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Microsoft Settlement Talks End In Failure
fremen was among the first to write with this news: "Yahoo is reporting the end of the mediation talks with Microsoft. Richard Posner has declared the discussions to be at an impasse, and the disagreements to be "too deep-seated to be bridged." The story can be found here." This is not an April Fools joke. Watch this space; we will update this story as more details become available. The outcome may be more dramatic than the strong hints of settlement had suggested. Updated 3:15GMT by timothy: Here's a more detailed article from The New York Times helpfully sent in by reader GenetixSW.
You are a fucking idiot, and a liar. You respond to some guy and tell him he doesn't code, but it's clear that you don't yourself.
THERE IS NO SUCH FILE AS EXPLORER.H
Twat.
Now you have a large number of people who have control over thier own pensions funds. If you are young you don't need the same level of safety so you put more money into stocks.
The interesting thing is unlike company defined benefit pension plans there is no sure payout today. That is one reason companies moved away from defined benefit plans. They didn't want the risk. Now you get the risk. If you are smart enough and do a good job at looking after your money it works great. But some [many?] people will end up with very little retirement savings.
You must be pretty young to have never seen a bear market. Most of the market [not the indexes ] has been in a bear market for almost two years. If Microsoft drops below $100 it will be in a classic bear market [20% off it's highs]
BTW the first mutual funds were created in the 20's. I want to say 1923 but at my age sometimes the memory goes-)
Does any one find it surprising that the talks were going to break down?
My Two Cents Worth on remedies:
1) Break the company into three separate companies: Internet, Office and OS.
2) Enforce an "arms-length" provision between the companies. This would eliminate (or make very difficult) any hidden APIs that would allow the MS companies to regain their monopoly. Additionally, should any of the companies wish to pursue relationships with a competitor of another new MS company - they would be free to do so.
3) Require all current senior officals of MS to transfer 75% of their stock to a government controlled fund. The government would hold the stock and use the money from a controlled sale of small amounts of stock to fund an oversight committee to ensure that MS does not violate the law again. The stock in the fund, after 5 years, would be placed on the market for consumers to purchase. The original MS senior officials would be prohibited from acquiring any additional stock in any of the three new companies or from the sell off.
The third item is the key. Most stockholders in MS did not have a direct influence on the companys' conduct and should not be punished. A requirement that senior officals give up their stock would "hurt" the consumer unnecessarily.
However, all of the current senior officals should be punished for thier conduct. What better way than to "cut off their air supply".
The bottom line is, the people responsible for the illegal conduct SHOULD NOT profit from that new prosperity or their conduct in the past.
If MS is truly as innovative as it claims, then the three companies will prosper and the consumer will as well. This also allows any one new MS company to pursue what it whats and forces them (if they want to survive) to listen to the consumer and business wishes.
That is really the bottom line - listening to the consumer and responding to what THEY want. If the new MS companies can do that and prosper - "more power to them".
End of My Two Cents.
I think you are jumping the gun here. It'll be several more months before the decision on what action to take is renedered, and then it'll be several more years of appeals before it is implemented. By that time, natural market pressures presumably will have weakened the MS monopoly to a reasonable level.
Even if a quick resolution is put in place and MS is split up next year, this does not mean that the computer industry will fragment. In general, it is the tendency of computer systems to converge on common standards rather than to diverge. Only when a company is intentially trying to deviate (eg: embrace and extend) or a new technology offers significant enough benefits will standards shift or break.
Microsoft isn't going to dissapear tomorrow, so I also think this prediction of us "losing 6 years" is hogwash. Microsoft still enjoys the marketshare today that it did yesterday. I don't see the government changing this overnight.
Oh, they didn't _directly_ come right out and directly ignore their previous settlement, they just paid some lawyer to find some stupid little loophole in the language of it that they could exploit for their own purposes. Typical tactics from that company out of Redmond...
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
>>This will be the ultimate IT manager nightmare, because they will have
>>be current on multiple competing versions of Windows, Linux, BeOS and
>>whatever x86-compatible operating system comes along the line.
>
>Oh, how horrible. Idiot IS goons will have to choose!
What's truely horrible is that Idiot IS goons will actually have to *DO* the job they're getting paid for instead of watching Baywatch. You can see the panic starting already at places like PC Week Labs....
>One thing that I've found odd about antitrust law is that a company
>doesn't really know it's a monopoly until long after the fact, and
>probably after a violation has occurred. How is a company supposed to
>know when it becomes a monopoly?
Lousy argument because Microsoft always intended to become a monopoly. Let's use Word for an example. When the Amiga 1st came out, a lot of software created software for it, even Microsoft. As the Amiga became more popular, people began asking Mircosoft to port Word to it, as it would cause the Amiga to become even more accepted, especially among PC users. Microsoft hemmed and hawed and never released a Amiga version of Word. Why? Because the Amiga would then have become a serious threat to Windows. You see, even back then you had Microsoft Astroturfers and magazines like PC Mag running around "advising" people not to consider the Amiga because of it's "lack of software" and other nonsense. Sound familar? It should.
>I'm perfectly aware of the differences between freedom and things that
>cost no money. What does this have to do with anything addressed in my
>original post? I still haven't seen an answer to my question, which is
>why so many people here seem to think the Open-Source model is the
>next Messiah.
Because we're not forced to deal with or buy software from people like you....
>I'm going to watch with great interest what happens IF the DoJ does
>succeed in breaking up Microsoft (but that could not happen until at
>least the Supreme Court settles the case some 18 to 30 months from
>now; if George W. Bush gets elected, you can forget about the breakup
>EVER happening).
You're forgetting about Hatch and the others. There are quite a few in the Repub. party who don't like Microsoft any more than the DOJ do....
>Oh, yes, I think there should be no more tying. IE should be separate,
>and so should the office stuff.
>I was just pondering the implications of that statement... does that
>mean Be would no longer be able to ship NetPositive (their web
>browser), sound recorder, CD burner, etc. with the OS? Or would the
>ruling apply only Microsoft because they were the ones guilty of
>predatory marketing?
Not if BE handles the "tying" in the same fashion the way RedHat "ties" a WM or any other software into it's dists. Microsoft got into trouble because it wanted to *FORCE* people into using it's products....
>Unless I am mistaken most slashdoters are Libertarian. Then
>look at democarat ideology. it's a no brainer choice.
Wrong. The vast majority of slashdoters *ARE NOT* Libertarians, just like like the vast majority of the population of the US *ARE NOT* Libertarians. That's why the psudo-Libertarian arguments the Microsoft Astroturfers kept trying to make here kept hitting a brick wall. Nobody was really stupid enough to fall for them. The real Libertarians were smart enough to steer clear of these guys, and everybody else recongized the Microsoft stooges's bullshit for what it was.
>I am also convinced that the DOJ acted just in time to prevent
>Microsoft from really throwing its weight around hardware vendors.
>When I say "hardware vendors", I mean companies that make processors,
>video cards, sound cards, and other components, not OEMs like Compaq
>and Dell. I imagine many of you Linux users have been ticked off when
>you found that your favorite component you used under Windows won't
>work under Linux because only Windows drivers have been released, and
>the part's specs are under an NDA.
I've never really quite understood the logic behind making and selling a printer or modem that will only work under Windows 95/98,especially when you also selling similar products that will work on Macs,Amiga,PC's runing Linux,OS/2,Windows 3.1,NT ect... Always seemed rather silly.
Microsoft wouldn't make money. But the rest of us would save money. Tons of money. Imagine if we could all use Windows and not have to pay for it. Imagine if all of Bill Gates Money was taken and put back into the economy.
In the long run, I think we'd all be better off.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Ray, we (in windows-land) *already have* platform "balkanization"; do you know how many different versions of Windows I run into at work???
Windows 95 (all the various versions...)
Windows 95b (all the various versions...)
Windows 98 (all the various versions...)
Windows 98 SE (all the various versions...)
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 4.0 (and all the differnet SPs add fuel to the fire...)
Windows 2000
....not to mention the occassional Win3.1 box I come across. So DON'T be BITCHING about "balkanization", cause it'll make you sound like you don't know whatchu talkin about, and I don't wanna have to use my clustick on ya.
-Phil
If you had an OS, any OS, with some form of software component technology, and you had a Web browser engine available in component form, you're saying it is fishy to make use of it is a wide variety of programs? It just sounds really wierd for some supposedly avant garde Linux people to argue against using a browser engine in UI. It sounds not credible, and that lack of credibility reflects on other arguments that Microsoft broke the law and should be punished severly. It makes me think this about something other than the law.
Their success may offend you. The way they take advantage of their sucesses may offend you. But that is a long way from justifying what was from the outset a novel and radical reading of anti-trust law, by a highly ideologicaly leftist bunch of prosecutors.
The other point of view is: I'm in this business to make money. Microsoft has never taken any skin off my nose. Why should I be happy if a bunch of old pinko hippies in the DoJ get to write the rules for the business I'm in? You don't have to defend Microsoft to be against the government in this. Instead, just ask "Who do I trust less?"
I suspect that most of the people cheering for the DoJ would be against anyone who succeeded to the same degree, under the same system.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Well all that you're seeing here is that nature abhors a vacuum (which would explain the tornado that got my wet 'n dry ;)
If MS goes down then there will be a lot of companies angling for their spot. What's best is when they can be kept stuck in the 'angling' phase, without anyone actually succeeding. Nor the biggest competitors forming a cartel (in which case there's no longer the competition).
You've got to remember that MS != Competition. And competition in this business is a great thing.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But if MS was pruned back into a smaller company we'd see:
*64 companies starting up every day to your 32
*Microsoft no longer feared - people would be willing to work with it w/o fearing for their immortal souls
*And Microsoft might actually be able to develop *GOOD* products again. And people might buy them on their own merits, rather than because of the name. I liked MS Word 4. They haven't written anything that good in about a decade. There's no incentive.
The industry today is great, yeah. But if MS is holding it back, just imagine how much better the industry would be. Good Enough is a crappy argument from MS, and it's a crappy argument from you too. I want better.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
MS clearly holds a monopoly buddy.
It's not how many competitors you have, it's the relative amounts of control. Are you telling me that Be can speak with an equal voice as MS can? Without your nose significantly altering your center of gravity?
Be can't leverage their OS in favor of their browser. Neither one is an even vaguely dominant player. MS controls microcomputing, and I don't think anyone here can deny that. The various Linux companies are growing but they can't make demands of Intel, or Apple, or anyone else right now.
But when they can, and if they do, then hell yeah we'd go after them too. I'd gladly encourage taking Red Hat to ask if they monopolized Linux and abused their monopoly.
No precedents being set, my friend. The govt. has left personal computers alone because no one got out of line on this scale before MS did. It's good old fashioned antitrust, which dates back a hundred years or so.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Welllll...
I kind of doubt that they'd get a great reception in Canada after pulling something like that, but it would actually work out rather well.
For some reason (it makes a *little* sense, but not much) international treaties trump the constitution, IIRC. This is really bad when, as has been happening for some time now, the US enters into a crapload of treaties that it can't get out of easily. Talk about a portion of the Constitution that could use an amendment....
(IANAL, but I try to keep up)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Oh sure. I'll agree that in the old days of microcomputers there were a zillion different (largely) incompatable standards.
But sooner or later people have to learn to live with their neighbors. Computers have generally gotten to work together better as time has gone on. The internet is a great embodiment of this. The idea from day one was to have a plethora of different machines that could still be different, as long as they could talk to each other.
MS has taken the approach of killing neighbors instead of letting the kids play together.
Phones would ended up the same way if a similar situation hadn't been allowed to go down. IIRC (been a long time since I read about it) there had already been some telcos working on this as ATT started their giant buying spree.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Bush, aside from being dumber than a sack of hammers, has a much greater failing. He's very much a puppet, and every time he's gotten in trouble in the past, he's been bailed out. I sincerely doubt that it was ever his idea to run for any political office, ever. (And it's really too bad that Ann Richards lost - she's a great woman, I liked her a lot)
At any rate, this has been a really crappy election so far. There's a rather good comic that I like to that effect.
Personally I'm an independent (I can think for myself - no parties for me, thanks) but my favorite candidate was McCain, because he was honest, despite my disliking a lot of his proposals. All the rest strike me as the sorts of politicians where you want to buy extra locks for your house when you hear they're in town.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Fair enough. I wish that I could vote for 'None of the above' rather than either vote for a guy that I don't like (which only encourages them) or not vote at all (which only encourages them).
;)
Personally, I think that if George Washington were alive now, rather than endorse any politician, he'd probably say something like: "Help! Help! Get me out of this coffin!"
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
It's more likely that microsoft will be required to release all current and future API specifications. This my friend, does not bold well for stock holders.
-- You can be a geeklord too
200 posts and more after I wrote the above it's getting responses and some of the responses are getting attention from the moderators, but if I'd submitted it as a story when it came out last Thursday (Mar 30) what do you suppose its chances would have been?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
To get re-elected for another four years...
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Oh, certainly.
My suggestion for the judge's ruling in thiss case is simply a variant of the letter I sent the current administration during the first antitrust action against MS.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Pyrric:
IIRC Some bloke called Pyrrus after a battle that he won (with heavy losses) he remarked "Another Victory like that and we are lost"
I dare say Microsoft has, over at least the past 20 years, done infinitely more grievous things than, "stepping on a few toes". Please. They have gone out of their way to, intentionally and with malice of forethought, break would-be competitor's, not to mention their own customers' and partners', legs, arms, what have you.
>> "Microsoft has been raking in profits for years, which in turn raise share prices, which in turn make stockholders happy. "
Microsoft has been abusing their monopoly for years, which in turn rakes in profits for years.
"Our business model works even if all internet software is free. How does Netscape's business model look? -- not so good." --Bill Gates at shareholders meeting
"Our business model works even if *ALL* software is free. How does Microsoft's business model look? -- not so good." --'Linux', and Open Source Software Developers
Be, Inc. clearly does not hold a monopoly on Intel/AMD/et al. based PCs. There is a big difference.
While I am sure there are many opinions on whether or not Microsoft holds monopoly power, (as legally defined), on PC desktop operating systems, I think for at least the time being, that Judge Jackson's own opinion is probably most significant with respect to this case. He has found that indeed Microsoft does hold Monopoly power on Intel-based PC operating systems, which you can read here: Findings of Fact
Here's a quote:
April fools!! :)
Have fun today pals,
Duckie
If I want to use KSQL (a KDE SQL Client formerly known as KMySQL), I have to install kdelibs at the very least. That package contains such libraries as khtml, a HTML rendering KPart.
Is this an artificial requirement? KSQL is not a web browser, after all!"
Big difference: you aren't installing an application when you install the kde libraries.
Now, if you were required to install a KDE webbrowser (whatever it is called these days), you may have a valid analogy. Besides, it is at least possible to compile KSQL statically, thus eliminating the need for the KDE libraries, is it not?
BTW, I agree with your comments on abandoning version numbers.
Bill
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
There is a significant difference between being a monopoly, and being an abusive monopoly. A review of the documents will reveal that the charges are 'abuse of power', not 'posession of power'.
That said, there is more to being a monopoly than having the largest market share.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Maybe MS couldn't turn a profit anymore, but you think compaq, dell, and/or IBM wouldn't pick up the pieces and just give away office/windows with every PC just to make them sell?
People need (MS) software. Opening the source code makes it easier for more people to provide it. How's this going to make the software less available?
Now admittedly, the line for antitrust is a little fuzzy, and we don't want to be lopping heads off for the slightest infractions, but is it a bad thing if firms are encouraged to err on the side of legality?
I have a classic Bell dial phone, labeled Western Electric. It's old, but I can't imagine that it's that old.
But, to answer your question, I don't know. AT+T manufactured telephone equipment until the Lucent spinoff.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
That's a very 'insightful' take on the situation.
However, one thing that I've noticed about Microsoft is that they never can really commit totally to the server market because it would undermine their revenue base, which is virtually 100% on the client side. This held back their server products, and has limited their vision ('Windows DNA') of the network of the future. They refuse to introduce any network-related product that isn't tied to Windows or Office in some way or another.
