EU Says Microsoft Still Not Compliant 339
what about writes "News.com is reporting that the European Union still doesn't consider Microsoft in compliance with its anti-trust ruling." From the article: "Should the Commission issue a final decision against Microsoft, the software giant would face a retroactive fine of $2.36 million a day for the period between Dec. 15 and the date the final decision is issued. The Commission may then take additional steps to extend the daily fine until Microsoft complies with the order. The Commission's letter is just the latest action it has taken in the closely watched antitrust case. "
Wrist-slapping (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Deny tech support to companies/users in Europe.
Buy advertising stating why they're pulling out of the market.
Which would only underline the EU's point.
Can you imagine the backlash
Yes I can, but I think this backlash would not quite be in the same direction as you think. In fact, it would be the worst thing Microsoft could ever do. I know I would certainly boycott a company that thought it was above the law.
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be great to get off gasoline- But if gasoline were suddenly unavailable, despite the fact that we could grow corn and use ethanol or walk or whatever (the replacement isn't the issue), the unplanned switchover would be very painful....
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
As you note, such a move is risky. Rather than angry pitchfork carrying crowds forcing the Eurocrats in Brussels to stop their cruel treatment of the underdog of Redmond, what could happen is that people would adopt other solutions, like Linux or the Mac.
Given my own love hate relationship with Linux, I don't see lots of non-technical users jumping on the Penguin waggon in the near future. But a move by Microsoft to pull out of the European market would force current Microsoft users to think of Microsoft as an unreliable supplier. This could be the beginning of the end of Microsoft's monopoly. Even if this possible future is overblown, Microsoft is a publicly traded company. Their stock holders might revolt before the European users. Even Chairman Bill can be deposed if there are enough unhappy stock holders.
In the end it all sounds like a game of "chicken". The Eurocrats are threatening Microsoft and Microsoft is threatening, at least implicitly, to take their jacks and go home. We'll see which side blinks. My bet is that Microsoft will play hardball, but will cut a deal.
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of all, if I was a business relying on a software vendor that one day decided to halt support to prove a political point, that would be the day I fire up the installer for their competitors.
In agreement (Score:2, Insightful)
2. There would be about a 100-million-person case study confirming that
In other words, please please do this, bill.
Re:Budget Filler? (Score:2, Insightful)
How so? If Microsoft had just complied with the law two or three years ago when this issue first arose, the EU wouldn't be making any money at all. The EU has given Microsoft so many chances to avoid this fine that it is sickening. Microsoft has purposefully turned all of those chances away.
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Budget Filler? (Score:2, Insightful)
Would fining a company because they broke the law be okay with you?
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
About 20 years ago I went into a library and out of the corner of my eye I saw
a headline of a British newspaper from 1901 that caught my attention.
The headline read:
"Storm in English Channel cuts off Europe from Britain"
I laughed when I saw that because it demonstrated the inherent arrogance of
that journalist's perspective on relative value.
Your comment is just like that headline. Let's consider some facts shall we?
1) Microsoft is a US based corporation.
2) Microsoft employs what 60,000? 80,000 people?
3) Last time I checked the EU contained over 300 million people.
THE EU is playing hardball?!?!
No my friend, I don't think so.
I think Microsoft is playing a game of chicken
because that's the only game they know how to play.
They think that if they threaten to take away their
marbles that the EU will cave in. That has worked
in the past (in the US), but I think the EU is
getting sick and tired of being treated as a second
fiddle to the US and they have no loyalty to Microsoft.
No, I think Microsoft is about to discover that the
EU doesn't play by Microsoft's rules.
--- Johnny
One clear point here (Score:5, Insightful)
"Competitors" can and does include commercial, for-profit and non-profit competition alike. Whatever organization that is "Samba" along with whatever organization that is "OpenOffice" and whatever organization that is "Ximian" all qualify in this regard as far as I can tell.
Frankly, this is kind of fun to watch Microsoft in this losing battle. They are attempting to play this the way they played it in the U.S. and these people AREN'T Americans and probably dislike American companies... especially arrogant ones like Microsoft.
I just wonder if I will have to wait until Christmas to get my presents...
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
So say it happened, and no-one in Europe could buy Windows or Office.
So what? We'd all just copy them. How could it be copyright infringement? They're not available for sale, after all, so what money would they be losing? Yes, I realise that that's not quite how it works, but in such a situation how many EU governments would care?
Once the people get angry, I'm sure the officials would change their minds real quick.
Yes, because that worked so well for the Iraq war. A million people marched in London, yet our troops are still there.
Besides, people wouldn't get angry about this. Oh sure, they'd moan and they'd grumble, but *everyone* knows *someone* who'd be able to get their hands on a cracked copy of Windows and Office. Most people don't bother because there's no need - most people get Windows preinstalled on new PCs and never need a new copy. Were that to change, there'd just be a whole lot more pirated copies in use.
