Microsoft Settles Be Antitrust Suit for $23.25M 364
ewhac writes "Without admitting wrongdoing, Microsoft today agreed to pay $23,250,000 to Be, Inc., to settle anti-trust claims against the software giant. The payout is anticipated to be used to complete the orderly dissolution of the company. Shortly after announcing sale of key assets to Palm, Be, Inc., filed suit against Microsoft in February 2002, alleging destruction of its business via illegal exclusionary and anti-competitive business practices."
It is suggested (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It is suggested (Score:4, Interesting)
sorry the quote is so bad, but i think it perfectly illustrates MS's attitude towards all this legal stuff. that they are just so arrogant and think themseleves above it all.
Re:It is suggested (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft will continue its tredge of killing any and all competing systems via underhanded means. They have so much power and clout now that they are pretty much unstoppable.
You CANNNOT buy a laptop from anywhere (except used) without a manditory copy of Windows XP installed on it... Pretty sad... paying all that Micro$oft tax and all.
Cheers
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Informative)
You "cannnot"? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that you can't do it; it's that most people won't do it that is the problem.
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Informative)
It's mostly to keep it from being used against them later in court, when other people sue them for the same type of thing.
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that was the grandparent's point. A settlement this large is a de facto admission of wrongdoing, regardless of the wording of the settlement. This should be usable against them in court in the future, whether they want it to be or not. It's no longer up to them, ideally.
They are paying off a complaint because they do not feel that the legal system, which is ultimately designed to protect the innocent[0] will protect them. Ergo they must feel, on some level, that what they did is seen by the masses as wrong.
Legal boilerplate should never overrule common sense, but it does. Frequently.
[0] implementation consequences notwithstanding, that is the intent.
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Insightful)
Settling these cases gets them out of the quarterly reports and gets Wall Street to stop thinking about MS's legal problems.
Also, this settlement is jackshit. Even DR-DOS got more money.
Re:It is suggested (Score:3, Insightful)
DR-DOS was a product that was actually selling for a long time, and was even being pre-loaded before MS killed them with shonky license deals.
Be just never got off the ground, because MS already had the licence deals in place. It's harder to place value on a potential.
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Interesting)
1. run "ver"
2. check for "MS" in output string
3. if "MS" is not found, give a vaguely worded error, and don't install Windows
And people wonder why I don't like Microsoft...
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 3.0 ran just fine on DR-DOS. Windows 3.1 didn't, until Novell changed some internal bits/structures in DR-DOS to match MS-DOS (they released a fixed version 6 weeks after 3.1 came out).
Re:It is suggested (Score:3, Interesting)
LoB
Re:It is suggested (Score:4, Insightful)
You're confusing a lot of things.
1) What a judge will rule is not equal to what the masses think, so your comment about the masses doesn't follow from their action.
2) Just because the justice system is "designed" to protect the innocent doesn't mean it actually protects the innocent, so your comment about feeling or not feeling innocent doesn't follow from their action.
There is the chance of an unjust ruling which has to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to settle.
There are the costs of defending themselves in court which may or may not be recovered by the innocent party.
3) Your logic applies also to Be, since the fact that they settled could be taken to suggest that they don't think they have much of a case.
Re:It is suggested (Score:3, Interesting)
Be won't have the money to fight a really extended suit, Microsoft doesn't want to expend the manhours to defend itself, and $25m is in comparison a tiny molecule of water in the bucket.
Re:It is suggested (Score:2, Flamebait)
Probably a fraction of what the lawyers were paid, anyway.
Re:It is suggested (Score:2, Insightful)
"Guilt" in this context is a legal term, and can only be settled by a trial in a court of law. Do I think they should be found guilty? Sure. Is it likely they would be, just because it's just, right and true? Probably not, but maybe. They have the ability to
Re:It is suggested (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It is suggested (Score:2)
That's lost in the noise for Microsoft. A single court appearance would probably cost them more. This is simply a cheap settlement of a nuisance lawsuit for Microsoft.
Re:It is suggested (Score:4, Insightful)
When your bank balance is in the billions, would you worry about spending less than 1% of the total to avoid the risk of being found guilty in court?
Less than 1%? (Score:4, Insightful)
$22.5 x 10 = $225m
x 10 = $2.25bn
x 10 = $22.5bn
x 2 = $45bn
i.e. 1/2000 (or 0.05%)
(ehich is *still* less than MSFT cash at hand...)