They would love to have the huge profit margins that Sun and IBM enjoy, but they refuse to buy into the Fat Server-Thin Client model. Ultimately, this will be their Waterloo -- fat desktop clients (and, hey, that includes Unix too) are too expensive to support in the long run.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Anyone who believes that the AT+T breakup was a failure is seriously confused. Just check the prices for long distance calls and telephone equipment.
Also, new applications like IP Telephony would probably never have happened with the benevolent Ma Bell in control.
BTW, I don't think Western Electric was broken off into a seperate company. It primarily stayed as part of AT+T, although chunks may have been spun off to the Baby Bells. The "Western Electric" brand name went away at the time of the breakup, if not earlier. AT+T also ceeded ownership of phonelines and equipment within private structures, opening the equipment market. Western Electric was finally broken off when AT+T spun off their equipment division as Lucent Technologies a few years back.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I think I remember George Bush (jr.) saying that he wouldn't allow a split-up.
My understanding is that the DoJ is actually pretty heavily controlled by the civil service. Now that they started this fight, it's unlikely that any politican can stop it. Consider the IBM and the AT+T cases -- the government managed to keep the cases going for years despite the fact that both corporations have an enormous amount of political influence.
(In fact, Gates donated quite heavily to Clinton in 1992, and that didn't stop the antitrust case.)
BTW, Microsoft never included anything better than Real 5 support. That's two versions old, so it's understandable that they are dropping it.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Well, Microsoft specifically designed IE so that it is an operating system upgrade. DLLs that have been in Windows since version 3 are now part of Internet Explorer.
Personally, I think the IE-tying issue isn't an issue. What's more important is Microsoft's use of monopoly power in taking Netscape and "cutting off their air supply" (as MS put it). And the fact that this soft of thing is a common Microsoft business practice.
IE is part of Windows, and it's not going away. Unlike tricks like 98Lite, the UI of Windows 2000 would need to be massively re-engineered to get rid of IE. Let Windows Inc. have Internet Explorer -- that battle is over, IE is a revenue drain, and even Linux desktop designers seem to believe that browser integration offers some benefits to the application developer.
Besides, without the MS goons threating them, the OEMs would probably be very happy to ship Netscape 6 with some branded skins as the default browser. They've got 30 GB hard drives to fill up with crap.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
One could make the same argument (I have) that Win98 was free and you payed $80 for the IE browser.
Actually a better argument would be that Win 98 Upgrade cost $80, but the corporate labor costs of installing Win 95, 12 service packs, IE 4, DirectX, and so on was probably about $500. Essentially, it was just extorting the installed base.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It would be bad news for the MS-Apps company. But it's great news for the MS-Operating System company, because it would mean more 3rd party support. (Yes, even more!) This would help them hold off competitors like Linux.
In fact, if a Windows Inc. company was formed, and wasn't required to support an application company, they would probably be more than happy to release complete API documentation even without a government order.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I didn't write the anti-trust laws. Send your dopey "Business is business" diatribe to your congressman.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The question is software design practices versus business practices. The only problem, with Microsoft, it difficult to slice a clear line between the two.
I'll give Microsoft credit for being enormously clever with marketing Internet Explorer. When they announced in December 1995 that they were going to integrate it with the Windows shell, almost nobody could figure out why. They had just spent 3 years and millions of dollars designing the Windows 95 shell, and on the surface, replacing it right away seemed bewildering.
Eventually, "integrated" applications made it clear what the technical reasons were. Even Unix desktops are adding integrated browsing features, so there must be some value there. But the key point is that Microsoft knew all along that the only way they could catch up to Netscape's marketshare was to design the browser 'into' Windows. The marketing was driving the design decisions.
But, as I said, even if they would have only integrated IE at no cost, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. What matters is that they pretty ruthlessly went after Netscape's ability to expand their user base by flexing monopoly muscle. That's illegal. In a situation where the number of web users expanded 100 times over, making it difficult for new users to get Netscape was the difference between life and death for that particular Microsoft competitor.
BTW, by 1998 Microsoft had a full scale OEM revolt on their hands and knew that the DOJ was coming after them. That is why they loosened up on many of the 'default desktop' restrictions, and is the reason that current computers ship with Netscape and ISP icons.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I still don't understand how there are people that don't see how Microsoft used the tieing of IE to Windows to squash competition.
People are less likely to try out something new, especially if there is something readily available to them that does exactly what they need it to.
Before IE was bundled with Windows, people would actually learn about both browsers, and choose one based on personal prefference.
You're forgetting that MS doesn't have monopoly positions in Server OS's or Embedded OS's...
In your regulation of Microsoft, what committee would determine which features, utilities, and API's would be appropriate for an operating system and which should go into applications? How quickly would that committee act?
It seems that Microsoft was found to have a monopoly on Windows. I think the best solution is a horizontal breakup, where 3 or 4 companies would be created, each with access to all of Microsofts patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Prevent employees from moving between companies for 10 years. Then set those companies lose on each other.
They'll all have the cash to compete. They can do whatever they want... If that means lowering their prices, maybe we'll see $15 windows licenses. Maybe one of the companies might decide to open source all of their non-patented softwares.
I don't think a DOJ solution should impose Linux as a competitor to windows and completely tilt the playing field for Linux by saying things to Microsoft like "No including browsers. No including development tools. No including servers, etc..." because every other company which has an OS does the same...
We just need 3 versions of windows to ensure that hey all have competition, keep prices in check, etc... There could be some clause in there saying that if in 5 or 10 years any of those companies had decimated the others, some other intervention could be sought.
I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I just think the punishment should focus on consumers and windows, and forget about linux.
And what if i don't WANT the source? I have to sit through an extra block of time downloading stuff i have absolutely zero interest in? And isn't that one of the issues people have with microsoft, shoving unwanted things down everyone's throats?
Leave the source where it is... if someone wants it they can get it... if they don't want it, they dont' have to have it.
Yes, there is a technical requirement.
Microsoft, first of all, uses parts of the IE engine for documentation.
Second, they use parts of IE engine for ActiveX.
Third, they use parts of it for connectivity libraries.
Code reuse. Ever heard of it?
The requirement is artificial, based on evasion of the old consent decree, not on valid technical reasons.
If I want to use KSQL (a KDE SQL Client formerly known as KMySQL), I have to install kdelibs at the very least. That package contains such libraries as khtml, a HTML rendering KPart.
Is this an artificial requirement? KSQL is not a web browser, after all!
What I see as the artificiality here, is that Microsoft abandoned useful version numbering, so they require various little updates, to improve DLLs. And, since Internet Explorer has been declared by MS to be part of the operating system, Internet Explorer updates are a valid way to upgrade base system DLLs.
I'm not denying that there were benefits to the splitup of Ma Bell, there were. But at the same time it has led to new problems.
The ability to pick a long distance company has certainly helped drive down prices, although the ability to route traffic over multiple networks is not an immediate or obvious consumer advantange. But there's also been negatives, like slamming, incoherent billing to say nothing of all those idiotic TV commercials.
Since the typical consumer does a vast majority of their telephoning in their local market, the breakup really didn't impact them. Here in Minnesota, we went from being Northwester Bell customers to being US West customers. I guess I didn't see that much of a difference -- I got billed for long distance differently, and the logo changed but it was still the same game.
There's even been some handwringing over the Telecomms Reform bill passed just a couple of years ago being somewhat ineffective in spurring dramatic changes in the local loop. My own critique is that capital went into "the internet" instead of the local loop, but even here in MN that's changing, as I'm posting this on a USWest residential pair provided to me by Covad for DSL.
Its unlikely that the DOJ would see a consumer benefit in N identical Baby Bills. While no one likes the MS monopoly, to a certain extent it did stabilize the x86 OS market.
Any "Windows" code would be of only immediate benefit, since each junior MS would be changing their Windows in order to achieve market differentiation. In the longer term, the Windows OS space would look like the Unix OS space -- somewhat portable, but not really portable.
Actually this case will set more precedent that that. Ultimately, it will set the precedent for whether or not large corporations are in control of the governement, if the governement can slap the hands of a large corporation, and make them sit in the corner for stealing a cookie, then perhaps their is hope for our government. On the other hand, the MPAA could win in their suits against DeCSS and that will prove that ultimately, corporations run the government.
I sold my MSFT months ago. Honorable judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has had it with that monopolist Bill Gates. I would not be surprised to see Bill found in comtempt given his statements in his deposition.
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
um, dude, calm down. it's a sig. it has like three layers of irony wrapped around it. it isn't supposed to be a literal belief, just something to make you think. if it was meant to be taken literally would it be in capital letters..?
do you actually have anything to say or were you just feeling like insulting someone? you seem to disapprove of the sig, yet you give no reason (logical or otherwise) why.
Perhaps you should try actually relating to what was said in some way, or otherwise attempting to express an alternate viewpoint, instead of meaninglessly flinging empty flames and then running away..
-mcc-baka
MAKE ABORTION MANDATORY
RAPE AND SLOWLY KILL ALL CHRISTIANS
:)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It wouldn't be very good news for a company
that just produced Windows, Microsoft sell
Windows 2000 at a loss. They make all their
money from Office.
I know where he bases this 6 years on
666
However I disagree...
We automaticly presume that "The Beast" is Microsoft.
However I have heard people refer to bulky powerful computers as "a beast" or "my beast". At times a "beast" isn't bulky but in fact deceptivly small.. a Cray in a pocket watch for example (however I have never seen such a beast) but it is NEVER underpowered. A Beast is allways over powered.. Blow out the doors.. Quake 4 ready.. "My name is Hal" Beast...
As old 386s, 486s and Pentiums get tossed it becomes easyer and easyer to get a larg connection of computers together to build a larg beast using Linux.
Ohh yes... and what is 666? chmod 666....
The beast is an as yet non-existent Linux array.
Or maybe it's not Linux... Linux dosn't default to 666... Nore would it be BSD for the same reason...
No.. a yet to be writen Unix like operating system who defaults to 666...
That is the beast.... Microsoft? Who knows.. maybe they will write it.... But I doupt it....
666 The number of AoL/OS?!?!?
Hay... AoL needs a beast to run things.... it would make sence...
I don't actually exist.
So true - Macintosh didn't have Solitaire or Minesweeper.
2. Started the Internet revolution.
No, that was Al Gore.
3. Constantly improved their product.
Obviously your definition of "improvement" if different than mine. But, of course, you are right in a sense - you couldn't, for example, make Win3.1 worse, so the only way is up.
1. They forced all competitors out of the market.
Oh, I had an insight ! Netscape didn't have a Minesweeper embedded in Navigator, so it was their own fault that they didn't survive.
2. They charged more than a fair, price for Windows.
Yeah, their Minesweeper was better than anyone else's, so the price tag was justified.
Most people see my pal Bill with all his money and are envious
Oh, yes Sir, I am ! With all his money, he can afford to play Minesweeper all day long ! Oh, the envy !
That burst won't happen as long as exogenous events don't shake up the equities market. Events like a derivatives cascade. Or an unwinding of the earnings spiral. Ever wonder what might happen if increasing stock valuations of equities a company owns in another company stall out for a couple of quarters in a row? Especially when current FASB rules allow an increased valuation of shares held in another company to be booked as income...aka earnings for the company owning the equity, making it advantageous for companies to hold shares in each other? The term "unwinding" comes to mind; in worst case scenarios, the term "cross defaults" comes up, giving me the heebie jeebies.
A recent historical example of this kind of unwinding is found in the current Japanese depression; companies were allowed to book income from increasing real estate values of land they owned, causing a frenzy of speculative investments into their equities because of the improved balance sheets, letting the companies purchase more real estate, bidding up the prices on real estate because other companies were using the same growth strategy... When it became obvious real estate values couldn't go on any longer, the effects were rather sobering.
Bear markets can be brutal. Yes bridgette, those retirees from the Depression have seen mutual funds before; they were called "investment trusts" back then. A lot of those people swore off of securities for the rest of their lives, even when the effects of the crash were obviously over.
If the ruling on Microsoft has ramifications upon the NASDAQ, then I will be watching the performance of cross-holdings that Microsoft owns with its strategic partners. Because Microsoft is a leading indicator of the tech market for many people, if a kind of dampening oscillation (or worse) effect on earnings is set up through the cross-holdings I would get very nervous. These cross-holdings would lock the companies' share prices into a death spiral. It would become a rather dreadful decision between selling off shares of the strategic investment and booking a gigantic loss that quarter, or hanging on tight for the ride down in share price in the hopes that the loss won't be as great and wish for a fairly quick recovery. Anyone know what the futures trading on MSFT is like on Instinet right now?
Read the original texts again, there is no problem with applications being shipped (free or for money) with the OS; the problem is applications that cannot be separated from the OS. Or, writing undocumented code into the OS that makes it hard or impossible for the others' software to run. So you can bundle any amount of software with or without an OS as long as the consumer can make the decision as to what to use. Another matter is of course dumping i.e. the releasing of a product below manufacturing price for the sole purpose of distroing the smaller guys market...... probably what M$ did to Netscape. Had M$ been non-US and Netscape US-based I'm sure the US fair-trade authorities would have reacted even sooner!
Dirk
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Or if you're too lazy to do it yourself you can let the folks over at x42.com do it for you :-)
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Hey, free-as-in-speech beer!
.CAN, .BTL, or. KEG for that?
:-) :-)
Is there a
:-)
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Microsoft got itself in this fix. They have no one else to blame. If I hear another person say that success is being punished I will go postal. They screwed up. they pushed the envelope too far and now must grow up and accept their punishment. They did a disservice to the shareholders and employees who hold options. If they had played by the rules, they may not have grown so fast, but they would not be in the midst of a very expensive and time wasting court battle. Bill got greedy. His greed hurt a lot of people, made a lot of enemies. Now it is coming back on him. Cisco is a huge concern, but you don't hear of the abuses, the underhanded deals. They make fine equipment, it sells. the investors are making a bundle. I don't see the government punishing them. I pulled my money out of MS some time ago because I felt MS was acting in an unethical manner. Did the same with Monsanto. Monsanto has mended its ways and is gaining. I don't think MS will back away from its adversarial ways. I learned a long time ago that if you do business with a crook, sooner or later you're going to get hurt. Look for their stock to go through the floor Monday. Look for the DOW to follow. this is all due to Gates and Balmer. They blew it big time. I can see the lawyers circling. I hear the murmers of class action lawsuits. If you're in business, play by the rules. Keep your nose clean, make the best product you can. If you lose, you gave it your best shot. If you win, the victory is so much sweeter.
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How can a company compete against them? Look at the X box. that is vaporware intended to draw attention and developers away from Sony and Ninetendo. MS can afford to do things like that. If your product looks good, they will clone it and add it to their OS. How can you sell your product if MS is giving away a clone of yours for free?
Remember MRDOS, Remember the code to slow down downloading of Netscape, remember ActiveX was made specifically to stop development of OpenDoc. Remember the games MS played with RealAudio.
BTW, the father of VisualBasic has disassociated himself from the product. He thinks it sucks too.
Write virsues for Windows from the comfort of your Mac. RealBasic Pro for the revenge minded.
Remember MS threatened to deal a death blow to Apple if they didn't drop plans for QuickTime.
Remember that MS threatened to pull the license of PC vendors if they dared to sell machines with Linux installed. They also threatened to pull their license if they dared to show their computer brand name before the MS splashsreen. Ms wanted computers to be Windows machines, not CompaQ, Dell, or HP. They wanted Wanted Windows to be the brand name for computers.
the DOJ case has already helped. The vendors no longer live in fear of Gates. Linux and Apple would not exist if the case hadn't been brought. You know that he would not have allowed Linux to be installed.They had enough leverage with Intel to have crippled the installation of Linux. You would most likely have to buy a Mac or some other PPC box to run Linux.
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It is not that they are a monopoly, it is what they do with the power they have in that market. Kentucky Utilities is a monopoly here, but they treat us fairly, they give us great service at a fair price. They are a monopoly, but don't abuse their power. Apple is a monopoly in the PPC platform, but I don't see them trying to kill the LinuxPPC OS.