Re:Budget Filler? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Is 2.36 million a day (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the article says:
the software giant would face a retroactive fine of $2.36 million a day for the period between Dec. 15 and the date the final decision is issued
It's been 85 days since Dec 15, 2005. So that means that the fine would already be $202 million. Microsoft's market cap is $281 bilion [yahoo.com]. So I guess it's not a big % of their budget. On the other hand, this fine represents an "operating cost" of $861 million a year. Paying out a billion dollars a year is not a trivial amount of money, even for MS. It's not so much that they "can't afford it" since they have large reserves of cash (enough to pay off this fine for many years, no doubt)... it's more that investors are not going to be pleased knowing that $1 billion/year is disappearing without any return on it. That will negatively affect stock prices, hence affect Microsoft's ability to operate, compete, etc.
Plus, I would fully expect the EU to increase the daily fine if this went on for a long time. I'm sure other laws would come into play also, based on Microsoft's obvious ignoring of rulings. They could be ordered to stop doing business in the EU altogether. After all, if they are unwilling to comply with this legal directive, then who knows what others laws they might ignore. You can't afford to have rogue companies operating in your countries!
So I think MS will have to take this fine seriously, one way or another.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
A nontrivial penalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's revenues are ~$40 billion annually, leading to a ~$13 billion profit. $2.36 million per day is $861 million per year, or 6% of Microsoft's yearly profits. While it won't kill them, figures like that are enough to make investors (and their lawsuit-happy lawyers) sit up and take notice.
It's also important to realize that this will only be the beginning. If MS continues to flout the EU's penalties, they will only get stiffer. In a fight between a multinational corporation and a multinational government, I'm betting on the EU this time.
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example the EPA was GE's number one enemy for years as it freely dumped pcb's into the Hudson river. So what did GE do after all their appeals ran out? They threaten to leave state and remove 10,000 jobs with them. The politicians would lose their jobs from the mob of angry voters and other businesses would suffer.
So they caved in. GE stopped polluting and uncle sam is now paying the bill to clean up their problem.
Same is true with Microsoft. Many in the EU hate big government (not nearly as much as in the US) and will become angry that they can not go into a bestbuy and buy their system of their dreams and run Microsoft Office. Businesses reliant on windows with custom vb apps need windows on their desktop or they will go out of business. They too will have a riot and can any politician who dares get in the way of microsoft.
Hate to say it but Microsoft clearly has the upperhand as much as I would like to see htem punished. They are not stupid and they have corporate europe and consumers by the balls.
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft knows the European market is a big market, and if they removed themselves, they would meet resistance in other parts of the world as well.
Why? There are some main reasons other systems than Windows is not so much in use, one of the main one is the application barrier, most applications works under the Windows platform, but not on others.
If Microsoft closes its doors in Europe, third party application makers would quickly start porting their applications to Linux among other systems, since it would be the only that made sense.
This would most likely lead to other people doing the same in other parts of the world, cause 350 million people is not a small market.
No, Microsoft cannot do anything but follow the EU's requirements or they may pay with their "life".
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
This would result in two things: a surge in non-Microsoft tools (Wordperfect, Lotus, OpenOffice, etc.) and a large grey-market where copies are "illegally" imported from other venues.
Deny tech support to companies/users in Europe.
Please do. And please advertise it in advance. Is there anyone in Europe who could help me migrate over there and set up a Microsoft tech support office? Of course, I'm quite positive many enterprizing Europeans will be salivating at the idea of doing that themselves.
Backlash? No support? Are you kidding me? Microsoft, if they were insane enough to do that, would face the real threat of Europe NOT LETTING THEM BACK IN when they realized how bad they screwed up. Can you imagine what that would do to their market share? The word "plummet" comes to mind.
-Charles
Re:The real problem with this is... (Score:3, Insightful)
The same thing that would happen if YOU lost a lawsuit and refused to pay. You assets would be seized to pay off the debt.
-Charles
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
After one time of denying service, businesses can not afford to commit to them again because now there is a risk they will do it again. You have a fiscal obligation to avoid/mitigate such risks when you run a business.
Re:Wrist-slapping (Score:3, Insightful)
So in USDoJ v. Microsoft, as a necessary part of that lawsuit, it was determined that Microsoft had market power in the operating systems markets, and that they had illegally maintained this market power. This was necessary to determine that there was a Sherman Act violation.
So now, with Novell v. Microsoft, Novell can use as a part of their evidence the fact that Microsoft has market power in the operating systems markets and that they have abused this power to illegally maintain their monopoly. And although this is tangental to Novell's case (involving WordPerfect), Microsoft is not allowed to contest those facts. Thus it makes it far easier for Novell to prove their case. Should it go to trial and Novell win, then that would add more to the ball of wax and make it even harder for Microsoft to win future antitrust suits.