But I digress. This looks like a pretty fair settlement to me. If you look at who Be's was really compeating with, it was probably Apple, and to a lesser extent SGI. I really don't think there were many BeBox buyers that thought... hmmm.. I really want a Pentium 66 running Windows 95.
This is like Dugati extracting a settlement from Ford, as it's predatory pricing on cars was affecting Ducati's motorbike sales. There are many, many people who can claim to have been harshly affected by Miscrosoft's unfair competitive practices: Be is probably pushing it. Which is why it picked up just 0.05% of MSFT's cash balances...
Just my 2c.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They could not have been found "Guilty" (Score:4, Insightful)
to avoid the risk of being found guilty in court
Civil and criminal court are very, very, very different places and the results of a victory or defeat are very different, indeed.
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it is totally wrong. It is called a settlement for a reason. You settle the dispute without any more court hearings and without admitting to anything. You simply pay an amount of money you find acceptable to not have to deal with the situation anymore.
Why is it that because MS can afford $23million without blinking that they must be admiting guilt? Would it be the same if the settled for $1 million, $1000, $1? Because all of those amounts are too much for MS to simply toss out there to get things done with and over.
That said, past behavior dictates erring on the side of MS using illegal tactics to squash competition. But it still doesn't mean paying $23mil means admission of anything, other than admission that MS has at least $23 mil in the bank.
Re:It is suggested (Score:3, Informative)
A lengthy trial brings in negative press, lawyer fees, and other expenses that can easily go into the several millions. My guess is they figured that the $23M was a cheaper route than taking it to trial.
Look in the mirror, is the person you see there gullible or not?
Or perhaps you see an ammnesiac there: Microsoft has never settled any suit where it wasn't obviously going against them.
Re:It is suggested (Score:5, Informative)
Remember folks, Microsoft's war chest is so great that it actually economically litigated the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE into the ground, forcing the Feds and multiple individual States to "settle" for a bag of peanut shells and a waggling finger.
If you can keep a court case going by filing motion after motion, continuance after continuance, and then appeal after appeal, eventually the other party will run out of money or lose interest and go away.
Basically, during a conference call between Be's lawyers and Microsoft's lawyers, the group representing Microsoft told the group representing Be that they were prepared to spend at least 2x the remaining assets of Be to "defend themselves" and wouldn't it be in the best interests of Be to obtain *something* to return to the poor shareholders rather than see it all turn to dust with nothing in return.
You run out of money, you run out of lawyers... that's a simple and sad fact.
I've been party to such conference calls (on both sides). It's a dirty, pathetic business.
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
This is chump change. They wiped out a competitor, and it's more like adding insult to injury.
Think of it like handing a bum, a panhandler, a nickel and telling him to shut up and go away.
A very small price to get a nuisance off your back.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
And now we can only suspect, speculate, and wave goodbye.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it sounds like Be had nothing but the resources to fight them in court. A pretty good position to be in against MS: then they can't fight you any other way but legally, and given the specifics of the case, it probably wouldn't have gone nice for MS. After all, they have already got a judge saying they did something like this...
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Their orcs, err, lawyers, have been sent to Isengard, err, SCO, to help with the capture of the One Line of Code.
Damned Linux Hobbits.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
it looks bad to the shareholders (Score:2)
Microsoft Owns yahoo? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Owns yahoo? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be disturbing if it were an article, but it's a press release, not an article. Press releases frequently carry such garbage.
Re:Microsoft Owns yahoo? (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed, press releases are supposed to include a paragraph at the end identifying the issuer of the release.
wha? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:wha? (Score:2)
You see the words "Press Release" at the top of the article?
thats (Score:5, Insightful)
Not good for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the big issues is getting end-users to install another OS. Since most people never have to install an OS, it is a daunting concept no matter how easy it is.
The whole effort in making Linux so easy to install derived from this.
Now, with the settlement, MS doesn't have to defend this practice in court. They don't admit guilt and can keep on pressuring OEMs to not install alternatives to Windows on new machines.
$23+ million is chump change if it avoids getting dragged into court and having this practice under scrutiny.
Re:Not good for Linux (Score:3, Funny)
I love that phrase. I am going to use it on monday.
"This project is a daunting concept no matter how easy it is."
Sounds like the solution... (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially, first click downloads the install program. Second click confirms "Do you want to run this, and install Debian as an alternate OS?" Most of the program then downloads off the internet.
Then, the program (1) Loads all system information that it can, into a file
(2) Loads the basic program onto the hard drive, plus all required debs, and checks the hashes.
