EU/Microsoft Antitrust Case Delves Into Tech 181
oscartheduck writes "ZDNet is reporting on the Microsoft/EU case, and things aren't going too well for the software giant. The Commission is delving deeply into the technical issues surrounding the case. In addition to 'a record $617 million' that may well be leveled against the American monopolist, Microsoft is also standing accused of knowingly going forward with marketing practices 'that had already been judged illegal by U.S. courts when it was used on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.'" More from the article: " The founder of the Samba team of developers, which took years to create print and file server software that works with Windows, said his team is held back and playing catch-up. 'The tiny device I have here in the palm of my hand is the sort of product that could emerge if the information required by the Commission were available,' Andrew Tridgell said, holding a paperback-size storage server that he said could be turned into a work group server. Once it gives over the information, 'Microsoft no longer has a stranglehold over the world's networks,' he said. "
Re:With Microsoft stock up 1.5% so far today... (Score:5, Informative)
Second, Microsoft has its thumb in over a hundred pies. Take a look at all of these news stories [yahoo.com], especially the one on profit estimates. This case won't be resolved any time soon and there are plenty of other things going on.
Re:I get the distinct impression... (Score:3, Informative)
I get the distinct impression that Microsoft being tardy to release the documentation for their protocols isn't purely due to malice - or even not malice at all. I get the impression that things like this simply aren't documented INSIDE of Microsoft, and the original developers of the code have left, and MS staff are now busily trying to document a gigantic mass of source code.
That could be, but it is not any excuse for continuing to break the law. MS made billions breaking the law and when ordered to stop, pleading incompetence isn't going to work. "But officer I don't remember where I put the key to the cupboard I hid the stolen money in" has never worked as a defense for not handing over reparations for a crime. They have billions of dollars. If they don't have adequate documentation in the specified timeframe it is because they haven't put the effort in to create it. They could afford to pay the 100 best coders and documenters in the world 10 million bucks a piece for this 2 month contract work, but they haven't. Well, it is up to them to do the cost/benefit analysis of spending the money to get the work done versus paying the fines. But I don't for a second buy the idea that they can't do it if they want to.
Re:I just wish MS was forced to open it's 'standar (Score:3, Informative)
Problem is that so many of these 'standards' suck. Even our ubiquitous HTTP/1.1 standard has no automated test suite for clients or servers to tell developers 'Yes your client and/or server meets the HTTP/1.1 standard including WebDAV.'. Same thing with Samba, NFS, afs, etc... So we are all left with strange protocol handlers with exceptions for specific clients or obscure workarounds, and using the customers as beta test subjects.
--jeffk++
Re:Screw the EU (Score:3, Informative)
Sure they are following the rules they they set. Really tough to do that...
I think you're a little unclear on the concept of "rule by law." It's not like the people who convicted and are responsible for overseeing MS's punishment had anything to do with passing the laws under which they were convicted. Anthropomorphizing the EU is absurd.
How does the US Law have anything to do with this??
Because the US, the EU, and almost every other country in the world has laws that make what MS did a crime. You can't complain that the EU is unfairly punishing MS by selective application of the law any more than you can complain when they convict someone of murder. Both murder and anti-trust tying are illegal almost everywhere. The EU enforces laws prohibit both offenses both against native residents and foreigners regularly. It is doubly hypocritical to make such a claim when they have been convicted in the US of the same offense.
Re:Screw the EU (Score:3, Informative)
Your faith in the good intentions of the EU Commission is likewise moronic. It is simply fortunate that our goal (of getting MS to open their protocols) is temporarily aligned with the goal of the Commission (extortion).
I think you are greatly oversimplifying the goals of the EU commission. None of them personally get any of this money you know. They are motivated by a desire to do their job well enough so that they stand a chance of promotion, by a desire to do the right thing, by political motivations to get funding and to bloody the nose of American corporate crime. At a very basic level they are motivated to enforce the law in such a way as to demonstrate that it has authority and power, so that others do not challenge the authority of the courts and the EU, or ignore the laws it enforces.
