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Microsoft And US Have Until April 6 To Make A Deal
bahwi writes: "It looks like Judge Jackson has decided to wait until April 6 to issue his next ruling. Most of the states and the Justice Department want a structural change (read "company breakup") and don't want to settle for anything less, but Microsoft keeps saying no. The last two paragraphs are an interesting read, too. Read more about it at
Wired."
DOJ: Well, I don't know, are you sure you've changed?
MS: Sure! I mean, check out the polls.. 68% think I'm a great guy now! Honest. I'm ready to get back to being a contributing member of society.
DOJ: And what about the 32 other counts of misconduct that are still pending?
MS: Oh, they're all out to get me, but don't worry.. when I get out I'll squash the f-- er, really nice people and give them all kinds of innovative love.
DOJ: Well... we'll need some time to consider it.
If only convicted felons had it this easy....
RMS aka Richard Stallman had a problem with a printer.
He wanted to fix the printer and needed some source code to make a good driver.
AT&T wouldn't give him the source.
He got mad and founded the GNU project which was open source. A year later (1985) he founded the FSF to help defend and delineate the GNU license.
The rest is history..
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
Most of their so-called 'profits' are really just wages deferred as stock options, and the funds MS collects when employees collect them, reported as income (Yes, they found a way to move employees and benefits from debits to credits!)
Here' s a fairly well written, clear description of the practice
This will certainly make it interesting when the Ponzi scheme unravels and MS stock prices suffer their first real sustained decline.
Considering how many outstanding shares there are in institutional holding, and how the scheme only works in a steadily climbing stock... we could be looking at the Big Dump
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
> That would make Gates richer. Do you really want that?
Frankly, I don't care how much money he has -- so long as he isn't allowed to use it to cut off my air supply.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is a monumentally bad idea. Do you really want the federal government deciding what any software should cost? (I don't) Do you trust the government to make a good decision? (I don't) Do you believe that ten or twenty years from now they will still be making good decisions? (I don't) Perhaps we should establish a commission to oversee the pricing commission and make sure they continue to do their jobs right as years go by.
Would Linux and FreeBSD be subject to this pricing commission? Maybe we would be forced to charge similar prices for these OS's in order to keep the OS market "competitive."
The problem with monitoring is that it just boils down to a game between the monitoring committee and the people they are monitoring. The monitors try to prevent violations, and their wily opponents try to use their power in new ways that the monitoring committee is not allowed to challenge. This consumes resources and creates ill will. History tells us, imperically, that this doesn't work. And Microsoft has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it will hide behind any technicality and take advantage of any ambiguous language in order to maintain business as usual.
There is nothing wrong with having a monopoly, but abuse of one is a crime. Microsoft will abuse any monopoly position it has in any way that it can. Haven't we learned this yet? This is why all of the concessions proposed by Microsoft are just so much talk. All of them involve keeping Microsoft's monopoly intact. The last thing Microsoft wants to have to do is compete for its income.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Microsoft has really started to hammer the DOJ and although ample research has gone into coverage of the anti-microsoft side of the argument, next to none has been done into the tactics that DOJ is using. Microsoft has its propoganda machine that declares the DOJ is stiffling innovation which woes the converted to sign petitions and contact their state representatives but fails to defend any of the claims made by the DOJ. Perhaps the most scary part is that Microsoft's web site is not written by people who know they are trying to keep a monopoly in place for their own benefit. The authors of the Microsoft site truely beleive that they are fighting the good fight. Their readiship definately beleives it and sites like slashdot and wired just look like sploiled grapes. So maybe it is a good thing that your average newspaper prefers the "overthrow of the evil overload" story to the Microsoft version but I would hate to see the down fall of Microsoft if any of their claims is true. From an us-against-them perspective we must not be blind to what is the correct course of action.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Really.. I just dont get it.. That's the kind of picture I would expect to be scattered around Wired with a click through to their DOJ-vs-Microsoft coverage.
How we know is more important than what we know.
bah.. look at IE at the time that netscape was actively competing with it and you have a real comparison. After Netscape spent more money on court fees than on development and then said "lets open source it!" and stopped virtually all development of the product, Microsoft had a chance to catch up. Now IE is a way better browser than Netscape, and so it should be, people have actually been developing it for the last 2 years.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Nah, Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly. They've only got 95%+ of all OS sales. A monopoly does not mean you are the only company offering a product in a certain category. A monopoly is a company which controls such a significant portion of their "market" that the mere fact that they exist becomes an entry barrier.