(3) Installs startup program in Windows that gives the user an option "Would you like to change your default bootup setting to Linux? (Y/N/Don't ask again)"
(4) runs ScanDisk to clean the disk
(5) runs Defrag to defrag it.
(6) rewrites the floppy with a boot disk, and boots into Linux
(7) Partitions a standard user configuration onto the HDD (or onto the alternate HDD, if you so select, thus removing the need for repartitioning)
(8) Installs the Debs
(9) Installs LILO, with 20-second timeout, and default option being Windows bootup (the polite option).
(10) Sets a waiting screen "Your Debian Linux System is Installed. Please hit any key to reboot to Windows, or 'L' to continue with Linux for now, and explore your new OS!."
Such a system should also have a kind of "new hardware" wizard which reports back any new hardware that Debian developers have never seen.
It should also have an "Error Reporting" wizard, such that if the installation process fails, then when you return to Windows you have the option, "Report Error?"
Re:Not good for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
technical correction:
Microsoft lost and came out stronger than they were before.
Now that's justice... (Score:5, Interesting)
$8,072,000,000 net income for MSFT during the 9 months ended 3/31/03
divided by the (roughly) 270 days during the 9 months ended 3/31/03
...yields $29,000,000 net income per day for MSFT
so basically they destroyed Be, Inc., and it cost them roughly 18 *hours* of income.
just lovely
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:2)
That's pretty gross...
But it get's Be's creditors paid and perhaps even a little cash for what/who's left for all their trouble.
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhmmm, if you don't know shit about what happened, shut the fuck up. Sorry for the strong language, but that is precisely what Microsoft did. Not only were vendors prohibited from shipping dual boot machines, but if they tried to ship machines with only BeOS on them, Microsoft would have
Be offered their BeOS for FREE to any OEM who would install it on their machines. The end result was not a single top-20 pc manufacturer shipped any machines loaded with BeOS or dual booted with BeOS. A few manufacturers shipped with BeOS on hidden partitions requiring an arcane complex series to steps to activate.
$23.5 million? Chump change. They should have gotten at least $235 million if not $2.35 billion. There is no justice.
If I understand correctly (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If I understand correctly (Score:5, Insightful)
You have it about right, except for the fact that Microsoft violated at least a half dozen laws in the process. Microsoft is that psychotic girlfriend who makes making illegal threats to anyone Be works with, illegally sabotages the strip-mall where Be gets a job, and who illegally interferes with Be's bank affairs.
Try reading the legal complaint [beincorporated.com]. Hell, Microsoft has already been convicted on most of these charges. It's more like the movie Fatal attraction with the added bonus that Glenn Close is a prison babe on parole and Michael Duglass decides to marry the psycho bitch to avoid getting killed by her.
-
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft OEM contracts forbid a visible dual-boot option [theregister.co.uk].
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh yeah and Microsoft originally *GOT* that monopoly how... a gift from God? Saying that Microsoft is only successful because of their monopoly status is a dumb chicken and egg statement -- if they weren't wildly successful to begin with, the monopoly wouldn't ever have become an issue.
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:4, Insightful)
A gift of IBM actually, but I suppose that you could call IBM the "gods of computer" at that time..
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:4, Informative)
You're right when you consider how the average user thinks about their computing desires and the choices available to them. As long as we're going down this olive branch, I ask you to allow me to go through your points one by one.
YellowTab has a screenshot showing they are improving the AbiWord office package here [yellowtab.com]. There is a donation page [sourcesupport.org] to help port OpenOffice to BeOS. Last but not least, GoBe [gobe.com] at one time announced they would port GP 3.0 to BeOS, providing they had enough sales of the windows side. Sadly, this did not work out as intended. That's another topic for discussion.
The venerable and solid repository of BeOS applications' BeBits [bebits.com] has these entries for instant messaging applications:
There are more, but I chose to show three examples of chat protocals.
Both Mozilla and FireBird have been ported to BeOS for quite some time now. In fact, just 2 days ago there was a new build directly from the cvs server for BeOS of Mozilla. I believe the current direction is towards FireBird, since it's just the browser, but that's a good thing.
You've got that one, I will admit. but it's not so hot either on any OS other than Microsoft's, so it's a poor example for debate.
I do hear through the grapevine that CounterStrike has been ported for BeOS, but that is pure speculation at this point.
