Microsoft turns to U.S. for EU Antitrust Help 333
An anonymous reader writes "The NY times reports that Microsoft has asked U.S. goverment officials to intervene on their behalf in the EU antitrust case. The US (through diplomatic channels) has asked the court to be 'fair'." From the article: "Microsoft has complained frequently in recent months that it has been denied the right to a fair defense in the continuing antitrust case with the European Commission. It has also accused the commission of collaborating with its rivals in the software industry and denying it access to what it contends are vital documents it needs to prepare its defense. A memo written by unidentified government officials in Washington stated that Microsoft's complaints raise 'substantial concerns' about the way Microsoft is being treated, according to a person close to the commission who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the memo."
unidentified, anonymity, denials. (Score:2, Interesting)
Fair? Sure~! (Score:1, Interesting)
Why not?
Microsoft's complaints raise 'substantial concerns (Score:2, Interesting)
What, they take Microsoft's word for it just like that?!
Why?! (Score:3, Interesting)
What the hell are the UC doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
All they need to do is clearly legislate that software patents are not allowed in Europe and the rest will take care of itself. Open source alternatives will establish themselves more quickly in the mainstream and competition will accellerate like there's no tommorrow.
Conflict of Interest (Score:4, Interesting)
Politicians may want to get involved but diplomats will not. Watch the days coming to see which politicos are dumping their Microsoft stock and that will give you a good idea of what is to come.
Re:What the hell are the UC doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Be fair and fine 'em 80 Billion (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate to be really cruel, but if they really wanted to pound it into MS that they've been bad, they'd set up a percentage to be used funding open source government software solutions for nearly ever level of EU government. Actually, in several respects it makes sense for the EU to do that anyway just to stick to a US company and use the money to fund domestic EU programing groups.
I'd actually be shocked if MS didn't try to use the US government to get around other government's fines if at all possible. Part of me wants to say that it would be a bad idea preventing/limiting the sale of MS OS and Office apps in the EU, but then there is the other part of me that says that the EU has just as many able programmers as the US and should be able to come up with their own EU version of MS in 3-5 years. I'd also be interested if India or China developed their own OS and/or office products. Both markets should be able to support a lively local OS/Office suite.
Re:Why wouldn't it work again? (Score:2, Interesting)
This will be a good time to see to what extent there is still a difference between the EU and the US concerning the entanglement of politics and business. I for one sure hope there still is one.
J.
Re:Be fair and fine 'em 80 Billion (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with your points except for this one statement. There are a lot more anti-trust cases going on in the US and the EU, and I'm pretty sure the US could retaliate by blocking the activities of European firms in the US. In fact, I think this is already going on. Everyone has noticed the souring of US/EU relations, and sadly I think it is showing up in some anti-trust cases.
I had a friend involved recently with an anti-trust case where an EU firm was attempting to purchase a US firm. The federal courts blocking it cited anti-trust issues, despite evidence to the contrary- the combined firm was going to have 25% in the US market in an industry that was far from concentrated.
The American lawyers representing the EU firm walked away saying this was retaliation for a previous case in the EU where another American firm (in a different industry) had been blocked. This kind of crap happens all the time, probably, and just doesn't merit the attention that MS gets.
Regardless of the facts of the MS case, there is definitely a trend towards antitrust fines being used not for the public good, but simply as a revenue generation tool. US States are huge offenders here, and the EU bureacracy generates a huge amount of its revenue through antitrust fines. Its an easy way to raise revenue without raising taxes, and the public typically doesn't know or object.
The tobacco case you referred to is a great example- US states were delighted to roll the fines into their general expenses fund rather than use the funds for the purposes specified in the settlement. No significant objections were raised by the public. Attorney Generals everywhere took notice and started to adjust their behavior accordingly in the antitrust courts.
Re:Run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me. (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the penalty phase of their antitrust trial. This is MS corporate whining it's not faaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrrr at the extent of their punishment.
No, it's intemperate mockery.
Racist, totalitarian, militant ... you can be all of those and not be fascist. The defining characteristic of fascism is the notion that government exists to serve corporations.
Like I said MAD. (Score:3, Interesting)
In short term, you can run unpatched. That buys you time. Microsoft usually does not bother releasing patches until the threat is already in the wild, so no big loss here anyway - it already happened, I think it was the WMF hole, that a third-party developer released a wrapper around the affected DLL that blocked the problem by eliminating the vulnerable library call. Not mentioning the possibility to screen the code with antivirus-like software directly on TCP/IP and library-call levels. That can be made within Europe virtually overnight, leveraging existing antivirus technology. See also Hogwash, a Snort-derived packet scrubber.
The critical infrastructure will stay up and running. With hiccups, perhaps, but if your crisis scenario comes, I don't expect more than little temporary discomfort followed by a blissful era without intentional incompatiBILLities, longer uptimes, and better general reliability.
Billy may throw a hissy fit and cut Europe off. All he gets in that case is pissing off and temporarily inconveniencing couple million people, creating a large-scale proof-of-concept mass migration project for the rest of the world to follow in a more leisure pace, and creating a market for non-Windows software large enough for even non-EU vendors to cater for.
What may at a cursory glance look like MAD is more likely to be a suicide.