Watch the market real close Monday. Look to see if the institutions and insiders are selling. If that is the case. I would sell any MS stock you have. do you have your broker on speed dial? Monday could be a real bad day on the Dow. I think it was very smart to announce the breakdown on Saturday. that will give people time to calm down and not act on impulse. But still watch the market closely if you hold MSFT stock.
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Let's see how happy those shareholder will be at the closing bell Monday.
I saw Bill Gates on CNN. They should NOT let him speak for the company. He is unable to square his face to the camera, he has strange ticks and can't suppress these mannerism when is delivering spin(lying).
These characteristics make one think he is lying. Look at Clinton or Trent Lott, they can both look square into the camera, tell a lie and not give any visual clues. Gates cannot. His appearance on CNN hurt them more than help them. They need an attractive sociopath to deliver spin. Plus Gates doesn't look that healthy, and that carries some negatives.
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That was the Yorktown. somone typed a 0 in the wrong field. It tried to divide by zero, couldn't do it and shutdown. this pulled down the whole network, meaning the whole ship. Now look at this same situation during combat. Being dead in the water for two 1/2 hours is being dead, period. One round hitting one NT station would be the same as torpedoing the ship.
I heard there was an investigation into possible kick backs in rewarding the contract for NT. It worked for MS to get a foothold in academia, why not the military? They need to go back to UNIX.
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Could someone please correct the flaws in my thinking? [snip] MS making it virtually impossible to write decent software for their OS without shelling out huge amounts of money to them?
:)
Certainly. Mr Borland would like a word with you, even if you insist on using The J word. Even one of Mr Stallman's followers could help you out if you promise not to grass them up.
Nothing you can do about the price of the target platform though.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I don't think a break-up will happen.
What will happen? Microsoft will start making noises about moving to Canada/The Far East or somewhere other than the USA. This will frighten the DOJ/Govt, who will then be more lenient with them.
Also, I believe that companies like Aetna, who have millions of dollars of 401K money tied up in Microsoft stock, will put pressure on the Govt to slap M$ on the wrist, and we will see nothing happening.
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
No, it's not, really. Have you ever tried to move an application between two Windows machines? It's almost impossible to track down every little file it depends on - and even if you DO find all those pesky DLLs, you still have to make sure you don't overwrite a more recent version on the destination machine. The reason piracy is reduced on Windows machines is, quite frankly, a result of obsfucation.
On the Mac, the only time an application might patch the operating system or place a file in a system directory would be to support some strange hardware or to perform a very low-level task, like utilizing the vertical retrace interrupt. Otherwise, applications are (mostly) self-contained in their own directories and can be moved around at will without breaking them.
The Mac, designed to be easy-to-use and maintain, is hoist in its own petard, to an extent; it must be easy to use, but it should not allow rampant piracy; but disallowing rampant piracy means making the machine less approachable. It's a fine balance, but users definately win on the Macintosh.
Nebulo
By the way - these forms of URLs don't seem to work under Netscape on a Macintosh. Thanks for the explanation, though - I've always wondered why people were posting such "obviously" wrong URLs!
Nebulo
The lack of a settlement means that this case will stay in the courts for years. Microsoft will have to behave in the meantime if it wants any chance at winning. Why have a settlement when not having a settlement will even better ensure Microsoft's behavior.
MSFT has already given up its leadership role as a tech-stock, an adverse DOJ ruling isn't going to cause a 1987-style market crash.
But if John Chambers (Cisco CEO) gave an earnings warning that implied that the growth rate of internetworking hardware was slowing down to the growth rate of Bud Lite sales, put a fork in the longest bull market in history, its done.
Now THAT _is_ an April Fools story.
This is probably going to get moderated down, but....
/.ers are against Bush, they simply won't go to the Polls.
Oh come on, look at the alternive. I'd pick Bush even if I wasn't a republican over "I invened the internet" Gore.
Have you noticed that Bush is somewhat slow? This isn't intended as an insult or anything. The man really isn't very bright. He also doesn't seem to have any opinions or ideas of his own. I get the distinct impression he does nothing but go up on stage and say whatever they tell him to.
The man will do anything for a vote too, including killing people (Texas executes more people by FAR than any other state).
If
Honestly, I think the entire system is a mess. I don't like or respect Bush or Gore (OTOH, I respected both McCain and Bradley). I'd pick Gore over Bush for the simple reason that he (claims to) support serious campaign finance reform. Campaign contributions by special interests are destroying our democracy.
Of course, Gore is probably just lying his way into office (they all do). And even if he's serious it probably wouldn't get anywhere.
I mean look at the demographic realistically. I use Linux because it outpreforms Windows and I can play with the source. That and I like the FREEDOM, that's speach, not beer. Look at Republican ideology and Libertarian ideolgy closer. Unless I am mistaken most slashdoters are Libertarian. Then look at democarat ideology. it's a no brainer choice.
Libertarianism is something like Communism, in that it's a great idea but it probably doesn't work in practice.
Trying to move back on topic.... Many people on the right don't understand antitrust. Antitrust is not something that limits the freedom of markets, it's something that maintains it. In a monopolized market, the competition that is the goal of a free market ceases. By fighting antitrust, you fight to put the rights of individual companies not only above the rights of consumers, but above the integrity of the free market system.
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Microsoft's profitability (or lack there of) isn't of any relevance (except to the extent that its absurd profit margins demonstrate corruption of the free market).
Antitrust laws are designed to protect consumers, not companies.
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Microsoft would just fork the code an re-close it.
Obviously this wouldn't be allowed.
We already have open source operating systems that are better.
Define "better." Technically superior? Certainly. Better GUI? No. (Not that there aren't things much better than Windows). More desktop-oriented software? No.
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That's bullshit. What do these so-called APIs do? Or do you just think they do it because they're doing some weird magic that you can't work out how to do by yourself?
give you a clue: the windows API is not all that difficult to use.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Methinks NeoMage is either 1) In the employ of Microsoft, 2) Is a fictitious character invented by a Microsoft marketing team, or 3) Is an idiot.
And I bet you work for the DOJ, Mr. Anony Mous.
simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
With the AOL/Time-Warner merger, I'd have to bet on Steve Case.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
If the government really wants to break Microsoft's monopoly power, they could do it, not through the Department of Justice, but through the General Accounting Office, the cetral purchasing agency for the government.
They wouldn't even have to name Microsoft specifically; simply require the use of fully and publicly documented file formats and network protocols available from multiple vendors. (In fact, they shouldn't name MS: Microsoft might be able to challenge it if they did; and it is simply good policy regardless of whether MS existed or not.)
Business is competitive and ruthless because, we, as customers are also competitive and ruthless. When we decide that we don't like a particular product or service, or service provider we drop them in a nano-second.
;-). If we didn't, MS would *destroy* us.
.doc. By embracing and extending basically every protocol they could get thier hands on, included with thier market dominance they have created a perfect situation for themselves. It's all closed and controlled by them, which is against business law. Your understanding of business ethos is a little screwy.
That's a poor reasoning. Are you saying since business is inherently ruthless, there should be no guidelines?
Remember they can sell their product, Windows, at whatever price they want with whatever conditions they want.
This is untrue. There are specific laws that state that you cannot do this very thing. It's called anti-trust law, ever heard of it?
Let's see... they've got 99% OS market share. It's perfectly okay for them to bundle a Multimedia Codec (Media player), with a web browser, closed API office documents, amond other things for absolutely free? What other reason would a company possibly do this? They have ASSURED market dominance, it's not fair, and it's illegal. Plain and simple.
Compaq is free to sell its PCs with another operating system or make a deal with Microsoft.
No, they are not. A lot of companies are *forced* to bundle Windows with their OEM PC equipment. Including the company I work for(unamed
Business is business. If you don't like Microsoft's practices then don't buy their software for your home or office.
Not true, you don't have a choice. What is the requirement when sending a resume, or a document to a company? Either text or a word doc, most won't talk to you if you don't send them a
I was watching a investment show on TV, and some "expert" explained what the good attributes of a company to invest in are. The most important one seemed to be if they had patented or trade secreted technology.
All the talk about forcing MS to open thier specs seems, based on what I've read and heard, would really cause thier stocks to drop. Hell, they don't even need to break them up. They just need to make them open up everything, thier media player codec, thier browser integration implementation, and thier doc/xls formats. Maybe require them to only use the www consortium standards...
I guess breaking them up is just a double assurance that they will have a hard time moving in such a fluid predatory body though, which would be a good thing.
As you can see, the previous poster is a close-minded idiot. Just because Jay works for M$, doesn't mean that he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Not EVERY employee is a brainwashed goon of any company.
You shouldn't write him off.. he might have something valuable to say!
I am not surprised by this, however, as the Linux community fails to acknowledge that some times, for some things, other operating systems are BETTER (YES! BETTER!) than Linux at certain tasks. BeOS is better than Linux for graphic design and sound, because that is what it was built for. Windows is INFINITELY easier for an end user (read, non-geek) to use than Linux.
Try to see the strengths and weaknesses, and even if you don't use a particular operating system, acknowledge that someone MIGHT actually LIKE using it.
As for the M$ case, my opinion is that M$ just made it EASY and CONVENIENT to use their internet browser. They did not preclude the use of other browsers. The idea that M$ might have to include a copy of Netscape with Windows is ridiculous - think of it, does AOL have to provide its users with a copy of Earthlink, or Mindspring, or some other internet access client? NO! In fact, I'll bet you can name FEW companies REQUIRED to include competitor's products with theirs.. because it's simply ridiculous.
Now, TRUE! M$ does make a lot of money. And they do make a broad spectrum of software.. but think about it.. I know several Linux developers who will ADMIT that M$'s visual debugger (as found in VC++, etc) is the "best" direct quote, around.
But anyhow. I'm done ranting. You can go about your business.
(and in case you're thinking about writing me off as a Windows User.. well, I do use Windows. But I have a Linux box too.. so that makes it ok. Heh.)
Sorry to piss on your picnic basket folks, but I personally have to say that I use Microsoft products every day at work - not server side (I use HP-UX and Netware for that.) As far as the desktop is concerned M$ products are really not that bad - easy to support and easy to maintain esp. with products like Drive Image and ZenWorks. I hope I don't sound like a M$ flunky, but if I do then "oh, well..."
Anyway, as far as I am concerned I hope that M$ does not get broken up, because IMHO the cure might be worse than the disease.
On second thought I shouldn't have been apologetic about it. Yes it is true that third party products make living with microsoft easier - maybe it shouldn't be necessary to use ZenWOrks or DriveImage, but it is handy. I would love to deploy linux in my company, but I dread the idea of training on StarOffice or Gnome or KDE, etc.
I'm not saying that StarOffice is hard to use or that any of the desktop managers have a steep learning curve, but:
1. People are resistant to change (anyone here remember migrating a shop from 3.1 to 95?)
2. The company I work for pays people to be productive (not to learn new a new OS)
3. Many of the applications we use don't run on Linux and never will (i.e. ceridian and solomon)
4. There really aren't a whole lot of decent "CIO approved" desktop management tools for Linux (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I can use it as a case to show management why we should be using Linux.)
Just my $.02, please comment if you think I'm a nutcase.
>>If the OEMs don't like it they can leave it. And I do not accept the argument of these poor OEMs really have no choice but to kowtow to Microsoft...
That't the whole problem. You see, if Microsoft did NOT have a monopoly, then the OEMs would have the option of bundling something other than windoze and still making a buck, but the fact of the matter is, if you want to sell PCs, you HAVE to sell them with windoze, or you're out of business.
>If you don't like the Windows operating system, then don't develop applications for it.....
Easy for you to say. When %90 of the consumer market has windows on their desktops, developing for windoze is the best way to make money. Again, if M$ did not have a monopoly, then developing a mac-only or linux-only game(for instance) would be commercially viable. As of now, it is not. Let's see, I can write software that %90 of the market can buy, or that only 9% of the market can buy....
Recycling and speed limits are bullshit. Like someone quiting smoking on their deathbed.
I didn't realize that Micro$oft used the tactic of raising the price of older OS's releases to foster upgrades. That's a new one to me.
And for you people who think breaking up Micro$oft is a good thing, think again. You'll get Bill Gates getting richer, and more of them to fight. Of course, then we'll have them back in court for colusion. Anyway, enough of this mindless rambling...
we finally has some decent april fool stoy lol.
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Then I found out a better link, http://dailynews.yaho o.com/h/ap/20000401/tc/microsoft_25.html Oh well. You have to admit this year /. has much worse joke then last year's linux zealot riot in front of redmond story though.
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Anonymous Coward wrote: "Even if they didn't the US laws apply to any company doing business in the US. So unless Microsoft intended to sell it's products only outside of the US whats the point?"
...
Hmmm. I have to plead ignorance of how that would work and exactly what the ramifications would be. But I don't think the US refuses allow companies which might be deemed monopolies if they were on US soil to import their products here. Look at OPEC
Interesting point, though.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
locust wrote: "I think its more likely that microsoft, beset by a large number of class actions suits will give way to the next 'demon' of the computing industry."
I think this is a good point. People like to have a villain, and Bill Gates (who can come across as smug, complacent and conniving, whether or not these qualities reflect his true nature) has filled that role in the software / business world for a while.
Frankly, I can't think of any great replacements right now. Maybe Jeff Bezos, who has recently patented the business method of "referring to the CEO of a large company as 'The Devil,' 'Lucifer' or any variant of these."
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Anonymous Coward wrote: "Linux has the inherent advantage that it would be difficult or impossible for it to exercise monopoly power in an anticompetitive way."
:) Linux devpt is anarchistic / synergistic / other-wordistic :) that system is to the advantage of anyone who uses it, or develops it, or is inspired by the success of Linux to dream of and develop the Next Big Computer Thing. The presence and huge growth of Linux is what to me foils most arguments about 'software monopoly' in general though.
/. and elsewhere) that MS ought to move to Canada, which has smart folks and, until recently, considerably better laws about the export of cryptographic tools. It's not too far from Redmond, and IMHO the weather is better. I see some good motivations for MS to move their most officious POP to somewhere else, but naturally it'd be a big task to do this. (It's like being an armchair quarterback for a team you're not fond of, and not being much into American football anyhow ...)
This is why I am a big fan of free / Free software
A.C. also wrote "Any precedent set by the Microsoft case would be nigh-useless in regulating Linux. Linux [d]evelopment is international anyway; any one country trying to make life difficult for developers would see coordination move outside its jurisdiction."
I've seen the idea floated (here on
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Zagato-sama wrote: "I'm curious, why is it that whenever someone does muster up the courage to say something mildly positive about Microsoft, they follow it up with "I don't want to sound like a MS flunk/supporter/etc" ?"
... well, it's not because of coercion, only (mostly) because sticking with MS offers the path of least resistance, for good and for bad.
Well, if you mean me, I think you mischaracterize me! =) I'm not apologizing, only saying that I have mixed feelings on the overall 'issue' of Microsoft. Linux has been my primary desktop for several years, and Linux is one of the various free or Free choices that the world's Microsoft users have to choose.
That they don't / haven't
my thought,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
"No, not an exaggeration. Just an indication of how little you know about the reasons people have for purchasing newer hardware."
Well, one reason people purchase new hardware is to use it for a webserver; if they're running any current Microsoft OS, that means they're running uneccessary overhead. How significant that is depends on their use. Everyone's MMV =)
And I know that my Pentium 100 runs slackware with X a lot nicer and smoother than it does Win98.
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
MaxwellSilverHammer wrote: "Be, Inc. clearly does not hold a monopoly on Intel/AMD/et al. based PCs. There is a big difference."
Does Microsoft?
And even if they did (which I deny, and it would be easy enough to list a bunch of the entrants which prove the point), ought not the same rules apply to firms in the same line of business? If not, some firms would be favored over others by the government, and that seems wrong to me.
If Linux and MS were reversed in marketshare (as I think they concievably could be 8 or 10 years from now), couldn't MS complain that their market position is being hurt because the competition is giving away what they'd like to sell? I ask seriously -- what precendent do you want set?
Just thoughts,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Obivously you've never ever tried to provide tech support for their shitty products. If you actually had you would realize how much more it costs to keep their *shit* running.