Also, thinking back to that time period, there was an excellent review article on BeNews.com that illustrated just how great the openGL implementation was heading towards for BeOS. Again, time will reveal more when Zeta comes out, as it supposedly has openGL support for Radeon and NVidia chipsets.
The main basis for development was already underway by the time that BeOS R5 Pro/PE came out, starting with the excellent groundwork in R4.5 of openGL, and the overhaul of the networking stack and media kit. Given a few more years, at the pace that BeOS was being released at (every 8 months on average), there would have been no doubt in anyone's mind who was active in the community as to how great it could have been.
That was then. This is now. The future is with OpenBeOS [openbeos.net] and YellowTab [yellowtab.com], and the other development OS projects.
I wanted to address your points, because I felt you were not giving BeOS a fair shake. There were quite a few companies who were making some serious headway, not only in software, but in hardware products such as HARP (Home Audio Reference Platform), BeIA webpads, Audio Recording stations, and more.
Thanks for raising these important user requirements to light. If you have any points you would like to address to me, please feel free to do so.
Re:Chump or Chimp? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, the situation did suck, but not because of Be. Read the various articles above yours. Be couldn't give it away for free because Microsoft wouldn't let them. PC manufacturers were forbidden to have another OS visibly installed, on pain of major financial hurt re: Windows l
Re:Chump or Chimp? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong. Be's legal complaint lists companies that wanted BeOS. Anmely Hitachi and Compaq, probably others as well.
IF BeOS were indeed a viable competent alternative to Windows... If someone really wants to compete with Windows, then they need to do everything Windows does
WRONG. Be was not trying to position BeOS as an alternative to Windows (at least not immediately). They were trying to position it as a COMPLEMENT to Windows. No OS can stand on it's o
Re:Now that's justice... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a closer analogy: the RIAA tells Best Buy not to sell CDs from independent artists, or RIAA member labels will discontinue selling CDs to Best Buy stores.
Here is what this means (Score:5, Insightful)
Be Inc wisely (I think) dissolved "voluntarily" and did its best to ensure that investors did not get the short end of the stick. Be sold off all their intellectual property to Palm, and passed the cash amongst stock owners, minus costs. Be then had a single purpose - pursue the MS lawsuit. This money will be passed about, minus expences, to stock holders.
Then all Be will be is a trademarked logo.
Re:Here is what this means (Score:5, Informative)
Those people obviously don't know about the deal Be made with Yellowtab right before they sold to Palm.
YellowTab (yellowtab.com) got exclusive rights to the Beos source code, and is updating it and preparing it for a release.
Re:Here is what this means (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually all the BeOS IP was sold to Palm, Inc (now PalmSource). Be, Inc. was kept in existence as a shell company for the sole purpose of persuing legal action. It didn't have the right to sell or develop BeOS if they wanted to.
Now that it's collected a bit of cash from MS it no longer needs to exist.
Incidentally, senior Be executive
Re:Here is what this means (Score:3, Informative)
they existed only to pursue the legal action against the company that crushed them out of business through predatory practises.
They wouldnt have even had to stick around to do that if the Feds would do their damned jobs.
Freedom... (Score:5, Funny)
The saddest part: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The saddest part: (Score:2)
How lame is that?..... (Score:2)
The Be people need Uncle McBride on their side....oh wait a second...SCO's attack is being funded by MS....sorry, my bad...
Does little to improve OS diversity (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully more and more of Be's innovations will end up in Mac OS X and Linux. Then Be's achievements won't have been for naught.
Re:Does little to improve OS diversity (Score:2)
The article did. I know it runs contrary to the Slashdot custom, but I actually followed the link and read the article.
The payout is _after_ lawyers' fees, which is also mentioned in the article.
I used to work at an investment bank, so I realize full well how little shareholders normally receive in situations such as this one. It's not clear how much debt Be still has, but it's probably not much since they never really had eno
MS employee karma (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:MS employee karma (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, last week, I was telling some finance woman the reason why the worms and virus are so dominant, how it was base level crap that allowed the vulnerabilities, and all she could say to me, with a golden hued gleam in her eyes was:
"Thats why we put security features in both IE and Outlook."
I said to her:
"Well, so thats great, but did it stop these worms and virus attacks?"
She got uncomfortable, and began to talk about what a great company Microsoft was...
its a cult, really (Score:5, Funny)
1 people work too many hours, they live and breath 10,12, 16+ hour a day inside MS. Most employees are sleep deprived.
There diet is generally poor.
They listen to the MS propaganda all the time.
when they go out they almost exclusivly go out with MS employees.