... just the os.
:)
Hell, you have to GIVE AWAY your OS in order to "compete" with microsoft (BeOS, linux, etc) or bundle it with hardware that only free OS's will run on (Apple, Sun, etc) -- and I might also note that windows doesn't run on their hardware either.
Now, just the fact that they are a monopoly isn't wrong in and of itself. But a monopoly has to be more...careful. The best way to put it is that your business practices are held to a higher standard; ie: you can't use your monopoly to "do stuff" that you wouldn't be able to do without a monopoly.
This is what MS has done with their "power". Ex: they've used their monopoly to push products (IE, Word, Excel, Outlook, etc) in areas they didn't have a monopoly in -- they told companies "If you want to put Windows on machines you sell, you have to put this other stuff on here too". If the manufacturer didn't, they wouldn't be able to sell their computers because everyone EXPECTS to have windows pre-installed (because everyone else uses it). This isn't the only thing Microsoft has done, but it's the easiest to understand. If you really want to know it all, read the findings of fact that have come out from the trial. That thing ain't long because the Judge likes to write novels.
Now, there isn't an easy way to solve this problem. It wouldn't be so big of a deal if MS had shown a willingness to "play fair" in the sandbox. However, the way they twisted the language/abused the Concent Decree has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted (hell, look at how they deal with other companies in general). This is where the real dilema comes to play. How do you get a company which is run by people sneaker than a set of 10 law firms?
The breakup idea is an interesting one -- the one you refer to. What this would do is split the company off into at least two segments. The first would only be permitted to produce the monopoly produce -- Windows. The other would get the non-monopoly produce. These two companies wouldn't be permitted to enter into any agreements with each other, or merge, or anything else that would defeat the purpose of splitting them up in the first place. Now you still have the monopoly, but the monopoly doesn't have anything to abuse. They don't have a streaming media player, they don't have a word process
Splitting the company into a bunch of mini-companies is also another solution I've seen bandied about. This one, to me, doesn't appear to be a good one. This would fork off a few "twin" companies that would compete with one another. I must admit, I don't think having 4 different version of Windows out there is gonna help (oh man, you think it's a nightmare writing for windows now, wait until you have to write software that gets around bugs in *4* OS's
Now, as to Cisco... Cisco doesn't have a problem unless it starts abusing it's monopoly powers as well. When was the last time you *had* to buy (or go with nothing instead) Cisco hubs with Cisco routers, or a Cisco NIC with a Cisco cable?
I am not a programmer, nor am I a lawyer, but I read the entire Dept. of Justice's Findings of Fact against MS, and came to the conclusion that (at the time) the judge realized that MS's dominance was maintained by keeping its APIs secret, thus preventing other companies (Netscape, Sun) from writing decent code on the MS platform. It seemed as though Judge Jackson was advocating the release of this information rather than the breaking up of MS.
Does it follow that if MS reveals its code to its competitors, that those companies will be able to write middleware apps that take advantage of MS's APIs, and in turn provide a platform for further applications (i.e. a web-based spreadsheet), which would make cross-platform programming much easier (easier to port apps to other platforms), eroding MSs platform dominance?
Does this make sense, or am I misunderstanding something?
If McDonalds added a substance that made their burgers taste better, but made another brand burger taste worse if eaten after a McD burger, that would call for regulation n'est ce pas?
A McDonalds-only customer would benefit, since he would get a tastier burger. Still his freedom of choice would be seriously narrowed. Other chains would have a hard time getting customers to try their product, since McD had introduced a penalty for those who strayed from The Right Way (tm)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
This case isn't going to be solved by structural remedies, because they would be both unnecessary and far too complex.
Breaking up Microsoft would be a huge task. Just look at how long it took to deal with AT&T, and realize that Microsoft is far more complicated than AT&T was considering all the interrelated products Microsoft produces, and the fact that Microsoft is far from static. Any breakup would be so complicated and take so long that nobody would really end up happy.
But it is also unnecessary. Look at what the problem is. Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems, and has leveraged that monopoly to both eliminate competitors and gain dominance in other markets. Those are easy problems to deal with without structural remedies.