Excuse me, but I think you should read that statement again. If what one feels personally about an issue is totally irrelevent, then what the hell are YOU posting for? What are any of us posting for? Slashdot is a forum for our opinions about things, and as my law student room mate notes as he reads this over my shoulder "Freedom of expression is the most important right because only through it can we expect truth to out" Poetic, Non? :)
Besides, he will be the first to note that law is not black and white, and it is only through the participation of (semi)enlightened individuals in open discussion that law may be interpreted correctly.
I personally am quite happy that the vast majority of posters here are not lawyers. Lawyers are excellent banks of legal knowledge, and quite good at pointing out flaws in legal ideas, but we are ultimatly the ones (the users and implementors of technology) that allow lawyers to understand technology and therefore codify technological laws. You wouldn't want to write an accounting (distribution tracking/medical monitoring/physics) software package without any knowledge of accounting, would you?
Anyway, I'm just tired of the number of posters who constantly complain that others shouldn't be posting. Speech is free, and so are the bytes that encode it. I want to see more posters, not less. If what they have to say is truly of no value, then they won't be marked up. So turn up your threshold, relax, sit back, and don't get your knickers in a knot.
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
Why, pray tell, would putting MS out of business destroy the economy? It would hammer MS's stock, sure, but MS itself doesn't employ enough people in a loose enough job market that the government has to look at it like Chrysler.
:)
That, and it might cause greenspan to lower rates for once
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
The problem is less that MS bunded IE with Windows than that they used their monopoly power in desktop operating systems to their unfair advantage competing in a different market -- the market for browsers. 'Linux' is not a single company, and can't become a monopoly thereby; strictly speaking, 'Linux' doesn't require so much as glibc to be installed, much less a browser. For obvious reasons, achieving a desktop monopoly with GNU/Linux-based software will be very, very difficult, and not a problem we need to worry about...
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
1: You bought MS's line, hook & sinker. The Macintosh (clone of a PARC system) made computers 'easy to use' -- the Mac just made them cheap enough to be feasible. Microsoft's Windows's jumped on the extremely cheap x86 hardware being developed to run VisiCalc and/or 1-2-3 faster and made a cheap knock-off of the Mac -- made 'easy to use' cheap enough to be popular. (I also take issue with 'easy to use,' but that's another argument for another time.)
2. The internet revolution started with DARPA, that guy from CERN whose name I can't remember, Mosaic, Netscape, and god help us, AOL. Microsoft never had anything to do with it. MS didn't provide any more home/office portability than you already had -- in fact, they provided less, because they refused to tell anyone how they saved their data.
3. I'll give you that. On the other hand, they made sure that every improvement worked to restrict interoperability and improve the power and reach of their monopoly -- e.g. IE.
1. It's illegal to use monopoly power to force other companies out of business. That means, for instance, if you've got a monopoly on gasoline, you can't use that to develop a monopoly on windshield-wiper fluid. Charging nothing for the browser was equivalent to that gas monopoly distrubiting a gallon of windshield-wiper fluid for nothing at every fill-up -- clearly illegal. That's why MS has to rely on the weak argument that they made the browser and OS component.
2. The government can force a monopoly to charge a 'fair' price for its product, but it tends to better serve the consumer by encouraging competition in that industry. I have no objection to whatever price MS puts on its software -- but when I can't buy a computer without that software, I do object. Furthermore, at almost every step up to Windows 95, MS had a competing prduct to price against, which they didn't and eventually squelched anyway. (DR-DOS, OS/2, etc)
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
I'd hope the patent offices are gearing up. Wouldn't the recent 'creative content' ruling insure that *somebody* will try to protect what they can prove is theirs? Seems that's likely to be pretty well covered in the case of Microsoft code.
The only way that MS would be able to "force" providers to use IIS would be to make IIS the only server able to deliver IE readable content. Read: MSHTML. They tried this and failed miserably.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
Brendan Behan
``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free speech'', not ``free beer.''
``Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3).
Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Here's the full text.
Comments on your points for Microsoft:
1. Made computers easy to use.
You're assuming that if it weren't for Microsoft, we wouldn't have had a GUI. Unfortunately, you're missing the several other manufacturers that MS drove out of business with (among others) tactics such as specifically programming Windows to crash if an alternate OS was present (see DR.DOS), FUD, Vaporware announcements, and predatory hiring practices. (Apocryphal story of a programmer for a rival firm refusing MS's offer to hire as he did not want to move to Redmond due to his wife's pregnancy. MS countered by offering a large bonus on top on the condition that the programmer merely stop working at the rival firm until such time as he felt able to move to Redmond and begin working for MS.)
Other systems (Amiga, NeXT, Atari, Apple) all had GUI's. Admitted most had some other problems generally to do with lack of scale or marketing - but MS was not above dirty tactics to remove them entirely.
2. Started the Internet revolution.
And Netscape was doing what? Microsoft was *behind* Netscape at the start of the Internet Revolution. Only through such things as automatic bundling and coercive tactics on large ISP's did they manage to catch up.
3. Constantly improved their product.
When all you've got is crap, it's not that hard to improve upon it. It's only with Windows 98/2000 that MS is finally surpassing the abilities of the Amiga 2000. And this using only 100x the storage, 32x the RAM, and 6x the MHz, and some 5 years later (at a conservative estimate).
NB: This is *not* a comment on the Office Software. I'll give MS that, they identified the needs of your generic business and hit that market exceptionally well.
Comments on your against microsoft points:
1. They forced all competitors out of the market.
See point one in the for MS section. It's not that they forced competitors out of the market. If they were able to do that on the strength of their product, more power to them. Unfortunately, the methods they used to achieve this monopoly were anything but providing better product.
Also, for what it's worth, the owners of Hotmail made out okay, but mostly they rue the day they let Microsoft in. (I've lost the article in Wired where the Hotmail guys were interviewed. Perhaps someone can find the URL?)
2. They charged more than a fair, price for Windows.
No comment on MS charging whatever they want for Windows, you're correct on that. However, people don't need Windows because it's a good enough product to engulf the market. The need windows because it HAS engulfed the market. That's why so many people are angry. Windows simply isn't a good enough product to dominate the market. What has dominated the market are the marketing and shady tactics of a company.
Proof of Windows being a poor product? Compare your standard Windows machine with your standard automobile of today. Windows can easily crash, even if all you're doing is something Windows was supposedly designed for (running several programs at once - or even one program. I currently have a copy of MS Home Publisher 2000 that simply will not run, it came pre-installed on this system but any attempt to run it will lock up the entire system requiring reboot.) Your automobile may have a system failure if you're only doing what it was designed for, but only after several years, and then only if you haven't followed the recommended maintenance schedules.
Conclusion:
Bill may deserve every penny he has - but let's not kid ourselves and say it's because he's a master at fostering technical innovation and providing quality products. Bill deserves his money because he's ruthless and amoral enough to not really care about the welfare of the computer industry or the advancement of science, so can callously crush those technologies which he can not imitate or dominate through marketing.
What was it like before DOS? To be honest, it wasn't much. Dip-switches and jumper cables. What could it have been without Windows? We'll never know - but it likely would have been ahead of where it is now.(See Amiga, NeXT, Apple etc.)
Kwil
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
You neglected to mention that most fund managers are dumb herd animals, before the launch of the Euro I spoke to many who where all saying how strong the currency would be, when I pointed out all the unresolved issues they poo pooed me, now I have been shown to be completely correct, the problem with fund managers is they are ranked against each other, rather than against the market, AFAIK only about 5% of fund managers equal or exceed the market (S&P500, FTSE etc).
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
The MS spokesdroid on the BBC just said the very same thing!
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
This is absolutely false, I know, I wanted to use some of the APIs that Office calls, not on MSDN, and then they charged me for tech support to tell me they completely refuse to disclose them.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
The MS monopoly has already been determined, whether they have used that to abuse their position and break the law is the ruling we are waiting for, the betting is the judge will rule against MS.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
If he had said that Linux was competition, the case would have been ended there as M$ can't be a monopoly.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Don't count on it.
We'll see what comes out of this when we have more info.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Could they just move the BSOD department to a separate company.
And keep the rest intact.
Justice doesn't have to be lucky, and, in fact, has little motivation to settle. Despite the posturing from the preening Joel Klein and the repulsive Janet Reno, winning is not necessarily what this case is about at all.
Why? Because, whatever the rhetoric from both sides of the fence, the inquiry has forced Microsoft to play softer ball than it would otherwise. It pirouettes where it would otherwise tackle, cajoles where it would otherwise threaten. Whatever the official line, and the frequent pronouncements of progress and acquisition, Microsoft is actually behaving like a company that the DOJ would approve of, even today.
Tying Microsoft up in litigation for the next two or three years, at the cost of paltry tens or hundreds of millions, without any sure chance of victory for the Justice Department, is still a sure victory for the consumer, or so the thought must go through some of the lawyer's heads.
There is no clear-cut method of punishment for Microsoft - observe /., where some of the brighter minds on the Internet completely fail to reach a consensus on what could possibly be done to rein in the 800 lb. gorilla. Any method selected will have both positive and negative consequences for the software industry in the future, and all will be applied with the clumsy hand of government, making such options imminently unsuitable to nimble and fast-changing technology.
So what better way to regulate the industry than to spend a few more years in court, giving young technologies the chance to succeed in a market where Microsoft is under the microscope, forced to play nice, even if the end result is losing the case?
Not that this is anyone's master plan, but it certainly must be a factor.
Yes, it's "Hammer to Fall", and I also botched the album: the album is "The Works". However, part of the reason I gave a slightly longer title was to allow more people on /. who might not be hardcore Queen fans to get the joke.
www.eFax.com are spammers
If they simply lie down and surrender, then that's an open invitation for Lawsuit-o-Rama from every state that ever bought MS products, every organization...
The harder they fight, the likelier it is that a) the DoJ will eventually become resented by folks for spending so much on one company, b) random lawyers will be dissuaded from going after 'im.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
*shrug*
McCain started using push polling; setting up a phony front group (Catholic Voter Alert); and issuing, then denying, attack fliers. For a man trying to capitalize on "Straight Talk" and honesty, he certainly turned nasty.
But it still doesn't gall me as much as a certain chap in my state seeking the Dem. nomination for senator. This particular chap has the gall to run ads featuring George Washington endorsing him...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Politicians have a dead giveaway when they're lying to you: their lips move. :)
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Heh. Not that Hatch might have any ulterior motives, like companies in his home state... *cough*
Hm. ISTR that he's Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. If I'm right and he retains that spot, I doubt he'd quitely accede to letting MS go...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Nanosoft?
;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It's more than that. For instance, there's the issue of the consent decree THAT THEY AGREED TO earlier regarding bundling of product. If the judge determines that they violated it, well then we have a problem.
There were also issues of predatory pricing. It's currently illegal to, for instance, maintain a monopoly by pricing your products at a massive loss to obliterate your competitors, if memory serves.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Consider the following. I have an application that allows you to hook your computer up with millions and share any file type or directory that you want (call it networked-vision, or better yet, the next generation of napster/gnutella). I have developed this and am seeking to go find someone to fund the development of this as a commercial application.
But every angel and VC I go to says the same thing. Great application, but what if Microsoft decides that this is what they should have as part of the next generation of the operating system, calling it "Internet Neighborhood" and placing it on the desktop?
There goes the incentive for people to build new applications, because no one will give the company a chance to build it. They won't fund the idea until they can be assured that there is an exit strategy beyond that of "being crushed by Micro$oft". [please note that not everyone wants to give their software away as open source, some people still want to build companies that make successful software]
How have we as consumers been harmed by people that had great ideas, but weren't funded because the exit strategy was defaulted to that "Micro$oft would intgrate the technology into the OS" and there is no opportunity here? How much innovation has been kept from the computing (user) community?
It isn't so much what Micro$oft has done in the past and that we are aware of that should bother us, but what they have done by being allowed to incorporate other peoples ideas into thier platform. The innovation that they have killed, even before we were aware of it. Before it had a chance to live.
Do they continue to do it? Sure. look at how little they have put into the browser since they destroyed the competition. No major breakthroughs in developing an open computing application. On the other hand, Ron Glasser and Real are in the sights now. The next "application" to be OS'd.
If you were the little guy (not deep pockets Real) and were thinking of building this cool application, after looking at companies like Netscape, Real and even the ones you don't hear about, like Russell Information Sciences (they used to make the best scheduling system money could buy, until Micro$oft decided that Scheduling and Calendaring were part of the OS), and seeing what happens when the Gorilla of Software decides your product is in their OS space... what are the chances you would leap at building a company to make this application?
The greatest part about Jackson's rulings to date were that he understood the above. We can only hope that he does what is necessary to ensure that these ideas have a chance to live; a chance to bear fruit; a chance to change the face of computing as we know it.
Could you have misread this any more than you have? I think not.
Let's try one more time. I'll type as slowly as possible to make sure you follow this. Stay with the flow.
In some places that is called "dumping". When you're the little guy and you dump to increase marketshare, people ignore it (and it generally doesn't work. Take a look at Amazon, they have marketshare, but negative income. If they don't stop the dumping and generating positive income soon they will end up just another piece of Superhighway roadkill). When you are the monopoly in your industry, people don't and can't ignore it!
Now, what if you went to get capital to create your new enterprise and the people (angels or VC) were looking at the above facts. They could even point to inclusion of e-mail and calendaring and now multi-media as part of the OS, according to the people in Redmond.
The people in Redmond have made it clear that they consider EVERYTHING a potential part of the OS. Every possible application. They have the deep pockets that allow them to throw as much resource as they want at taking your marketshare, as long as they do it before you can create a lock on peoples data (see Intuit as a company that has actually been able to beat Microsoft because they have locked in your tax data for years). They can dump their OS embedded product for free, while you try to sell yours. They can eliminate your channels one-by-one and choke off your oxygen. They can take your billion dollar marketcap company and reduce it to a fraction of it's worth.
Your "Person B" example is flawed since open source is not a monopoly. The rules are far different for a monopoly than they are in a strictly competitive landscape. In fact, you were able to list at least three competing "People B"'s in your group, and not one owns or controls the market.
You seem to have failed to understand the concept of monopoly power. I suggest that you re-read the findings by Jackson. The law is very clear that a monopoly doesn't have the same rights as others.
Back to my point. The ruling in favor of Justice shall actually create an opening of the gates (I have no idea if they are trickle-gates or flood-gates) that will allow people who had ideas that weren't fundable to inovate an opportunity to get funding and innovate. A benefit to all potential consumers of their innovation.
> Have you noticed that Bush is somewhat slow?
Yes, sadly that's true, but Republican leadership don't really care about the president as an individual anyway. For crying out loud they ran Reagan, his head as hollow as a Bell jar, twice. What's more they judge this personally perfectly blank hack actor's reign to have been their high point of effectiveness in the last half century. It doesn't matter whether a Republican politician has any brains or character at all, because anyway all their decisions are made, all their speeches are written, all their legislation is crafted by corporations and lobbyists, so all the "leader" has to do is smile at the camera and read off the Teleprompter. And, um, sign things.
True Republicans have faith that the corporate boards who jointly compose all that nasty, tricky legislation are, indeed, highly intelligent men of reliable character. Sucker Republicans, that is those voters who vote against the interest of their own lowly economic class, contemptibly, merely fall for the moronic self-contradictory rubbish in the campaign's TV ads.
This is a distinction versus the Democrats, as miserable a lot as they are, because in contrast to the virtually inanimate Republican corporate knee-puppets any given Democratic politician is assumed to be personally responsible for his own actions. Thus in that logic, for example, it make perfect sense that a Henry Hyde should angrily assail a Bill Clinton over the dreadful unforgivable crime of sexual immorality.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
--
The shareholder is always right.
1) In their own words, Microsoft indicated that they were giving away IE to undercut Netscape.
IE is used for a lot of things in Windows. It's used for displaying help files in MSDN. They use it for their Windows update. MS uses it for a lot of things. They couldn't do all these things if IE wasn't included in Windows. If they used someone else's browser, such as Netscape, they would be dependent on them to make sure the features they required exhisted, and worked properly. Personally, I wouldn't want core features of my flagship product depending on another company, especially one that appeared hostile. Remember that Netscape was also a buggy piece of crap, even MS developed better software.