The company expects that Wives and children are second to the company.
then within the company, you have 'cells' of people. If you interact 'inapproprietly' towards another cell, your leader can make your life hell, so you always smile.
OTOH, somedays I wish I was so completly blind, I could ignore the worlds problems.
Re:MS employee karma (Score:3, Funny)
Typical Borg reaction.
Re:MS employee karma (Score:5, Funny)
Dude,
You're never gonna get laid this way.
Re:MS employee karma (Score:5, Interesting)
I got the fscking out of there before being assimilated.
Re:MS employee karma (Score:3, Funny)
You know she's a MS Borg, but damn man some of them are hot [startreksite.com]. Don't attack head on or she'll raise her sheilds. I realize the Geek Gene in you thinks technical accuracy is more important the reproduction, but you must resist. Remember your objective.
Try something like...
"Thats why we put security features in both IE and Outlook."
Re:MS employee karma (Score:3, Funny)
Truley a sad day.
Personally, I hope it drives out of the company.
You can't be in the devils band, and not be part of the music.
Re:MS employee karma (Score:3, Interesting)
And when the smoke cleared... (Score:4, Funny)
The old judge watched on and winced at the display of street "justice", knowing he had no role in this display. Still, he spoke: "You aught to be careful, Mr. Microsoft. Your...attitude may bring such antagonism that even your
"Bah", Microsoft said, turning. Soon, Mr. Microsoft's gun barrel wavered towards the judge's general direction, "Dead men tell no tales." Mr. Microsoft then promptly holstered his weapon, tipped his hat, and rode away, honor still officially intact.
Ryan Fenton
Re:And when the smoke cleared... (Score:3, Funny)
And then Linux walks past the hospital room door, whistling, playing catch with a big chunk of asbestos... the same asbestos that was in MS' air conditioning! Yay!
Regret (Score:5, Funny)
How soon we forget ... (Score:5, Informative)
YellowTAB (Score:5, Informative)
Re:YellowTAB (Score:2, Informative)
not so fast... (Score:3, Interesting)
As for 'not being able to afford going to court', well Be hired Susman/Godfrey on a contingency basis. So it looks like they went for the easy paycheck.
I have to wonder... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I have to wonder... (Score:2)
I am the minister of finance at...
you've seen the rest.
Money IS everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Money IS everything (Score:2)
Perspective (Score:2)
huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The saddest part (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey Microsoft! No matter how much money you have or how many companies you copy, mimic, or destroy... you will never, and I repeat NEVER, develop anything remotely as cool a as BeBox with BeOS running on it!
Be should not have accepted. (Score:4, Interesting)
Whenever someone brings suit against Microsoft, they always try to settle. There is no court proceedings in which facts will become public record. There is no innocent or guilty verdict. It's all very quiet, subtle, and quickly brushed aside from peoples' view and memory.
Reading the Complaint, Be appears to have had a very strong case. I cannot believe they would actually lose in court again Microsoft. (Then again, Microsoft do have an army of lawyers and unlimited monetary resources at their disposal.) By accepting this settlement, they do not demonstrate Microsoft had engaged in any wrong-doing. By all accounts, a mere 23 million is nothing to Microsoft and they come out as the winners.
Shame on you, Be. Why doesn't anyone actually take a stand these days? Microsoft says: "here's a lollipop, now shut the fuck up." People, unfortunately, take it without any consideration for the public good in the long-term.
In a follow-up (Score:3, Funny)
When prompted, Mr. Gates stated, "This is truly an unfortunate turn of events. We are saddened by the verdict, and it will take quite some time before we can recouperate our losses."
Mr. Gates then ripped a juicy fart, and followed up by stating, "Ahh. I just earned another $25 million."
Re:Drop in the bucket (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but you must understand that this is yet another chink in their armor. Once-invulnerable Microsoft has now had to settle a number of actions such as this. What they really didn't want was a full-dress jury trial where all of what Microsoft did to them would have been fleshed out for all to see.
What's more, it's very telling that a company with Microsoft's resources would settle rather than fight and "clear our name."
Re:Drop in the bucket (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but here's the problem: a one-time fee penalty can't really remedy never really compensate for the permanent elimination of a market competitor. By eliminating Netscape, Microsoft secured a permanent (and quite effective) internet browser monopoly.
Look at it a different way: Microsoft can continue to own that market and cannot get sued over this incident again. So instead of thinking about the fee as a legal penalty, you can think of it as Microsoft buying a (very expensive) license to monopolize the market. It works out the same way.