To deal with the issue of competition in the OS market, first realize that competition is not always a good thing. For example, cable operators tend to have monopolies -- because it is more efficient to have one cable network in any given city than two. The issue of pricing is dealt with by government supervision: In Canada, if a cable operator wants to increase prices, the increases have to be justified to, and approved by, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission. So all the government needs to do here, is establish an 'operating system pricing commission' or suchlike, which tells Microsoft that they cannot charge more than a certain price for their operating systems.
The other issue -- Microsoft leveraging its OS monopoly to gain dominance in other markets -- is even simpler to deal with. To stop them gaining market share by bundling products, insist upon a uniform pricing scheme for their operating systems, independant of other products on the same system. And to stop them using their technical knowledge of their own operating system, open the APIs.
With those three steps -- government control over pricing, a uniform pricing scheme, and open APIs -- Microsoft becomes unable to leverage its monopoly illegally any more.
Oh, and slap a $50B fine on them for their past illegal practices, of course.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
...Netscape couldn't deal with a little competition.
[ WARNING: Possible flame material may follow ]
You can say what you want, but if Internet Explorer was really that bad a browser, then wouldn't people have stuck with Netscape? People did stick with Netscape in the IE 2.0 and below days, because IE just plain sucked.
So Microsoft bundles their browser with their system. And while I don't particularly care for the fact that the browser and system are integrated, it was a smart move by Microsoft nonetheless. Why pay $49 for Netscape when IE comes free? Cry "monopoly" all you want, but it did give Netscape some serious competition...competition is what this is all about, right? They offered their browser for free and even opened up the source, yet IE still prevailed.
Was it because of this stupid integration idea? Could be. But nothing's stopping those IE users from installing Netscape. Hell, my college library has computers running Windows 98 and Netscape. Same goes for the labs. Microsoft didn't stop them, did they? IE prevailed because it was free, and before Netscape could adjust, people had made the switch to IE, and Microsoft wasn't twisting their arms either.
So what does Netscape do? Improve their browser to reclaim the IE crowd? Nope, they run off crying to the DOJ about how Microsoft monopolized them off the market. And here we are today. Honestly, has there been any massive protesting from consumers and/or consumer groups? The only people protesting are a small, but vocal, number of Linux users.
If this post is going to be flamed to hell and back (I'm expecting this) and get moderated to a -1 (Ditto), I'd just like an answer to that question. Has there been any widescale protesting by consumers and consumer groups? It doesn't make sense to claim that Microsoft has harmed consumers when the consumers aren't speaking up.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Can the DOJ have them nuked and be done with it?
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
And do you have any evidence that they want to mandate including features in the OS? After all, Judge Jackson found, in agreement with the DOJ, that MS caused harm to the consumer by depriving the consumer of the choice of not buying a browser. Yes, they wanted MS to provide netscape, but only if they were going to ship the OS with their browser. I can't see any evidence that a browserless OS would have upset the DOJ at all....
Offtopic, but if the forked kernel were Real Good (tm), Linus would incorporate the changes back into the main fork. It's GPL'ed, he could do that... Pick one, either the OS is useless, and consumers, being not, on the whole, drooling zombies, would switch to one that isn't, OR nobody would switch to Linux (unless you're arguing they'd go Be, or Mac or something, which is at least arguable). Or consumers are drooling zombies, in which case we need the government regulating pickle widths 'cause they're too stupid to go to wendys.I used to have a 4 MHz Z-80A CP/M system with 64K and dual 8" DSDD floppy drives. That "obsolete" system was noticably faster than the original IBM PC. The floppy drives were twice as fast and had three times the capacity of the 5.25" drives in the IBM PC. The CPU was also faster, probably due to the sloppy ports of many programs to the 8088.
Software vendors produced hardware independent programs for CP/M, giving hardware engineers freedom to use new technology. They were not locked in to using the 6845 (video), 8250 (serial), 1791 (floppy) and the Intel PIC, CTC and DMA chips. Except for the 6845, these chips still exist in modern PC chipsets.
Digital Research was a much nicer company than Microsoft. If you wanted to, you could buy a copy of CP/M, write a BIOS for your hardware, and have it running in a matter of a week or two. You didn't have to be a DRI approved OEM with a DRI approved business plan to build a CP/M system.