How can you tell that MS didn't make a design decision as to how they were going to develop their software. Sure they said they were going to "cut off Netscape's air supply", but was that their original purpose, or an effect of their decision.
2) They went out and paid off several large ISPs (from AOL on down) so that the ISPs distributed IE instead of Netscape.
I think AOL actually paid MS, but as far as some of the other ISP's I think they did pay them for the advertising. This is a pretty common practice, but possibly a bit unfair for a Monopoly.
3) They threatened to raise prices on OEMs such as Compaq if they shipped Netscape preinstalled.
I haven't heard this one before, but it's possible I missed it.
4) They forbade OEMs from placing any other Internet or ISP-related icon on the preinstalled Windows desktop.
Funny, I bought a laptop that came with icons for Netscape, and for setting up a number of ISPs right on the desktop. Actually, what Microsoft was accused of was giving preferential treatment to ISPs who only distributed IE and not Netscape. Specifically, if you wanted an icon on the desktop, you had to only distribute IE.
5) They paid and rewarded large websites that included IE-specific features like Channels.
Sounds like competition to me. You've got to advertise your products.
6) They tied key Windows system DLLs to Internet Explorer, so that some 3rd party applications would be forced to have IE4 as a prerequisite for install.
Were these DLLs related to the browser functionality they put in Windows? If they were, distributing updated DLLs with ID kind of make sense to me.
Any time Microsoft makes a design decision, lots of developers and companies are effected. If they have to go to court everytime they change the way they do things, they can't innovate. People scoff at MS stance that they're just trying to maintain their freedom to innovate, but there seems to be a lot of truth to it. If you think Microsoft is unhelpful, try and get help out of SGI or Sun, when they're developing a competing product for their OS.
The things in this case that MS can't link to a design decision are their OEM pricing, and linking ISP's spot on the desktop to IE. Considering that these are things that most compainies out there do, it's hard to justify breaking up MS over them. These are also things that Microsoft is willing to negociate a settlement about. The appeals court has already put forth their opinion that the courts shouldn't be making design decisions. Now we'll see if Judge Jackson will listen, and deal with the appropriate issues, or if this'll be tied up in appeals for years.
Bill got greedy. His greed hurt a lot of people, made a lot of enemies.
What a load of absolute bullshit. It's so easy to say something like that about a guy who, on paper is worth more then you could even imagine.
But Bill was protecting his company, he was defending windows against java by continuuing to evangelise developers to windows. And he was adding internet and www support to his os for *free*, this is really greedy i must say *rolls eyes*.
Netscape are absolute idiots, a browser company which doesn't have the vision to know that within 5 years every major and minor OS in the world would ship with a webbrowser, just like they would ship with text editors.
And what does that have to do with Gates?
Which browser is available on nearly every platform and OS out there?
Internet Explorer? wrong
Netscape is.
yes, but IE works and runs on the most important platforms (Windows, MacOS, Slowlaris, HP-UX).
Re:woo hoo (Score:1)
by fsck (xcp@linuxstart.com) on Sunday April 02, @10:01PM EST (#465)
(User Info) http://brunching.com/toys/toy-smilinwilly.html
"Netscape are absolute idiots, a browser company which doesn't have the vision to know that within 5 years every major and minor OS in the world would ship with a webbrowser, just like they would ship with text editors."
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Which browser is available on nearly every platform and OS out there?
Internet Explorer? wrong
Netscape is.
Which browser was bundled with the operating system in order to discourage the consumers of said operating system from using Netscape?
Internet Explorer.
Which browser is bundled with the most Operating systems?
Netscape.
>> couldn't MS complain that their market position is being hurt because the competition is giving away what they'd like to sell? Well, good old Billy Boy said when they started dumping IE that a browser is a necessary part of an OS and that they were merely bringing it down from its inflated price to its natural price of $0.00. An OS is much more basic and essential to the operation of a computer. Linux is then merely bringing the much more inflated price down to its natural level. >>some firms would be favored over others by the government, and that seems wrong to me. No firms are being favored in any of this. One firm guilty of many CRIMINAL actions is being punished for its blatant CRIMINAL actions. I think the quality of the astroturfers is really going downhill around here ;-)
---CONFLICT!!---
>> YOUR choice
>> REQUIRE IE
Do you even read what you write?
Seriously I'm amazed your brain has the capacity to process oxygen. This is the whole point. They are FORCING people to install their browser to use a freaking word processor and every other one of their products.
---CONFLICT!!---
>> The only "STANDARD" MS has created is USER INTERFACE
Actually MS's interface is as near as possible a copy of Apple's. They didn't create shit.
---CONFLICT!!---
The SQL Client is not a web browser. The netmon is not a web browser. The installation of these DLLs doesn't specifically require installation of an entire web browser.
MS software installs are infamous for bringing along the DLLs they need. Why the sudden change in procedures?
The requirement is artificial, based on evasion of the old consent decree, not on valid technical reasons.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
The line is fuzzier than I first thought.
Nonetheless, the decision was business, not technology. They did this to work around the consent-decree against bundling, though how 'integration into the OS' isn't 'bundling with the OS' is beyond me. A classic example of Microspeak.
The threat is that if they achieve true browser dominance, they can lverage it to achieve web server/service domainance, just as they have leveraged desktop dominance to achieve (or nearly achieve) browser dominance. They have no compunction in using their 'embrace extend, destroy' schemes on any standards that get in their way (witness Java; also, see http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demo roniser/).
So the fact that they have a plausible-sounding explanation for locking IE into everything is no reason for us not to oppose/forbid it. If they are forced into some slightly less than optimal code resharing in order to protect us from their monopoly tactics, so be it.
They have acted in bad faith many times. We are not obligated to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I find a lot of people rewriting the ATT breakup history. Having the Baby Bells stripped away by the FEDS was the best thing to happen to both ATT and the consumer. This led to a communications revolution that would have taken much longer. Long distance prices, cellular (analog and digital) services, and the consumer rush to the Internet would all have been severly retarded by the communications industry prior to the breakup. Another good example of anti-trust actually working to the company's benefit AND the consumer is IBM. They lost a large part of their services business, and had to open up their OS and mainframes. Who gave you the personal computer? Who continues to push the envelop in basic science and constantly set the mark for storage technologies? IBM now provides more variety in their product lines than the next two largest hardware vendors combined. The other nice thing about both ATT and IBM is that they have REAL capital not just market capital, which tells you they know what to do with earnings. I don't see breaking up Microsoft as a bad thing because I see the same signs in their operations that plagued other large US companines in the past. They have outgrown their (founder's) vision, and the emperor-in-charge management style. There have been several fiascos in the past 5 years with different Microsoft divisions distributing incompatible DLL's within two or three months of each other. As far as I'm concerned MS Office has been the greatest single product contributing to "DLL Hell". They were top of the heap in "patching the OS" during the installation of the app, before IE came along.
Personally I want them to be required to port all their software to Linux and Mac OS before they can release a new version of anything under Windows, and be required to release this at the same price point as the Windows versions with the same level (or better?) of support. It's a winner for everyone - MS finds the bugs that are lurking due to over familiarity with Windows, the other OS's get apps to spark real competition, and Windows users will get apps with fewer bugs. They might even find a few problems with the OS they'd be willing to fix just to make their apps run. This is where MS really lives. Windows was the vision but Office is the cash flow.
Every change is not progress, but there is no progress without change.
Then it's just a matter of time.
MSs conduct in this case should speek directly to people like you who write apps for windows. What it says is: "Write your program for Windows, just don't make a killer app". If MS is allowed to proceed unchecked, your company is not safe from MS embeding your app into windows.
_______________
6-bit URL is....: http://282582303367210/
48-bit URL is....: http://1107326656554/
40-bit URL is....: http://7815028778/
32-bit URL is....: http://3520061482/
8/24-bit URL is....: http://209.13623338/
8/8/16-bit URL is....: http://209.207.57386/
8/8/8/8-bit URL is....: http://209.207.224.42/
OCTALS:
8/8/8/8-bit URL is....: http://0321.0317.0340.0052/
8/8/16-bit URL is....:http://0321.0317.0160052/
8/24-bit URL is....: http://0321.063760052/
32-bit URL is....: http://032163760052/
_______________
Take every character on a computer keyboard and name a ms company after it.
1)MS{
2)MS}
3)MS!
4)MSa
5)MSb
6)MSc
ect..ect..
If any programer from MS{ would like to use a } in his program, it would require full public disclosure on the part of the 2 companies.
_______________
> I admit a splitup sounds like a satisfying vindication of
> everyone's Microsoft woes. But, would splitting up Microsoft
> really do much do keep them in check?
> So, let's say you have the MS Office Co, then MS Operating System
> Co, and so on. Their products will still be compatible with each
> other (most likely), and people will still use them.
The point of breaking up Microsoft isn't to crush Microsoft, punish Gates, or make some other OS the dominate OS. It's to find a remedy to Microsoft's persistent eagerness to engage in illegal business practices. Microsoft has shown a blatant disregard toward following the law, which is much of the reason why this lawsuit has turned out to look like such a circus for Microsoft. Remember the faked videotape? The phony studies? The parade of "experts" that sounded less like testimony and more like a ventriloquist act with Microsoft as the hand?
Microsoft has made it clear that the only way they will stop bullying other companies, progressively tying applications to their OS to build market share, and threatening competitors and partners is to render them unable to do so.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
If what Microsoft did was "just business" and not illegal, why are they working so hard to claim they didn't do it?
Maritz was quoted in the New York Times saying they were going to "cut off Netscape's air supply." ("Exec denies threatening to choke rival Netscape", San Jose Mercury News, 1/25/1999. No URL, sorry). The plan was to give away for free anything that Netscape was selling. This tactic is classic anticompetitive behavior, but let's pretend like it's not for a minute.
Why did Maritz vehemently claim he didn't say this (and if he doesn't land himself in a perjury case after this is all over, I'll be disappointed), although the DOJ submitted the article where he said it? He claims he was inappropriately quoted, and furthermore, he doesn't know who actually said the quote. At the same time, Microsoft at no time contacted the NYT for a correction. Hmm...
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
FUD: A device by which M$ or its cronies attempts to inspire one with the idea that anything antiMicrosoft is negative. (read: if we have choices, we won't know what to do -- gasp!)
I'm guessing Mountain View, CA is somewhere near ... Redmond, WA.
read: sarcasm
Does that help?
:)
More like: whatever ruling he passes, M$ will definitely appeal. That is the problem. Microsoft can and will keep this crap up as long as their lawyers have breath in their lungs and ink in their pens (I doubt if even M$ lawyers use computers to any great extent). But I'm not bitter ...
There is a Microsoft campus in mountainveiw.
Its across the street from SGI, and around the corner from Lycos.
just thought yous like to know
--jay
Im going out on a limb here, but i totally agree. Microsoft has done tons more for the industry than what people realise. Dont be so eager to tear down that took so long to build. Rome wasnt built in a day, but it could be burnt in one. --jay
Microsoft has innovated and done lightyears in consumer computing. I dont think too many customers feel hurt by Microsoft. And when i say customers, think the greater picture...
How much it has done is exactly the issue. One part of "abusing" a monopoly involves hurting consumers. How much hurt have they done? Everyone packages a browser with their system. Netscape comes with Debian. IE comes with MacOS (i think, along with netscape).
Tearing MS into little pieces would hurt the way MS does business since they are able to rapidly develop technologies that help consumers, thus slowing down the deployment of better consumer based products.
it is about what they do.
--jay
I would think that settlement was not in the government's interest. They are LOOKING for a reason to take down big bad Microsoft. All they are doing is opening up a big wave of "im losing in the marketplace so i can sue my competitots for being unfair". Its an election year. They need people to feel like some sort of whacked justice is being served. Its going to hurt the industry in ways people cant dream of right now. for every linux user, there are at least 2 windows users who are going to be hurt by this decision --jay
(-: The only thing that has ever REALLY bothered me about MS is the constant insisting that the products are so much better than anything else. Some of the products are great. Most of them aren't better than everything else. (i.e. SQL Server, Win9x, Plug N Play, DirectX) It just infuriates me to listen to smug marketing crap when the stuff sells for OTHER REASONS. Could a large part of MS really believe everyone is stupid enough to buy MS marketing machismo simply because it has been "bundled" with each product? (-: Gee, imagine suits under-estimating the importance of the engineering staff and assuming they deserve all the credit.
Now maybe I'm over-assuming, but this court case may turn out to be too classic of a tragic tale, ala Icarus. Here are two highly intelligent, thoughtful judges at the root of all that is corrupt and... MS can't turn off "marketing mode"! MS is dumbfounded that it isn't working. They have flown too high. They simply can't realize that these judges (and customers) see right through that crap and so MS will continue to play the machismo and superior-product hands to the end while all of us look on in shock.
I can see the judges wanting to say, "Who do you think we are, your customers?" but knowing they can't.
Two things.
First, while it would be very interesting to see (for instance) MS Instance1 headed by Bill Gates going head to head with MS Instance2 headed by Steve Ballmer, it's unlikely. How do you divide a group of, say, 21 coders who worked on SCSI drivers? Sure, the code goes both ways, but the bodies?
Second, if a vertical split could be engineered, you would likely see one or more of the instances agressively courting the open-source community. Look for someone to buy a RedHat or Corel, etc.
Yes, that's really my e-mail. Don't change a thing.
I think Jackson's remedy will be at least that mild, possibly even more so. Jackson has hinted all along that he really wanted a settlement, and that suggests that he doesn't want to take responsibility for the repercussions which his ruling would generates. I believe that he will be _EXTREMELY_ conservative in his remedial ruling, because so much rests on his shoulders (e.g. the economy).
Another thing you have to keep in mind, is that if you are used to reading Slashdot, where many of the readers live in an alternate universe and believe that opening the source code or breaking up the company are serious possibilities, these will seem quite mild is comparison. But neither of those are viable anyways. The open source thing was never considered an option, and breaking up the company was ruled out as an option several months ago. The lawyers involved in the case tend to be a bit more level-headed and not as emotionally involved as the kooks you see in Slashdot and in the newgroups.
OMFG!!!
This just cracked me up!
Someone should put this on a joke list or something.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
What do you think the new OS would be based on?
Unix? No. File permissions, command line, nooooo I don't think so.
I wonder if AOL would be able to do this, and keep it even close to the stability of linux or xBSD.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
Ok now, doesn't this sound like a marketing speech from the MS sales dept?
I don't consider myself to be a geek by the standards people on here seem to apply (I mainly use my computer for 3D art, in fact), so maybe what I'm saying isn't true for everyone. But for my needs, NT/9x are stable enough and give me months of use with virtually no maintainance, run all the software I need or use, and don't stand between me and what I want to do. On the occasions it has crashed, and yes there have been quite a few, a reboot has sufficed. So, when people talk about how unstable Windows is, I take it with a very large pinch of salt, because I can see the FUD going both ways. Your above statement is a perfect example of the instability of windows.
Seriously now, every person going from an environment they are comfortable in, to one that is completely new will feel uneasy.
You just need to give it some more time.
I have been using linux for 1.5 years. Everything I do in servers or automated tasks are done with linux. But, my desktop is win98. My mom's comp will be NT4 workstation.
Over time I have noticed myself spending more of my time on linux. My company's email server is going to be on linux, and it's file server too, which are currently on macs :|
Over time, I think linux will eventually get my desktop, but not for a while.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
This is truely scarry!
Back then, the "alternate" OS group was very small compared to what it is today. But, I'm sure the truth would've come out. Some magazine would be informed, headline news, now THAT would receive swift action from the courts!
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
Can you be more specific about "Desktop management"?
If you are thinking of remote login/shell, there is a whole world you need to know.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
which sh*tty product are you talking about?
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
www.debian.org = 198.186.203.20
((198 * 256 + 186) * 256) + 203) * 256 + 20 = 3334130452
That is, it's the unsigned 32-bit integer corresponding to the IP address.
