go away, troll!
Re:Basically, the EU is mean to american companies (Score:2)
You mean something like steel tariffs?
Re:Basically, the EU is mean /Airbus (Score:2)
EU rules apply to Airbus. Although it had govt. start up funding this was a loan which it since has paid back. Boeing, on the other hand, is subsidised by pork barrel military aircraft production with huge margins. They really need a war with Iraq
Even so, Boeing is now less competitive simply because it makes too many designs of planes, too many cockpit types, in a part of the world where engineering and manufacturing costs are way too high. Boeing is a victim of globalisation. And, er, doesn't this sound a bit like Microsoft, except that Microsoft increasingly design and sells offshore?
Re:Could care less about MS. (Score:2, Insightful)
There are killer apps and then there are Killer Apps like MS Office and Adobe Photoshop. No suitable replacement exists for these two. OpenOffice will not do since it does not import/export with 100% success and the fonts (at least in Linux) look like shit. I don't see either how Gimp could replace Photoshop (color calibration, for instance) in professional work environment in years.
For an average user there cannot be "better than Windows" because that's what he/she can use already. The path of least resistance means that something must really upset these people before they even try changing the OS. And most of those who do try a different OS/Office package would quickly return when they realise that they'd have to learn a new GUI or - god forbid - think about "mounting a floppy" before accessing it (or do the recent distributions have an automatic mount that works as in Windows?).
Re:It's in Europe's interest to break M$'s monopol (Score:2)
Let me correct you're comment:
GWB - We're introducing tariffs on all european products imported into the states!
EU - No you're not, we'll do the same to you, and this'll hit you harder than us Muhahahahaha!
"click" (sound of button being pressed to revoke the certificates of every bit of Fritz Chip managed M$ office software in Europe)
"Ping" (Sound of business not having to buy costly MS updates ever again, and can plan out a nice move to Linux)
You were saying?
Re:Thought - MS retaliates against an EU fine by.. (Score:2)
Microsoft have no power to say what is and isn't legal to do with their software in the EU. If they were to stop selling Windows within the EU they can't suddenly wave a magic wand to make all their software disappear.
Re:Microsoft payoffs (Score:2)
suddenly when a bunch of fame-seeking money hoarding politicians are asking for a peice of your pie, it looks worthwhile to give them some crumbs to keep them from taking a whole slice.