The IBM PC resulted in a decades long stagnation of hardware design and gave control of the systems software to Microsoft , who expertly exploited that control for their own benefit.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Linux, kick-arse development? What *are* you talking about? Windows has fantastic development tools: I've recently been playing with FreeBSD devlopment, and getting paid for Windows stuff. Going back to Visual C++ feels like the most productive thing on earth - Dereference a pointer, and up comes a list of the methods you can call and public members. Call an API function, and you get a tool tip to hand hold you through all those parameters. Even call across a COM boundary and get tab completion - seen that done with CORBA recently? I didn't think so. Can't remeber what the return codes mean? Press F1 and you'll get a nice concise page on what the function does. And, yes, the Win32 API is a piece of clouded thought like you can't imagine, and MFC is ten times worse - but they're getting better: ATL is really quite powerful, and the OLEDB classes and MSDE between them make an excellent back end.
:)
It just costs *so* *fucking* *MUCH*!.
And you've got donkey's all chance of porting it to a stable platform.
Says he, donning his flameproof suit. And yes, I'll get to KDevelop soon, but right now I'm busy with ddd - which I thought was quite good till I got Visual C back.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Windows is a decent operating system. Microsoft did NOT get to where it's at solely through muscling its competitors or engaging in anti-trust practices, although that HAS played a part.
No matter how buggy anyone claims Windows is (and I have to agree, it isn't nearly bug-free) the fact remains that:
1) It's a whole lot easier to set up and use "out of the box" than Linux. This fact has little to do with anti-trust practices (except driver support and that's just nitpicking)
2)Microsoft's office suite is damn good. Some may argue that it's "good" because of anti-competitive integration with the operating system, but regardless, objectively, it is a feature-rich, fast, and easy-to-use suite. Nobody I know has ever had a problem learning Word.
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes on me less often than Navigator.
To sum it up, the case seems like punishment for Microsoft for being too successful.
And one more note: why open up the Windows source code? How is that going to foster competition? Perhaps forcible documentation of everything in Windows is a good idea, but making them release source code sounds like an over-envangelized idea from
I know it's considered de rigeur 'round these parts to call for structural change. After all, the usual argument goes, it would be bad for Microsoft -- and whatever is bad for Microsoft must be good for Slashdot-ers ... right?
...
Wrong. I think a Microsoft broken into operating system, Internet tools, and applications would be a much more formidable competitor. No longer hamstrung by its reliance on legacy apps and a single operating system, developers would be free to push the MSXML DOM, for example, onto multiple platforms; it would put IE onto Linux; it would port Office apps to Linux and elsewhere.
A structurally altered Microsoft would be worth more -- not less -- on the market than the current monolithic Microsoft. I would even applaud it doing a Seagate and taking part of the company private in an LBO, do some tweaking and pruning, and re-emerge a few years later in a blaze of market capitalization.
Because free to innovate and chase opportunities -- as well as to better attract and reward engineers -- the company would once again be the worst nightmare of most of its competitors.
But a monolithic Microsoft, especially one stung by having to a) agree that it had done wrong, and b) sit under the eye of DOJ overseers, will be a mess.
Careful what wish for
P.
http://www.groksoup.com
Would you mind giving the law's statute number, so we know you aren't pulling this out of some nether region? I would guess that the "law" you are quoting is more of a regulation by the FDA, which is not a law!
Moreover, McyD's may elect not to put any pickles on your burger. They are not required to make burgers with pickles. They have a choice.
As you (and other posters) have observered, breaking up MS will
increase their total market capitalization by increasing the stock price of each company
allow MS to enter other markets
give MS a chance to abandon the legacy crap and move forward. In other words, "Don't throw me into dat briar patch Breir Bear!" If anything, this makes structural remedies more likely to be accepted by MS.
You might ask, "Why then is MS saying they are opposed to breakup if it will benefit them?" Simple: by playing this game they depress their stock price, allowing the head softies to buy up more of the company stock. Then, the breakup happens and their wealth skyrockets.
www.eFax.com are spammers
OK...
:)
Nobody here likes Microsoft. So before replying to me with "YEAH BUT LINUX IS 3l33t AND BILL GATE$ IS EVIL!" keep in mind that I am aware of your opinion.
Here's mine.
I am afraid of the US Federal government in my industry. I am cheering for Microsoft even though I am a Linux user who doesn't like Microsoft's licensing practices.
Why?
Did you know that there is a federal law determining the minimum width of a pickle on your McDonald's hamburger?
There is. That's the result of opening the Federal Government's floodgates.