Oh come on, look at the alternive. I'd pick Bush even if I wasn't a republican over "I invened the internet" Gore. If /.ers are against Bush, they simply won't go to the Polls.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you are correct, wouldn't /.ers be better off voting for third party candidates that not voting at all?
That's not what antitrust law is about, nor should it be. Abuse of monopoly power results in stealing money from consumers, and unemployment for competitors. We the People make commerce legal because we think it leads to a better life. We the People made monopolies illegal because it's a type of commerce that leads to a less good life. All of the companies that became famous monopolies did a lot for their industries. That says nothing about their monopoly practices nor their breaking of the law.
And, Microsoft will not be "torn down" or "burned". They will be forced to compete, with all of their assets still active in parts of the economy. Nothing is lost, except with a return to competition consumers will benefit from lower prices and faster innovation.
And could somebody moderate that pointer-to-Cringely piece down from 5 to 4? not only does it not say much, but the ensuing discussion in response is worth skipping.
I'm not too sure about this. But don't the stockholders get shares in all the baby-bills if MS gets broken up? Then all of those stocks go through the roof and the stock holders get even more money. It would seem to me that now would be a great time to buy stock in MS :/
no
Splitting up the company - while a step in the right direction - won't achieve nearly as much as opening up the source to Windows. That would be the best remedy.
IMHO, I think Gore is much more dangerous than Bush because he is a semi-literate individual pushing pseudo-intellectually-backed policy. My only eventual hope is that Bush will be a personality, who will surround himself with intelligent people who will dictate the policy he represents (cf. Nixon and Kissinger). Gore on the other hand will charge straight ahead, pushing his own half-thought-out policies of increased governmental bureaucracy and involvement in everything, including internet regulation.
But, again, back to the topic; monopoly is not illegal. Using monopoly to affect the market in your favour is. Microsoft has been losing market share for quite some time now, to Linux and MacOS mainly, and will continue to do so even without the Department of Justice. They are in the interesting situation where the production of a superior product, and consequent increase in market share, could only hurt their defense.
In addition, even if you argue that a percentage of consumers has been hurt by Microsoft, that percentage is composed of a generally educated minority; slashdot readers are not a representative survey of consumers. As a whole, consumers want a product which will offer a simple, internally consistent system including basic applications, where modification is not an issue.
So who is being hurt? Linux users? Hardly. Netscape? Even if you assume unfair competition, Netscape is an inferior browser to Explorer right now. Mozilla is great, but won't be ready for mass consumption for quite some time yet. The consumer? Complaints seem to come mostly from the computer literate, Linux and MacOS users, all proving that competition for Microsoft is thriving and growing at phenomenal rates. I can honestly say I dislike Microsoft, but I don't feel like their existence is currently limiting my options; the biggest problem right now is what distribution to choose.
Well, that ends that rant.
"Oh Bother", said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
You are right that the destruction of Netscape was a pyrric victory. However, that was not the only issue at this trial. It became clear that Microsoft used monopoly power in a variety of illegal ways. They broke the law. Not only that, but they did it on a continuous basis as a matter of policy. I have no attachment to Netscape and no axe to grind with capitalism. But I do like the rule of law and I want to see it applied in this case. Microsoft broke the law, they deserve to be punished. Whether the destruction of Netscape was profitable for them or not is irrelevant. Does a car thief get less jail time because he did not make a good profit on re-selling the car?
Mediation has failed. This will likely precede the court answering the question: has Microsoft violated the Sherman Antitrust Act? The question hinges on whether the judge finds that Microsoft has engaged in monopolistic business practices. This will not include the remedy. If Microsoft has violated the Act, then the court will hold hearings later on to determine whether they should break Microsoft up or do something else.
I am not a lawyer.
Revenge against a company that has treated its users shamelessly. A company that as outlined in the findings of fact, is a monopoly and abused that position to do its utmost to put other companies out of business using illegal and immoral practises.
./ and closed minds isn't caused by Open Source.
I think most people are calling for Justice rather than revenge.
On the subject of your tag line, surely Open Source gives people the freedom and oppurtunity to learn about software? In that sense Open Source in fact opens peoples minds. The link between
Re-ordering the statement to 'Open Source. Slashdot. Closed Minds.' might make more sense.
Conversely Closed Source products deny the opportunity to learn about the source, and through licensing and the DMCA even contrive to deny users their fair use rights and rights to reverse engineer. That is a real closing of minds.
Closed Source. Close your mind. We are Microsoft?
---
Silence is consent.
If the outcome does not come to MS liking, can't they appeal this in the Supreme Court, or will it die here? (I'm not a lawyer or up on legal stuff)
The difficulty with the OS is that they would need to raise prices significantly to maintain their proportion of profitability. Currently, Microsoft's main profits are in Office and other monopolyapps, and not in Windows sales. On the Mac, one of the justifications for the free browser is to keep people on the Mac platform (because without a good browser, people will abandon it) so they can maintain their very profitable Office sales on the Mac! (this was posted by the IE5 project manager on the msnews iexplorer5 newsgroup).
With a separate Apps group, a linux version of Office would probably come quickly.
You are so, so, so lucky.
A very good friend of mine also works constantly (well maybe only 18 hours a day) on graphical computer work (predominently 3d) and virtually always under NT. His Windows experiences of the last 3-4 years would scare the hell out of you. His brother is an incredible MSCE type, and without him he would have lost his entire system on no less than four occassions. He has got to the stage of trying to keep his system setup under 98 and NT simulatnaeously because he knows his NT could collapse again any moment (from having all his partition tables destroyed to simple unbootability), the constant reboots are but a trivial annoyance.
I couldn't care less what Operating System you run, but I do care what operating system my best friend is running when he is broken, exhausted, frustrated and running the risk of bankruptcy while having to travel hundreds of miles back to the one person alive who might be able to save his life. You have been lucky if you have managed to keep working on the cutting edge on Windows without major disasters, many haven't. I just want to see the choice, so friends like mine can say NO, enough is enough and start to use Maya on Linux (or Lightwave on Be or Softimage on Amiga), instead of using Windows and hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
In some of the previous cases discussed on Slashdot (DeCSS for example), the judge's ruling took effect immediately, and noone seemed to have a chance to delay it with an appeal. Discussions about this trial seem to imply that the actual effect of the ruling will be delayed until a long series of appeals. Why is there a difference?
What I wonder is why a horizontal split is what everyone thinks is best? Why split into OS, apps, net, etc. all of which would keep their part of the MS code? Might a vertical split into several fully fledged mini-MS's be better?
The advantage I see with this would be that all of the new companies would have to compete with each other. To do this, they would have to differentiate their products. MS #1 might concentrate on servers, while MS #2 goes for home desktops, while MS #3 tries to get on embedded systems.
This would also help the Open Source community, because some of the baby-Bills might open up some parts of the Windows (or office, or whatever) source so they could better cooperate with other companies.
All in all, I think this kind of break would be better for consumers and "the industry" both.
Steve
I hope the judge breaks-up MS into three divisions, OS, Software and hardware.
Not because I want windows and ie separated (oh... yes, I would)
Not because I want Office for Linux (i'll do fine without it)
  Definitely Not because I want MS to dictate file formats (ie word doc files).
It is because I want to choose the software I want to install.
I ONLY WANTED MINESWEEPER!!!
* "Uncle this droid is malfunctioning" -- Luke Skywalker
i think the people who're rejoicing over what's happened a just a tiny bit premature. remember Microsoft is one of the world's largest corporations, and with that come a massive amount of lawyers. Lots of lawyers means, that whatever does happen could be appealed for years and years and years, well you get the point. Just wanted to point this out.
-dennis the kid
I've been thinking about this Microsoft thing. As I understand it the 'why' of breaking up MS is that they've used their power to stifle compitetion rather than 'build a better mouse trap'.
/. post!
So what you want to do is break up MS into different companies. You want to do this to encourage greater market compitetion.
But people don't want to break it up that way. As I understand it they talk of:
An OS company: This does all the Windows OS software
An internet company: IE and all their web business
An Office Apps company: I suppose this would be all their business productivity software
How does this create more compitetion? All the software still needs Windows. Each company is still going to be huge and cash rich. Won't they have the same owners? The same business practices?
It seems to me that if you're going to break them up then multiple instances of the company should be created. As in many companies have the right to develope and sell Windows OS, Office, and IE.
Basically you'd have more compitetion and the product price would more reflect market value.
So instead of MS trying to sell you Windows + Office + MSN. You'd have 20 independent companies trying to sell you their Windows + Office + XXN.
Also I think you'd have to force all of the major stock holders to place their stock holdings in only one of the newly created companies. Nor should you allow the the major players in upper management to collect together in one or a few of the newly created companies.
PS. I'm uncomfortable with the breakup, it goes against the grain of my libertarian leanings. Still, I have a great deal of distaste for MS's business tactics.
PPS. I'm a die hard Linux fan, Debian 2.1r(whatever is current) pretty much 100%. Anybody know of something like "Learn Spanish" for Linux? Transparent Language doesn't run under Wine.
PSS. This is my first
"Netscape are absolute idiots, a browser company which doesn't have the vision to know that within 5 years every major and minor OS in the world would ship with a webbrowser, just like they would ship with text editors."
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Which browser is available on nearly every platform and OS out there?
Internet Explorer? wrong
Netscape is.
Which browser was bundled with the operating system in order to discourage the consumers of said operating system from using Netscape?
Internet Explorer.
Lars -
As the fuhrer of Microsoft Bill Gates can step in and say "No that is wrong, unethical, and quite possibly illegal."
He could also fire, beat the shit out of (or pay someone to, think Monty Burns), kill, and urinate on anyone on his staff and they would smile and like it.
Lars -
This guy works for Microsoft.
Lars -
But separate application and OS compagnies would mean that the application compagny could port office and IE to other OS'es, and linux should no. 1 there.
So maybe office and IE would take take some market share there; I don't mind, let the best man win. It would be fair competition. How would it be worse than staroffice for linux is now?
But they couldn't tie all their products into one package, the good with the bad, as they do now, and what is basically what we don't like. Linux being free anyone would be free to make an office replacement.
We would have freedom to choose. (OK; they still need to make their document format open)
I think that's really interesting. I thought that MS would settle for sure because the judge will probably be pretty harsh.
Also, no way will Windows be open sourced, nor would that be so wonderful. Why would anyone want the Windows code? Is it really swell code? No. Programmers would benefit from the full API but the code wouldn't do too much. Think about it: no one is going to abandon Linux for {cough} Windows.
As far as a structural remedy, wouldn't separating Windows from Office just create TWO monopolies? Is that a great thing? I don't see an easy solution here.
-m
MyopicProwls
My homepage
...becuase everyone knows that april fools jokes end past noon, otherwise the person who plays them is the april fool.
Thank you for listening....
...and as for microsoft settling, I don't see that happening. Their legal team will win and Windows+IE and everything else will continue. But from what I've seen of the latest Debian, which I installed yesterday, Linux has nothing to fear... and the desktops will be ours soon.
To you and your pal:
Microsoft did not start Internet revolution, Mozila simplified the Internet and Microsoft simply stole the idea and later killed Netscape with their money.
I wonder if Bill G. knows that he is your pal, you'll be very surprised to find out that he gives a shit about you and the like.
Anyway, about Windows pricing - One of the tricky tricks of Microsoft was selling their Windows at different prices - one price for a good and compliant OEM, another price for an OEM that wanted more customization.
Once your WinXXX is not supported any more, all of a sudden it just becomes too darn expensive and the only reason is that Microsoft always manipulated its customers.
And not Everybody needs Windows, you dumb gorilla.
Cheers.
You can't handle the truth.
"I regret to announce the end of my efforts to mediate the Microsoft antitrust case. Since my acceptance of this assignment on November 19 of last year, I have endeavored to find common ground that might enable the parties to settle their differences without further litigation. Unfortunately, the quest has proved fruitless. After more than four months, it is apparent that the disagreements among the parties concerning the likely course, outcome, and consequences of continued litigation, as well as the implications and ramifications of alternative terms of settlement, are too deep-seated to be bridged.
"This result is disappointing not only because of the amount of time that so many busy professionals, officials, and executives have devoted to the mediation, but also because the public interest would be served by avoiding further litigation, with its potential for unsettling a key industry in the global economy. I believed when I undertook this assignment that it was in the national interest that the case be settled, and I believe it even more strongly today.
"Mediation is a confidential process, and I do not intend to make any public or private comments on the merits of the litigation . . . I can, however, without impropriety, say this much: Despite my strenuous efforts to maintain the confidentiality of the mediation, there has been a good deal of leaking and spinning, and this leaking and spinning have given rise to news reports that have created a misleading impression of several aspects of the process and that should be heavily discounted by anyone interested in hewing to the truth. "I do not intend to make any further statements about the mediation."
This is your brain on coke.
Give me a "G"
Give me a "U"
Give me an "I"
Give me an "L"
Give me a "T"
Give me a "Y"
what's that spell? GUILTY!!!!!
Where do I want to go today? I want to go to a
live web camera which shows BG's face when the
verdict is read, can I go there please?
Oh come on, look at the alternive. I'd pick Bush even if I wasn't a republican over "I invened the internet" Gore. If /.ers are against Bush, they simply won't go to the Polls. I mean look at the demographic realisticly. I use Linux because it outpreforms Windows and I can play with the source. That and I like the FREEDOM, that's speach, not beer. Look at Republican ideology and Libertarian ideolgy closer. Unless I am mistaken most slashdoters are Libertarian. Then look at democarat ideology. it's a no brainer choice.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
year 1999, new york, new york a publication conference on "component" ============================ Dr. B. Meyer, was discussing, design by contract. i.e. mission critical software. i.e. "emergency dispatch call center" i.e. "parameters, specification, understanding i.e. "problem domain" a government some boat a few years ago I believe it relates a "unique type of boat" a salesman "solution provider" convince the dod to replace, quality unix base, or cs based design software. when the live or simulated testing on a boat occured. the information entered by human user behind a windows nt operating system base workstation, which meet orange book specification, with by adding some "software solutions" to conform to some "posix or unix security model". whose interface was now based on "32-bit windows" graphical user interface. ..... This delivery platform, was dead in "blue water" for two hours! ..... Yeah microsoft deserves to be ... split up just like AT&T and its Bell Labs wealth of "golden knowledge base" to increase competation and increase and develop new opportunities in the computer science information technology and management information systems realm. More "Work for all new student and legacy programmers in the field!"
well, I hate replying to my own posts, but in regards to the moderation, this is NOT offtopic. I'm sick off all this MS-bashing. It's getting to the point where I can't even come here without being screamed down by the pro-Linuxers here for using NT. So much for the tolerant geeks. But it's not offtopic. The topic I'm discussing is how you treat non-Linuxers. It's not totally related, true, but it's something that's been borne out in the comments. And to the person who posted the Goatse.cx crap - it's getting old. I've seen the stretched asshole picture before. It's about as entertaining as hot grits, or FIRST POST, or any of the other crap. Fucking trolls.
Oh, and if they do this, what sort of TV do you think Microsoft is going to get via CNN? The moment AOL gets shafted by Microsoft, AOL starts running stories, daily, about "this Microsoft bug, that Microsoft problem... the troubled Microsoft".
This is my sig.
Interesting. Witless, but interesting.
/. seem to make as well. He seems to think that M$ is a single person with a single mind, and a single moral outlook.
.01% of them, you still end up with 30 guys with the power to set policy. You think they agree on everything? not hardly....
Cringley make the same mistake that most at
Like I said, witless. This is an assumption that falls over with even the most casual scrutiny.
M$ is a company that employs about 30 THOUSAND people. Even if you ignore about but
Also, it's stupid to ignore the rest. EVERY developer at M$ has some control of the output, even of the rest of the employees don't. Buggy software comes out of individual devleopers, NOT out some moral Vacuum of generated by Bill and Steve.
So it's quite possible so belive that the Judge is of one mind about this trial. But nonsense to suppose that M$ is similarly of one mind, or one intent.
He does have one interesting thing to say though: This trial has been run VERY strangely.