I am assuming that it works a similar way in the EU.
Re:Is 2.36 million a day (Score:5, Insightful)
The return is in that they can stunt competition - they desperately do not want competitors to be able to interoperate otherwise they risk losing their monopoly. If there were truly no return, then they would have made the change shortly after the initial request.
LetterRip
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
And then the further problem is that most stations only sell conventional gasoline or diesel. If more stations sold E85, more people might choose to use that fuel.
What would I expect ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, I get somewhat intimidated by Microsoft and their legal threats. I don't mind what software other people use, but I do object to anyone stopping me using what software I want. The important thing for me is that I should have the right to take my software apart, change and fix it, and put it back together again.
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides...the result of cutting off Microsoft would not be that people would stop using Microsoft products during the transition; they'd just stop paying Microsoft for the privelege.
This hurts Microsoft more than it hurts anyone else.
What's more, having the open source culture is why the EU isn't fooled by Microsoft's hedging.
If Microsoft actually complies, then all open-source apps can work seamlessly with Microsoft formats. Although they'll be built in Europe, nothing's to stop you from using those apps anywhere else in the world. If you can work seamlessly with a Word document without using MS-Word, why would you buy MS-Word? So despite all of this, what the EU requested, actual compliance with the directive, may be worse for Microsoft than the fine!
Microsoft's best bet is to hold on for as long as possible and hope that, with the release of Vista, they can use the loophole ("But we're not selling XP; you have to prosecute us again over this new product") or, somehow, convince major markets of the world to ban all Open Source Software written after they comply with the directive.
To paraphrase Zathras, "Either way, things bad for Microsoft."
Re:EU wants the cash no matter what MS does (Score:3, Insightful)
MS: What's wrong with it? What parts are unclear?
Ah, yes. Except that the "documentation" that the commission is asking would actually allow other people (redhat, novell, sun, ibm) to build products which could integrate with windows clients so tightly as windows servers do.
Remember that 95% of the clients on the world use windows, so it's just NOT POSSIBLE to compete with Microsoft without that documentation. Non-microsoft server operating systems can't compete with microsoft without it.
Of course, that documentation would allow redhat, sun, ibm, novell etc. to compete with microsoft in europe, but in the WHOLE world. Yeah, I'm sure that Microsoft is being helpful here and helping the EU commission to document things as hard as they can.
And mind you, we're Europe, I don't claim we're the best but we have decent economies. $2.36 millions per day mean NOTHING for europe as a whole.
Re:Absurd (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:May be risky, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that it would hurt Microsoft's image in Europe but it would also hurt the EU's image and many politicians would lose their job. Offices need Microsoft and have proprietary formats for data from win32 specific apps. THey can't just switch.
They can't switch overnight, yes. And most of the government bodies already has licenses they need for the time of switch. They can't stop being valid. So, where would be the problem, they start switching and meanwhile use the already bought software.
They could simply start one (or all) of few good solutions:
- calc MS tax per year (which now stays in EU, meaning financial state for EU is much better than paying MS tax) and fund moving of the software on other OS (most effective in financial and time). Just to point you the fact, funding one exchange replacement would be cheap (all it needs is one migration tool for current customers). OO.o? Just fund the features they need. etc...
- simply start using ODF and such as official documents. With this people would be forced to move. (not so friendly way, but effective)
- start project of data certification and unification. where the only thing that would be enforced are open formats. (not unfriendly, timely effective and without any problem)
On the other hand, all they need to do is to declare that they won't prosecute users of MS software. You know, MS has illegal practices and as such won't be able to do anything against this fact until they pay their fine and start playing by the rules set for them. You know the fact that if MS wants to prosecute some illegal user of their software they have to go trough the local chanels, don't you?
These offices pay in the form of lobbying particular politicians to office. If the EU's anticompetitive commision grows any balls then heads will roll and people will be fired until it finds employees friendly to Microsoft. Just look at what happened in the US when ms lobbied heavily when it was on trial?
That was in US. MS is paying taxes there (and having as much cash flow as MS, well... imagine how big of a cash cow MS is for US officials, and this was the reason why heads were rolling). For EU it just means wasting money to some foreign country with low margin of tax proffit. No, heads wouldn't roll. There's absolutely no reason. Probably the only EU country affected negatively would be Ireland (all MS software goes trough them), the rest of the countries would be ending with positive numbers (this is, usual - MS tax).
Either way its suicide for the EU and Microsoft just may win. It will have a black eye in the short term but in the long term it will get what it wants by playing chicken.
No:) They can't win (:except maybe in Fairy-tale-land of yours:). All they can is either pay the fine and play by the rules (maybe even playing by the rules would be enough) or face the switch on OSS in a market consisting of 470 million people.