I know: "Well, gee, if there wasn't a law, McDonalds would only put a tiny sliver on the burger."
No, they wouldn't. Because if they did, we would go to Wendys or Burger King or any one of a million other restaurants. Even though McDonalds is, by far, the largest restaurant chain.
Yes, this applies to Microsoft.
Our industry is, for the most part, unregulated. If I release my own word processor tomorrow, I can give it the features I want. If I want a spell check, I'll add a spell check. If I want a talking paperclip, I'll add a talking paperclip. It's my software.
That's not what the Justice Department wants. It's no secret that they want some authority over what Microsoft adds to their next generation operating system.
That is fact.
And in the beginning, everyone is as happy as hell, because the MS behemoth won't add "their" application.
The Federal Government won't let them. Yeah government!
But then we find that Microsoft Windows 2004 doesn't support a talkback feature to assist the deaf in word processing.
The Federal Government will have the authority to make them.
Remember: there is a law mandating pickle sizes at McDonalds. There is no limit to where government authority can take us.
Now, maybe you say, well, good! The deaf should be able to use word processors. Go government!
It's not that simple; the government won't be focusing only on Microsoft. They can't go on forever making "Microsoft laws."
They'll be making "industry laws." Now, maybe your startup with the 20 billion dollar IPO can afford to add mandated features. Mine cannot.
That is what I am afraid of. Please don't tell me that the government will rest once they get a bit of leverage over Microsoft. They will not. If they'll go so far as to regulate pickle size, they'll regulate anything.
What is the solution?
The solution is not content regulation. (For reasoning above... once the regulation in this area starts, it will never die. You think software is bloated now? Wait until the "mandate" list arrives in Redmond.
The solution is not opening the Windows source.
I know, this is a point of contention. Software should be free and all that.
For one thing, we all know that there are many security holes in Windows. I'd say thousands. We also know that most banks/high security institutions run Windows as their primary OS.
That is trouble.
Please don't say "Open Source != security problems."
On Linux, you would be right. Linux was designed free from the beginning, and the gaping holes have been patched.
But Windows? The massive security problems that would be exposed might take years to straighten out, far enough time for our savings accounts to be purged by a greedy cracker.
Please, also, don't demand MS release the source to their competitors in order to level the playing field.
This sounds nice, but then I ask you "what competitors?" If my startup want to do it's own Windows, will I be able to? Or will Sun be the only company allowed?
A playing field of MS and Sun is not an attractive one.
Also, if the Windows source is released, there is a good chance that the consumer applications market will suffer. Unix was forked, fragmented and has been permanently damaged. And Unix was a well designed system.
Linux may well be fragmented. It's only a matter of time until the kernel is forked. Then what? Sure, now we can say "No real Linux user would switch to the forked kernel."
But what if the forked kernel was good? I mean Real good. You'd switch if there was something in it for you. A faster server or some such.
Unlikely? Yes.
But in Windows? If the Windows source were released, you bet your ass there'd be a fork. Probably a month later. Because Windows is not well designed. It is not efficient. It is a bad OS.
At first, sure, a forked Windows would be great. We'd all get the better one. Right?
Until it was forked again. And again. Until we get another Unix trainwreck, where the app I wrote on Sun Windows doesn't work on AOL Windows, Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Windows.
I'm a poor startup. I can't afford to write ten versions of my program.
I also don't want the government to demand that vendors offer every OS to every customer on every computer sold.
Sure, Dell could afford it. But could Mom and Pop operations struggling as it is to compete with CompUSA? It wouldn't hurt Gateway to support ten flavors of Linux, BSD, Be, Windows and Amiga. But your corner store couldn't do it. Not in a million years.
In essence, forcing OS distribution on a sales level would serve only to help the titans by killing their smaller less financed competition. And God knows if you want to buy a computer WITHOUT a WinModem, you can pretty much dismiss Gateway/eMachine/Dell/HP/Compaq altogether.
The government should not levy a "standards" list for Windows, where everyone can develop according to the specs. Let's face it, the US Federal Government is not the fastest moving body in existence. I don't want to have to wait three years for the government to release study after study to determine that the best place to position the scroll bar is on the left. As a business, I want to say, "We're doing it this way. If it works, we'll be big. If we don't, we'll die" rather than "When the government releases the big specs sheet next year, we'll be able to write the windowing interface. Until then, we're stuck on writing mode 13h solitare."