Like Cringley, I find it interesting that the Judge has drawn this whole process out. I suspect that he is right, the purpose has been to humiliate M$. But I think the rest of his conclusions are nonsense.
After all, what right does a JUDGE have to manipulate the legal process to add humiliation to legal action? He makes a mockery of the whole process to satisfy his need to make M$ look bad?
That sort of behavior from a Judge doesn't really lend much support to the idea that the trial was FAIR does it?
Obviously you haven't really READ any of the primary sources in this trial.
The LAST settlement specifically allowed integrating new things into the OS. M$ didn't violate it. The appeals court has already decided this, along the way they humilitiated Judge Jackson.
Lawrence Lessig gave Jackson the ammunition to say that he believes that this is a NEW antitrust behavior and not bound by the prior appeals court decision.
And he just got finished saying that Netscape had 85% of the browser market. That's more than M$ ownership of the OS market...
Considering that the trial's ongoing momentum was heavily favoring Justice, and Microsoft's continuing arrogant attitude, it's no surprise the talks reached an impasse. Justice has no incentive to settle, especially in an election year, and especially having been burned by Microsoft before. Judging from Microsoft's behavior after the last settlement with DoJ, I'd expect MS to respect a new deal with Justice about as much as Hitler respected the Treaty of Versailles.
I don't think that most people are aware that the breakup also separated Western Electric from AT&T. This was extremely important, as it opened up the equipment market to competition.
Back then, AT&T only bought equipment from Western Electric (makes sense - they owned it) and you rented your phone from the phone company. Since AT&T had almost 100% control of the phone industry, there was no competiton in the equipment industry. Blah, blah, blah, the breakup was good and accomplished alot.
I think that 3 companies would be a good ruling in the MS case. In the long run, it would probably even be in the best interest of Microsofts shareholders.
Everybody seems to be assuming that without a settlement Microsoft will lose the case. That is far from a certainty. Several commentators have noted that Judge Jackson may be pushing these settlement talks because, while he may agree with the FoF, the result that really matters is the FoL. No matter how nasty he thinks Microsoft has been, if he disagrees with the FoL, his hands are tied. Also, it seems that Microsoft is confident enough to forego a settlement. We /.ers may be disappointed next week.
Earlier my comment was moderated as "funny".
As for all the monopoly crap, most of those laws were passed as an answer to communist agitation at the start of the century. I won't debate their wisdom at the time, but in my opinion the biggest monopoly danger does not presently come from "predatory" pricing, but absurdly low government patent standards, which create legalized monopolies and lawsuit factories.
Alternatively if no break-up then I'd implement regulations to oversee MS behavior; then have M$ transfer $20Billion, that is $1Billion to each state and DOJ. If MS misbehaves any of the several states can sell off or threaten to sell off MS stock. Selling large amounts of stock would drive the value of the stock down or force MS to purchase the stock to keep the price up. This would really motivate MS to behave
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
>Let's break up Microsoft because they have an 80% desktop market share. Sure, Microsoft has the best newbie-oriented gui and os, the best office suite, the best web browser, and even the best joysticks and mice. But these superior products were developed through illegal means, such as...
...scaremongering companies into purchasing Microsoft only products. No, this isn't "I'll give you a deal if you give me a deal", this is "I'll sell you xyz IF you don't do zyx". If you are a monopoly and do that, you stifle the market. The market dies, and the world economy ends up being ruled by people you and I never elected... That may/may not be good, depending on your point of view. I know I don't think it is good, and since I don't get my say in it, enforcing a monopoly through strongarm tactics is a form of dictatorship, therefore illegal, IMHO.
Now, a truly good product (the only one in your list that is good, again IMHO, is possibly the mouse) requires NO strongarm tactics -- a good product will sell very well on word of mouth and advertising alone. Microsoft needs their monopolistic tactics to continue selling their other horribly crappy (IMHO) products, such as a Web Browser that can crash most of the OS, and an OS that often crashes itself. Not to mention an office suite that barely fits on a CD yet does little more than StarOffice (an office suite in well under 75 Mb).
I could gain a 100% share in anything if I were willing to threaten people. I don't, and I wouldn't. It would be illegal and morally wrong. Just because there are more people in a company doesn't water down the justice.
>Microsoft should be required to open up its APIs even though they were developed in-house. Further, Microsoft should be required to port office and IE to every platform, including but not limited to Linux, Unix, BeOS, MacOS, V2OS, PALM OS, TI 92, Nintendo 64, and Sega Master System.
No, opening up API source would be wrong. They were developed in-house by paid workers. They cost MS money. But, due to US law on Reverse Engineering, the ONLY way for programmers to find out how the APIs work is to ask MS for information. That information should be provided to outside progammers, or the IDIOTIC laws against reverse engineering should be repealed. I can't beleive that I am allowed to open my car engine to see how it works, but I am NOT allowed to look under the hood of a piece of software.
MS should NOT be required to port software to any platform they don't want to, for the same reason GM isn't required (I think) by law to make diesel engines instead of gasoline engines. But, they should be required to do what I mentioned above.
>Microsoft is CHEATING! They didn't get where they are now through hard work and insight! Heck, if I reduced myself to Gates' level, I could have created Microsoft. Since Bill Gates and Microsoft are evil capitalist pigs, their company should be destroyed.
Mix 10 parts opportunity, 2 parts knowledge, 30 parts unscrupulousness, 20 parts worker incompensation, 100 parts image, and what do you get? Microsoft!
If you are unscrupulous (which I think MS is), you are a cheat, and possibly a liar. You do what you must through knowledge and hard work, the rest, you do through whatever means necessary.
A true capitalist realizes the market has to continue for society to remain capitalist. Microsoft has perverted that idea by forcing themselves into a monopoly position, and therefore cannot truly be capitalist. America is all for capitalist companies. Are they for monopolistic companies? We will find out (News at 11).
Ensign Ice
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
By refusing to settle, are they not able to drag out the implementation of any actual remedies for much longer, possible 2 years?
Put off the laws they don't like for as long as possible, till it doesn't matter anymore. Hasn't that always been a MS tactic?
my other post is +5 insightful
"Why are you so upset that they made IE free. Isn't that a success for the free-software movement that a commercial company offered its product for free because the free product, Netscape, was doing so well. " What the hell does this have to do with the free-software movement? Are you saying Microsoft released the source code to IE? Free software has nothing to do with price, but freedom, freedom to review, modify, do want you want with the code. It is about choice, the very antithesis of Microsoft's actions.
If M$ was getting a good deal now they would settle, if not, wait for Judge Jackson's ruling and appeal. They have the option of dragging this out for years, like AT&T did--by that time the whole question will probably be meaningless. They can also settle at any time during the appeals. I suspect they are stalling until the January 20, 2001 pemier of "Bush administraion II--The New Generation." Its four-year mission...
Anyway, if they're still serious about breaking Microsoft into pieces, they're gonna have to crack Bill Gates' little head open. Because it's all in there, isn't it?
By the way: The downloadable tech preview of Windows Media Player 7 isn't capable with the RealPlayer audio format. And that's when RealNetworks licensed Microsoft's format just a few weeks ago to include it in their forthcoming software! Maybe there is something to that Microsoft/Macrosoft mess-up after all.
www.e.magazine.dk
Could you please moderate me up...man...?
www.e.magazine.dk
You are a damned idiot. I have programmed windows platforms for over 8 years now and I can tell by your post that you damn sure don't code. I cannot tell you how many times of late I have tried to use some MS api or library call that has no business being tied to the browser. They intentionally place calls to browser just to tie the browser even more. Hell I bet the MS developers are required to put #include explorer.h in every single library they make reguardless if they need it.
Got Code?
Well at least you wouldn't have the next update of the os break your software if it competes with one of theirs.
f*** microsoft, i think we have a bigger problem with Aol, you have about 20 millon dumb asses clogging the web, now that they own rr, movie studios, record labels, etc.. they are a wretched monster of lameness, and we totaly bring down the internet, with mindless wonders, who dont know no better.
Okay, most of you're arguements are based on the fact that Microsoft used their market power to help themselves unfairly.
Now, I ask you this, why were they in that position in the first place?
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
Okay, so maybe Windows is not the best OS there is. Most of you know that because you know about programming. However, Microsoft dwarfs all others because of good business practices. Did you all expect everyone to go out and research the best operating system. No, Microsoft got it's name in there and so it gained a significang part of the market share. Then they used their position to forward their company. Expecting them not to is absurd. In the real world, not the drunken one where one company helps their competitors, a company uses all of the advantages it can. In this drunken world, many people expect Microsoft not to use another company's good idea, windows from Apple. Apple had the head start with the good GUI, but they didn't take advantage of it and Microsoft caught up. Once Microsoft gained the lead they never slowed down. That's why they are where they are.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
True, True, especially the part about low government patent standards. The owner of www.htmlgoodies writes a newsletter and he mentioned Amazon copywrithing "one-click checkout" the actual process.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
I only used that term because it seems everyon's against him. I know I know nothing so please tell me what, OEM is. Sorry.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
Yes, that's what it is. A story to blind us from the truth.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
Dear Mr. Microsoft Apologist,
Please read the findings of fact, so that you can understand Microsoft's real reason for *free* www support.
Consider Microsoft VP Jim "Demomaster" Allchin, who said:
and alsoHmmm. Doesn't sound sound like the purest of intentions to me.
Okay, i'm a linux newbie, but i've never seen a linux crash. And it's not like i just sit and look at my linux box, i do more stuff with it than I would ever do with my Windows machine, and that seems to find regular excuses to crash. But what's wrong with diversity?
bill gates evil plan 1} make os 2}sell os 3}sell os PLUS!!!
Ulterior motives are fine, so long as there's a balance of them among those who hold power. It's when everyone's got the same ulterior motive that I start worrying.
My ulterior motives are derived from free software. You gotta problem w'dat?
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Scope out Kuro5hin
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Bell had infrastrcture -- splitting up AT&T didn't destroy any of its assets, just opened the market for its competitors. M$ has no physical infrastructure other than a building complex at Redmond -- it has "paper" money in its inflated stock, some "investment" in rather mediocre OS/libraries infrastructure and "mindshare" (and I use the word "mind" rather loosely). So while AT&T infrastructure was still good for many years and given all Baby Bells the opportunity to continue being profitable, "Microsoft OS company" after split will lose its "assets" immediately, and "Microsoft applications company" will be hurt less but still will lose any advantage over Sun, Corel and any possible newcomer in the market. What will happen with "Microsoft internet business company" I neither know nor care, but it definitely won't be of any threat to anyone else.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
But, chances are, they will receive a rather severe smackdown, and your analysis will prove correct: that their defeat of Netscape only accelerated their own self-destruction.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
because they are so far outside the law in their heads that they can't even comprehend it (something which shocks the hell out of the judges).
I don't know how you and Cringely can believe that Microsoft really thinks this way. I don't believe they are so deluded. They understand the law and the fact that they are breaking it. That's clear as a bell to them, as evidenced by the email and testimony we've seen. The way I see it, Microsoft will repeatedly insist that they are right and declare that the government is unfairly prosecuting them for being successful. They'll say that they even tried to be reasonable, but that the DOJ was making insane demands that no company could ever accept. They'll keep claiming that they're trying to defend the freedom of the entire industry from government regulation of software design. They figure that if they repeat these things enough, they'll eventually get people to believe them. I think they believe that if they can play on people's lack of trust of the government and they're lack of understanding of the issues involved in the case, they'll get out of the whole mess when they appeal. Maybe they're even right.
If it does go to the Supreme Court (which is likely will), I think Microsoft will lose. I think the real problem is that they are so used to being able to manipulate the public and politicians, that they forget that they're not dealing with elected officials anymore. The judges are there for life. Public opinion doesn't matter to them, just the law (I hope).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Have you noticed that Bush is somewhat slow? This isn't intended as an insult or anything. The man really isn't very bright. He also doesn't seem to have any opinions or ideas of his own. I get the distinct impression he does nothing but go up on stage and say whatever they tell him to.
He alternates between smug self assurance and helpless bewilderment. Not that Al Gore is much better. He may be objectivelty smarter but he is far too "handled".
Of the candidates left (the ones I have seen anyway)Ralph Nader is probably the smartest and most plainspoken, even if he is a bit liberal for me. I just want to vote for a decent guy who wont be an embarassment. I would have voted for McCain, even though I disagreed with him on most issues, but he seemed honest enough, which would be nice for a change.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
As Martin Luther King Jr put it -
;-)
Free at last, Free at last
I hope that MS gets split up - much like the
baby bells did AND FORBIDDEN to reconstruct
themselves in 10 to 20 years!!!!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Yep, this is breaking some of the major news stations by the way. The verdict will be next week. You can read all about it here:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/387475.asp
--
I disagree. Examining what happened to ibm. They were under anti-trust preasure, and were overwhelmed by microsoft. They still remain a potent force in the computing industry, and there are still places where you can 'only buy ibm'. I think its more likely that microsoft, beset by a large number of class actions suits will give way to the next 'demon' of the computing industry.
--locust
From reading the MS culture article here on slashdot a few weeks ago, the employees at Microsoft appear to be very happy, well paid, and have no major issues with what Microsoft does.
If they had major issues with what MS does, do you think they would have started working there in the first place? I could have gone to work at MS, but I didn't because I do have issues with what they do. (I almost considered getting interviewed with MS, just to see, but talking to Microsoft HR people makes me queasy) I imagine that most MS employees either don't care about ethics, or they're deluding themselves.
I have nothing against software companies. (Hint: I'm not a free software zealot) Anyone with any amount of knowledge of computer science and/or software engineering will tell you that Microsoft produces sub-standard software, and the only reason they get away with it is because of their monopoly, and the fact that they have some fairly shady business practices.
The MS apologists often think that those against MS are against a company being successful, or making a profit. So where's the profit in Microsoft spending millions of dollar on a browser that they give away for free? They're being generous you think? No, they're dumping in order to kill off Netscape, and anyone else that might try to make it big by making a browser.
If MS wants to make a browser, or a ham sandwich, or whatever, that's fine. But they have a monopoly in operating systems, so they shouldn't be allowed to dump these other products, or tie them to the OS. Separate products should have to compete on their own merits.
A breakup of MS would be entering uncharted waters. In the past, a breakup of a company (via antitrust or corporate takeover), raises the question of assets. When Standard Oil was broken up, they still had the assets that were undervalued as the anti-trust was an extremely long process. Additionally, the breakup of Standard Oil was based on kerosene. By the time the breakup occurred, another source of revenue for their assets (gasoline) was being established. IOW, Standard Oil had substantial physical assets.
AT&T had a global communication network. This was a physical network of communication links.
MS has what? Intellectual property (including personnel), licencing contracts, patents, equity in other companies, etc... MS has a lot of assets. However, Bill Gates and Paul Allen own 20% of the company. Toss in Balmer and others higher smucks, and you realize that the insiders probably own between 25-30% of the company. Do you know why nobody will ever try to make a hostile takeover of MS? The company doesn't have the assets to sell off.
Additionally, one thing that must be considered is that Jackson *will* issue his ruling very shortly. This will be followed by class action suits against MS. These suits will based their action on the ruling of Jackson.
MS sowed this course of action during the last Federal case against them. Besides, MS has another virus to contend with. This one is bad, very bad.
Very simply, prohibit Microsoft from licensing its software, directly or indirectly, to any part of the Federal Government or co-litigant state governments, for fifteen years.
First, this creates a significant protected market in which Microsoft cannot compete, giving space for competitors to grow in. This includes non-MS OS pre-loads, as the government is not an insignificant market.
Second, it stops Microsoft from embracing and extending standards or creating non-open standards, because anyone who has to work with the governments in question will have to use software compatible with non-MS systems.
Third, it will increase the cost of acquiring people trained in MS systems. Public schools in the litigating state governments will not be able to acquire licenses for MS software, so they will have to use non-MS software for education.
So why bother with breakup or oversight, when a simple denial-of-market will destroy MS's monopoly power?