Major trouble here for US is loosing such large market. Suddenly market is covered with OSS solutions. Software companies have to compete against OSS (where OSS is taken as favoured). Now, who do you think would loose this battle and who would be the looser here?
Now you look from here on
Let's say EU moved on OSS. Could Adobe ignore the market of 470mio? No. Could Autodesk? No. They would simply start doing bussines as usual (they are doing it for money, and market of 470mio means a lot of money), but MS would loose most of the reasons why Windows differ from others.
And if Adobe and Autodesk couldn't resist not to go with the flow, how do you think smaller software companies could?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrist-slapping (Score:2, Insightful)
Please, anti-trust law is only indirectly about protecting the consumer. Anti-trust law is about protecting the rights of other businesses to compete in a fair and open market. Protecting the consumer is only the hoped for outcome of protecting businesses against a monopoly. The EU is doing what the US government failed to do, which is to rein in the power of a company that was using its monopoly in two markets (desktop OS and desktop productivity software) to a) prevent competition in these markets and b) to allow them to expand into additional markets such as the server OS market.
Re:Is 2.36 million a day (Score:1, Insightful)
On another viewpoint, if the EU ruled for Microsoft to leave the EU market, the EU would be denying the citizens choice and it wouldn't go down too well for getting votes.
Perhaps another viewpoint would be (my prefered viewpoint), if Microsoft dragged out the case too long, businesses and customers would become cautious of buying Microsoft products and it would hurt their business in the EU.
Of course, I could be wrong and suffering from fatigue...
Re:STUPID EU... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Perhaps the EU is a larger market space than the US - that's not subject to debate. What is up for discussion here is the EU subjecting a corporation to change their practices simply because other ventures are unable to parallel.
Not exactly. A corporation is subjected to change their practices by the EU because it is preventing competition. I'm sure a big factor of why the EU isn't giving in, like the DOJ did in the US, is because microsoft isn't a european corporation. But even this is irrelevant. The law is the law.
2. Is it OK for Americans to whine - YES - There have not been any fines for Japanese cap manufacturers imposed here, or at least none that I know if. In fact - the decrase in US car sales is pushing US car manufacturers to be more competitive - a great thing for the car marketplace.
Sure, this is the case with cars. The problem with software is that you don't have a leveled field of competition. I can buy a Toyota even if I am a long supporter of Ford without thinking twice about it. But if I have a windows infastructure, I better think twice about buying another solution. Not because linux isn't good enough, but because windows won't play nice with it. Anti-competitive.
3. Were Boeing or Airbus ever fined or forced to share their competitive techniques with competitors?
Sorry, again Boeing, Airbus, BMW, Ford... have NO WAY of locking you in. You don't like your Ford? Buy a BMW next. Don't like Airbus? Order Boeing. Don't like windows? Prepare to have problems with your formats, or your windows systems not playing nice.
4. I use a MAC, almost never Windows, so I'm not a pro-Windows by any means - but considering the volume of applications that exist for Windows, you'd have to form the opinion that the API's must be very much so "open" and "well documented". Why on earth should Microsoft be forced to remove elements of Windows simply because some other companies are jealous? I mean, Windows is a product, right? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to do whatever they want with thir product? If people don't want it - don't buy it! On the same level - remove "grep" from commercial distros of Linux please, it is hindering my crappy home made search code from becomming mainstream!
Oh yeah, bundling. I also am with you on this one, with a small differance. Let MS bundle anything it wants with windows. Just give me the choice to uninstall them. If I don't want IE, I'll remove it. Don't like wmp? Let me throw it out. The problem with bundling as I see it, is not that you already have IE so browser makers are doomed. But because IE is surely on 90% of computers on earth, you can safely code your web page to work OK only with IE. Because wmp is on 90% of computers on this earth, you can safely distribute wmv files. So the problem with bundling is essentialy microsoft using one monopoly to form monopolies in other areas. If it was about giving their costumers a better experience, why do you suppose they don't ship wmp with all codecs? (Divx included) this is clearly a format war.
5. Open source, closed source - I don't really care, again, that's not really the discussion, from what I've heard it's just what Microsoft volunteered to give up. If people don't want to make money from Software, then they distribute freeware - fine. If people don't want to spend money on software then the get Linux or something. Either choices are fine, but for the EU to force a corporation to modify it's product under these circumstances is perposterous. There are countless other media programs and browsers that are thriving - there is no case here for anti-trust, only lack of competence from those that wish their programs were making them more money, or bitter competitors of Microsoft - and of course the EU.
I also am not a zealot. OSS, CSS, I don't care relegiously. I don't don't have a probem with paying for software, as long as it provides me value. When I invest in MS, I know I'm gonna have a problem with having any
Re:Is 2.36 million a day (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No surprise. (Score:3, Insightful)