Oh, and please don't force them to remove their web browser or bundle a competing one.
An OS without a browser out of the box is useless to almost everyone. Almost all new OSes come with browsers from Linux to PalmOS to Be to Windows. Nobody would be helped by removing the browser, and don't kid yourselves - nobody would switch to Linux just because it comes with a browser and Windows doesn't.
Bundling multiple browsers wouldn't help either. Who gets bundled? Netscape? Mozilla? Lynx? All of them?
Aren't we the ones complaining that Windows is bloated? Can you imagined forced bundling of products? What about Solitare? I be the Hoyle people would love to get a shot at that. And why not? What's so special about the browser?
So what should they do?
Restrict their licensing practices. Don't let them sell Win98 to Dell for $1.00 and to Compaq for $100.00. That'll severely limit their leverage over what is bundled with new PCs. It would have virtually eliminated the catalyst for this trial in the first place, the browser bundling war. And if HP wanted to ship their PCs with Sun Java VM, that would be fine.
Oh, and one last thing. The notion that breaking up MS would cripple them is ridiculous. The powerful MS would be the one who sells Windows. They would still have a monopoly on OSes, and their stock would skyrocket on the first day of trading to, likely, MS's present day value.
That would make Gates richer. Do you really want that?
I welcome debate, but not flames, please.
GenChalupa
Be has basically NO printer support what-so-ever which knocks it out of the "Operating System Contender Category" let's call it the OSCC ...
Of course, we all know what happened that fateful day when RMS couldn't get a printer driver....
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Back in the day, I remember the DOJ forcing a media conglomerate in our town to sell off some stations -- the owner was pissed and hated it, but he had to obey the law, just like us little people. A company can't do anything it wants; might does not make right.
In another instance, a company I knew of was regulary breaking the law; failing to honor contracts, etc. Eventually (it took awhile) the city rescinded their right to do business.
How many of you have seen restaurants closed down for a week by the health department? I've seen several. They fail to properly handle the food, they get penalized. At least there are other restaurants...think about that one.
Microsoft attained it's position by breaking federal and state laws repeatedly. They grossly violated written contracts with Sun, IBM, Novell and STAC, and in the case of Borland, launched a covert operation to brain-drain the company through a elaborate "technology day" at a nearby hotel, which was in actuality a Microsoft recruiting center. This was a completely illegal manouver (brain draining a competitor is a crime in California) but it did give MS Borland's high end developers, including Anders Helsjborg(sp), the chief architect of Delphi, arguably the most terrifying piece of software BG ever saw. In every case, Microsoft tied up the various plaintif's resources until the bitter end, only offering to settle in the final days of the trial.
Microsoft is the mafia without the murder. Although I bet you could find some people who were pushed to suicide after there companies were ruined by MS. Murder? That would be a stretch.
Criminal behavior used to obtain their current market share? No doubt whatsoever. This wasn't innovation, this wasn't healthy corporate aggression. It's the cogent, repeated use of criminal behavior to increase profitablility and market share.
The government intervention is proper. When freedom fails, the government has to step in to correct the injustice. Just as you would call the police if you saw a crime committed, many companies in many states have had enough. And many citizens have had enough. They overwhelmingly support action against Microsoft.
As I recall, IBM wiseley settled their case with the DOJ in the 1970's. MS, Sun, SGI, Apple probably never would have happened without that settlement. I have heard part of the agreement allowed the R&D departments of competitors, as well as inspectors from the government, to review IBM engineering tasks prior to implementation, and some measure of control.
Is IBM dead now? Were they broken up? No, and no. IBM is a big, powerful, robust company that is fairly cutting edge in a number of technologies. Does IBM sell anything you can't get from a competitor? Not really. The solution worked.
Similarly, the DOJ needs to come up with a system to end Microsoft's illegal activities, and implement the necessary strategies such that MS' market share is (eventually) dropped to 33% (or less) of the desktop and/or servers.
Micosoft forced this issue by failing to recognize what it means to do business in America. There are rules you have to live by, like it or not. Microsoft could have a very favorable, healthy image in the eyes of the government and the public if they would have dome the right thing -- settle the case, admit their errors, accept that they would be forced to lose market share for the common good, and as a penalty for illegal behavior. But no, Bill Gates won't have that. It's all or nothing, baby! Megalomania roolz!
So be it. You made your bed...
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.