Eventually, the legal system will have to come to grips with the fact that its current M.O. of penalizing corporations isn't deterring anyone. They smile, pay it, and move on to bigger and better market exploits.
What they really didn't want was a full-dress jury trial where all of what Microsoft did to them would have been fleshed out for all to see.
Eh? Why would they care? They've had several incidents of antitrust very publicly resolved against them. (Netscape; Lotus 1-2-3; that DoubleSpace case... and a hundred small cases of patent theft or breaches of contracts with small companies that were decimated in the struggle.) The public knows they're monopolists - it's been a consistent business method for much of their existence. What's one more suit?
Nah, the real reason is that it's just the cheapest way of resolving this claim. They have no hope of winning or swaying public opinion; they don't even care any more. Just cut bait at bottom dollar and move on.
- David Stein
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:2, Funny)
This would be like your warplane analogy only if the DoD had a contract with Boeing saying that, in order to receive a decent price on the B-52, they could buy Boeing, and only Boeing warplanes. A bit different in my book.
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason these kinds of practices are probably illegal for Microsoft is that the
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:2)
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:2)
People generally wouldn't buy a new computer with an OS they know nothing about.
I'm not sure about that--how many people actually know anything about Windows?
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:2)
When you are a monopoly, the rules change. You can no longer force the business partners into exclusive deals (amongst other things).
So everything hinges on whether or not MS is a monopoly, and the courts have said they are. That's why MS paid of Be. They new if it went to trial they'd lose. Be probably took the deal because they didn't have the fin
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me tell you a story. I once worked for a company that was able to charge a lot of money for an adequate product. There was no competition, so we could pretty much name our price. We had to keep quality at a tolerable level, but not the level the customer really wanted. We tended to use processes and equipment that was quite old.
These factors caused many economic problems. The company had money, but was not developing or consuming new technology at a rate comparable to the amount of cash on hand. This probably resulted in few overall jobs, but richer principles in the company. Also, the companies customers had to spend time working on our quality issues rather than creating better products for the end user. Also, the companies customers had to pay our 'inflated' prices rather that using that money to upgrade their facilities.
Eventually competition came in the form of Asian manufacturers with modern equipment and processes. The company spent money trying to quickly upgrade equipment and procedures. The competition produced products of equivalent quality at about half the price. Things were no longer great for the company, but times were much better for the companies vendors and customers. Quality increased and jobs were created in the US as the company was forced to modernize the facility.
Which is to say that the free market and capitalism depends on active competitions. While there may be nothing wrong with MS maintaining a monopoly on x86 systems, it does not help the American economy. Manufacturing jobs are being lost at an alarming rate, programming jobs are being lost at an alarming rate, and MS sits there with billions of dollars in the bank and an OS that desperately needs improvement in quality. They could do it.
But there is no competition. There is no other OS that threatens their market share. The vendors are in trouble because MS had no need to upgrade their facilities. The customers are in trouble because MS does not have to charge true market value. There has been no significant feature changes in Windows or Office for at least 5 years. Yet there has also been no retail price change. Admittedly Office now contains VPC, but still we are paying $200 for VPC and $250 for a five year old office suite.
I would suggest that if competition did exist the customer would pay a lower true market price. I suggest that MS would have to hire programmer and buy equipment. I suggest that the previously unemployed programmer would have money to buy durable goods. The manufactures of the durable goods would then hire workers to create the goods. And so on.
This is certainly a simplistic economic view, but the point is that we allow companies to create monopolies and these monopolies cause nothing but problems in the free market . Money collects in unproductive spaces. Technology and process stagnate. And China and India create better cheaper products while American CEO claim ignorance and disbelief at the unfairness of it all and demand that congress enact dangerous protectionist measure to help keep American jobs. They could have just spent some of thier cash reserves on implemeting the new technology, but that never occurs to the CEO.
Whether you agree or not (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anticompetitive? (Score:2)
Keep in mind that it may have been good for MS it was still anti-competitve.
Lets say you are selling an OS, a very popular OS, so popular in fact, it would be almost unthinkable not to build a computer without it. Now, you tell a computer maker "I'll charge you X for the OEM, but if you make a computer with a different OS, I'l charge you X*2". You are being anti-compe
Re:It's sad (Score:5, Funny)
It's no more sad that MS could settle this case for a "paltry" $23 mil than it is that Be would actually accept that settlement.