Now I'm not naive enough to believe that all the EU representatives want only to "do the right thing" and help people by correctly and impartially applying the law. Neither, however, am I willing to anthropomorphize the EU as some sort of greedy, extortionist. The whole point of "rule by law" is that it does not matter so much what the personal motivations of the people involved are, so long as the laws are applied and enforced the result will be relatively impartial and for the good of the people as their law making process provides. And I agree whole-heartedly with anti-trust laws like this. They are necessary and beneficial. The EU is applying the law properly and MS has obviously broken the law. However jaded you might be, this is a case of the system slowly but properly working (so far).
Re:Is this encouraging or rigging the competition? (Score:5, Informative)
After reading a little about the case, my understanding was that the commission is asking Microsoft to publicize their protocol standards so that it encourages competition. As my understanding goes, competition is not based on knowing how your opponent does what he/she does; it is based on if you can do better than your opponent.
What you are missing is an understanding of anti-trust law. You're looking too much at the specifics and not enough at the law and the reason for the law. You should read up on anti-trust law if you want to truly understand the topic.
Here is a short and dirty explanation. In most jurisdiction it is legal to have a monopoly. Whether the monopoly comes about because you make an innovative new product, or the nature of the industry, or geography, or some combination does not matter. Having gained a monopoly, you have done nothing illegal (necessarily). Once you have a monopoly, however, the law restricts you from using that monopoly in such a way as to gain an unfair advantage in another market. My stock explanations almost always involve cheese for some reason. Say you gain a monopoly on televisions; all well and good and legal. Now you decide, I think "I want to open a business that sells cheese as well. Since everyone has to buy a television from me or go without (I have a monopoly) why don't I just raise the price on TV's $3500 and give away a free lifetime supply of my cheese with it." It's brilliant! The cheese need not be as good as the competition, nor do I have to be able to make it cheaper. People will buy it anyway, because they want TVs. And what of other cheese sellers? Most will go out of business.
What happened in the above situation? The new cheese seller did not innovate better or cheaper cheese. In fact they might have more expensive and less tasty cheese. Still they have taken over a market. What happened is they used bundling to to bypass all the benefits (innovation, lower prices, etc.) that are brought about by the free market. Worse, there is nothing stopping them from parleying each of their two monopolies into yet more monopolies. People realized this was a bad thing long ago, and simply passed laws preventing it, for the good of consumers and the state of the industries.
Moving right along, we come to tying. What if, instead of bundling the two products together (like cheese and televisions) we just tied it to another product. Say we made all the TVs detect anything in between them and the cable TV and stop working if they found something. And then we added a special (patented) connector to the TV that hooked up to a VCR. Since only our VCRs worked, we'd quickly own the VCR market as well as the TV market. Maybe that would be too unsubtle. What if, instead we used a secret, encrypted protocol for the remote control, so people who bought VCRs from other people had to have two remotes, while ours only needed one. And in addition, what if we added a special connector that plugged into our new telephones and turned the TV volume down when you picked up the phone (but only our brand of phones). Well, we wouldn't take over the markets right away, but we would have an advantage over our competitors. And maybe we could sell cheap and crappy phones and VCRs at higher prices, since we were the only ones that worked with the TV that easily. Is there anything wrong with that?
According to the law in almost every country, yes. Consumers should not have to pay more and use crappier phones and VCRs just to gain the benefits of having them interoperate with TVs.
MS is not tying TVs and VCRs. They are tying their desktop OS (monopoly) with their server OS (which is gaining market share and selling well). Their server OS is slower, multitasks more poorly, is more expensive, is less secure, is less stable, and lacks a number of very useful features other server products have. People still buy it though, because it is tied to the desktop OS monopoly by being the only server that can speak the secret AD and Exchange protocols.