Steven E. Ehrbar
1) In their own words, Microsoft indicated that they were giving away IE to undercut Netscape. So. This is business and Microsoft has the freedom to decide for themselves what to do with their browser. Why are you so upset that they made IE free. Isn't that a success for the free-software movement that a commercial company offered its product for free because the free product, Netscape, was doing so well.
2) They went out and paid off several large ISPs (from AOL on down) so that the ISPs distributed IE instead of Netscape. This is a pretty normal thing to do. You want your software to become dominant so you advertise the best way you can(in this case by putting it on the AOL CDs).
3) They threatened to raise prices on OEMs such as Compaq if they shipped Netscape preinstalled. Sounds like a good plan. Remember they can sell their product, Windows, at whatever price they want with whatever conditions they want. If Compaq doesn't like Microsoft's offer they can reject it. Compaq is free to sell its PCs with another operating system or make a deal with Microsoft. I would argue that Compaq sells so many PCs and thus is in pretty good position for negotiating favorable terms from Microsoft.
4) They forbade OEMs from placing any other Internet or ISP-related icon on the preinstalled Windows desktop.How can you say they forbade OEMs from doing anything. They made an offer to OEMs to sell them the Windows operating system, and related applications, under certain conditions. If the OEMs don't like it they can leave it. And I do not accept the argument of these poor OEMs really have no choice but to kowtow to Microsoft. If these OEMs entered the market thinking they could out bargain Microsoft then they were foolish. Anyone entering the PC market that wants to put Windows on their computers has to deal with Microsoft. It doesn't take a business genius to understand this.
5) They paid and rewarded large websites that included IE-specific features like Channels. Again they are trying to market their product. This is like a perfume manufacturer giving incentives to Macy's for displaying their perfumes in promiment places within the store. If these large websites think it is in their best business interest to include IE specific stuff, then that is their choice.
6) They tied key Windows system DLLs to Internet Explorer, so that some 3rd party applications would be forced to have IE4 as a prerequisite for install. If you don't like the Windows operating system, then don't develop applications for it. I love your continuing use of the word "force", like Microsoft put a gun to somebody's head. If you want to see force wait till you see how the US government deals with Microsoft. That is real force!
Business is business. If you don't like Microsoft's practices then don't buy their software for your home or office. Encourage others to use alternatives, but don't encourage the government to "force" companies to behave according to your ideals. That is anti-freedom and will do nothing but harm the entire software industry/free software movement.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
I'm going to watch with great interest what happens IF the DoJ does succeed in breaking up Microsoft (but that could not happen until at least the Supreme Court settles the case some 18 to 30 months from now; if George W. Bush gets elected, you can forget about the breakup EVER happening).
If the breakup can go smoothly like the Standard Oil Trust breakup, fine; but if it ends up like the AT&T breakup it could create a mess of competing standards that will take a few years to resolve, and it's only within the last few years we've finally got over the effects of that breakup.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Hello, troll.
1. Made computers easy to use.
PC users spent years and years with Bill's horrid little command line - aka. MS-DOS - long after Apple made the easy-to-use Macintosh. 3rd party products like DesqView started the "let's get a GUI on the horrid PC" revolution, and Microsoft didn't get going properly until IBM came around with OS/2 and PM.
. Started the Internet revolution.
Hardly. The "Internet" had been in use for several years prior to Microsoft's sudden awakening in 1995; PC users who wanted TCP/IP, though, had to rely on third party applications. The "Internet revolution" was started by the folks at NCSA who wrote the first widely used graphical web browser: Mosaic.
3. Constantly improved their product.
You mean constantly stole features or bought companies with interesting technology.
Since the basic assumption is that the big split (OS, Apps, ___) is the "final solution" on everyone's mind, I'm curious..
Do you think that it will accomplish much? 20-some years after the breakup of Ma Bell telecommunications is heading back towards consolidation, most people still get their phone service from a 'Baby' Bell (like 'little' Bell Atlantic). And the oldest telecomm reform, user-selectable long distance, is still something of a disaster with the widespread prevelence of slamming.
Would Bill Gates be allowed to run more than one of the Baby Bills? Would he be allowed to run any of them? It seems like it would be too easy to put Ballmer in charge of OS and some other henchman in charge of Apps, and have the puppetmaster pull strings from behind the stage. Even if it's not actually Gates-directed, would there be limits on "strategic alliances" to keep MSApps from buying early access to MSOS code?
Which "division" would be the success story and which would be the failure? Hardware seems an easy target for failure. While the items are often innovative (eg, Intellimouse Explorer) they seem like they're propped up by automatic OS support.
I'd almost wager that Apps would be the first to face stiff competition. Without direct access to the OS, there would be definite incentive for peripheral Office vendors to produce functional office software without the extra 250MB of baggage and the buggy OS integration and without the fear that they'd get undercut by Gates.
I'd have to pick OS as the likely entity for real success. They have a huge base, and arguably some of the smartest people in the industry. Given the chance to actually work on the OS and not write 10 of every 100 lines of code for dubious application integration, OS has some real chances.
you misunderstood what i said. what you say is more or less right, but it is not relevant. you have contradicted nothing i said. so since what i said obviously came across wrong, i will attempt to clarify the things i said that prompted your post. :
i have no sympathy for MS. understand? none.
the only reason anything the gov could do in this case (besides not going far enough) could possibly upset me is precedent.
i don't care what they do to MS. however there are certain things it would serverely bother me if they did them to ANY software company, just becuase it sets up that certain kinds of things in terms of the amount of intrusion and control and micromanagement the government can have, and says these are an acceptable way to solve a problem. I don't particularly want those to become viewed as acceptable ways to solve problems. i would be happier if they used things which are already established ways that the government has traditionally used to stop a vertical monopoly from abusing its power any more-- for example, breaking the monopoly up. Regulating liscensing of windows is one thing and is neccicary, regulating the ways they can interact with other companies is important. But you shouldn't have to put a government person inside microsoft to read all their code and ensure the APIs are open; you should just split the company and make it so microsoft has no _alternative_ but to make it open.
that being said, i'm vaguely bothered by the fact you apparently just want revenge, by the fact all you want is to hurt microsoft. That is NOT the way to go about it. The point is to make it so that Microsoft can never again do the simply evil things that got them to where they are now. You don't _need_ to punish them; take away their unethical business practices, and they are nothing. Take away all their weapons, leave no way of gaining customers other than creating a quality product (ha!), and they will wither to nothing.
i am _not_ taking a philosophy of love the sinner, hate the sin, because in this case if you kill off the sin the sinner will die as well.
but NOTHING should be done solely for punishment-- anything done should be done _only_ to effect change, in order to stop microsoft. do ANYTHING to act solely for revenge or punishment or spite, and microsoft becomes a "victim", a martyr. Do anything solely designed to degrade the quality of their code (like say they cannot use a {} without filling out a form) and you will make it appear that microsoft is being downtrodden, which should NOT happen. Massive fines are a silly idea. What you want to do is effect change, NOT "hurt" microsoft. Microsoft is like a plague upon the computing industry; it spreads, it poisons, it contaminates everything, it seeps the life out of all. The purpose should be to make it so the disease can cause no more damage; the purpose should not be to cause the disease pain.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Well if Microsoft "collapsed", it would be the biggest boost to the software industry ever. But they aren't going to "collapse". They may get split up, but the OSs and applications are not going away. And even if they did "collapse", CA would buy them.
Also, don't confuse flaky dotcoms going out of business with the "collapse of the Internet industry". Same thing as above -- when Amazon goes out of business, several dozen competitors will take its place. My prediction is that Amazon gets bought by IBM mainly for its patents.
So, does your Libertarian POV also cause you to espouse the notions that insider trading, corporate espionage, and price fixing agreements should also be left for The Marketplace to work out, rather than letting a government declare them illegal?
Truly, I feel sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to live in the Libertarian Utopia. Except of course for the single dog on top of the pyramid.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So you'd prefer as president someone with the stance that all encryption should have backdoors?
I'd rather vote for someone who opposes something he'll have little control of instead of someone who would have much more say over something much bigger in the scope of things.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Of course, whatever ruling he passes, MS will likely appeal. Oh well.
Yup. Microsoft has already signalled that they will definitely appeal.
What surprises me, though, is that they are continuing to be as uncompromising as they have always been. They didn't abide by the original consent decree, they got dragged into court, they got all sorts of nasty things plastered all over about them, and they keep fighting?
Even if they appeal, a lot of damage has been done to their reputation. Not necessarily from a "gee, they're bad" point of view, but that little chink in the armor of perceived invulnerability.
That is to say, they have done a lousy job of maintaining the public relations necessary to stay in the "invincible" spot. (Compare that to the investigation of Intel -- hey, you haven't heard much about that one, now have you?)
The status of "monopoly" has already been stated as a Finding of Fact. Those facts are practically indisputable, even in the court of appeals. And given their solidity, the findings of law will have to have really large holes in them in order to have a chance of overturning on appeal.
But that's not the point. The point is that public perception is gradually shifting. Microsoft is still regarded as a powerful, large, and profitable company. On the other hand, the tendrils of doubt are snaking their way into the minds of anyone who follows the news at all.
Will Microsoft collapse? Not bloody likely! Will the perception of their advancing into new markets (servers, embedded systems) be seen as "inevitable"? Not nearly as much as they once were.
The desktop OS playing field is very, very tilted in their favor. On the other hand, the scrutiny has been enough to stunt their advance somewhat, and a drawn-out appeals process will only help.
(Which is why it continues to amaze me that leveller heads haven't prevailed, and they continue to fight this in a very, very public fashion.)
This
I cannot help but think that, at some point along the way, Microsoft Windows crashed on the wrong person at the wrong time, and this is their punishment. Now that the bottom's come out, we will watch the stocks tumble, I imagine. It all just seems so preordained ...
I understand what you're saying, and my argument isn't about the cost of the browser or the OS. Some applications use the rendering engine and other parts of IE to perform needed tasks in said application. Why should Microsoft have to build a separate component to do this when they can just use the ones in IE?
Once IE is installed on the machine, it can be completely hidden from the user and just thought of as Internet technology components rather than a browser if you really need to. You can manage the default browser with a few registry keys and then IE won't even be seen.
Also, comparing to your car example, if I was to get Netscape with my computer instead I would amount that to buying a sports car and getting $20 worth of free diesel. To me Netscape is not a good browser, and this could very well be a point in -why- they lost market. If they had of spent the time to keep up with the flow (how long since a major update from Netscape????) instead of desparately throwing the source code into the wind, maybe I'd be using it today.
And still I say... if you don't like it... buy something else!
Breaking up the company sure wouldn't produce the benfits that many people (in the Linux world) think it would. Many people in the Linux community just want to see them fall for the fun of it, without thinking about the number of jobs they provide and the amount of wealth they bring to the US.
As for the "tying" of Internet Explorer, I still don't see the issue with this. It's YOUR choice to install another browser should you wish to do so, and many applications (Office 2000 for example) REQUIRE IE to be installed, so you end up with it anyway. One less rollout if you ask me....
At the end of this whole case, I still think that the larger point has been missed in that it's a people's choice as to what they put on their PC. Yes, Microsoft has a broad audience and large market share, but maybe... just maybe that's beause it's so easy to develop on and you're right, some people do like Micorosft products *God forbid*.
Microsoft may have pressured some companies, but what if those companies hadn't of given in to the offers of millions? I bet after enough of them pushed on, things may have been different.
In the end, it was all about the money. "We lost money" or "consumers lost money" or "Netscape lost money". This whole suit has attracted thousands of people that want to join in and sue for shit loads claiming they've been restricted.... from what I don't know, they chose the OS!
Easy for you to say. When %90 of the consumer market has windows on their desktops, developing for windoze is the best way to make money. Again, if M$ did not have a monopoly, then developing a mac-only or linux-only game(for instance) would be commercially viable. As of now, it is not. Let's see, I can write software that %90 of the market can buy, or that only 9% of the market can buy....
Given that Mac piracy is approximately 15 times that experienced by games developers on Windows, is it suprising that it's uneconomical to produce games for the Mac?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The article mentioned above was a preliminary blurb, and was the only thing available when I submitted this. Yahoo has just posted more information here:
. html
http://dailyne ws.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20000401/ts/microsoft_talks_8
If Microsoft drops below $100 it will be in a classic bear market [20% off it's highs]
Been there, done that. Check out Microsoft's performance over the past quarter. Microsoft has already spent most of February and March under $100, and closed at 89 3/8 on 29 Feb - that's a 25% drop from the high of 119 15/16. I don't seem to recall the world ending when that happened.
I'll admit to never having seen a bear market, but I certainly expect to see one in the near future - it's just been far too long since the last one, and Alan Greenspan seems bound and determined to create one. Dubya must be secretly hoping for one this summer - it would be a nasty thing for Algore to have to campaign around.
Because, although you were rude and off-the-cuff, everything you said was on-the-money, and if you have to chew out some clueless moron to make a point about the retarded "lawyer-syndrome" that floats around /. then I guess that's just what has to be done... I don't know, but I really am sick of all the people who spout of garbage about things they have no business talking about. Sure, we're all guilty of it to some extent every once in awhile, but it's like a fucking religion here... And what makes it worse is that half of the posts are prepended with "IANAL".
Do me a favor people - if you're not a lawyer then just shut the hell up, because how you feel personally about an issue is totally irrelevent, and generally drivel.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
30 years ago people didn't put most of their retirement money into stocks. Your pension/401K/etc. would have been put in t-bills and bank notes (like HQ CDs) and maybe *some* HQ bonds. After all, mutual funds are a recent invention that didn't get popular till the 80's and retirees old enough to remember the depression aren't too keen on investing what they can't afford to loose in the market.
:)
Well, at least, this is how it was explained to me, having never seen a bear market, I doubt I'm capable of totally beliveing it
- bridgette
One benefit of breaking up M$ into seperate OS, Apps and (maybe?) Compiler companies is that the market (and the SEC?) would provide very strict oversite of buisiness practices. It would be very difficult for one company to take a disadvantagous position in order to further the interests of another company without the financal analysts having fits.
:)
For example, if the application company decided to give a new application away for free as MS did with IE, they'd have to have some really compelling financial reason or else the sockholders would bail.
Also, if there were seperate OS, Compiler/DevTools and Application companies, the application company would actually have to turn a profit.
Personally, I'd like to see at least 2 of the companies be "OS" and "Windowing System"
- bridgette
Microsoft said for the first time that it would allow computer makers to modify the blueprints to all current and future versions of its Windows software to embed the technology of Microsoft competitors. (ABC)
The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft's offer included allowing computer makers to modify the blueprints to all current and future versions of its Windows software to embed competitors' technologies. (CBS)
- bridgette
That's "Hammer to Fall"
what is your base for the number 6? Is it your magic number? Well i have a magic number for you.
In the past year, during MS anti-trust lawsuit, the software industry enjoyed amazing growth. Because that smaller companies no longer fear MS pressure, the software industry grew 10 times faster than before the trial. So 10-6 we have gained at least 4 years.
"the collapse of Microsoft and the collapse of the Internet industry due to stockholders demanding profits"--- What did you case this on? Yahoo and Amazon didn't make a profit and did you see stock holder demanding profit?
"Lack of standard" is another complete outsider's bullshit. MS has never been an industry standard and we hope it never will be. In the past, MS has tried hard to lure consumer away from any open standard. In short, if MS promote "open standard", it wouldn't have been sued today. The only "STANDARD" MS has created is USER INTERFACE. and we have already cloned it pretty darn good. Look at gnome, KDE, Staroffice.
The truth is, when there are multiple vendors, open stanard agreement will be reached to protect every vendor's profit. Usually these open stanards are open for discussion before being determined. and THAT IS GOOD.
Lastly, You reap what you sow. Gain some more knowledge will help in your case.
Remember, a big business with a huge market share (like Intel or MS or a utility) cannot do things that a small business can do with impunity. Things like product-tying are considered monopolistic if done by a business with 90% marketshare, but are more acceptable as a marketing technique if done by a business with 5% marketshare.
Yeah but the original quote was "loose your money in the market" which if read literally, that is in this context "according to strict contemporary spelling rules," is a pleasantly fresh unboring usage - unleash, take off you, get along green lil dogies! Hey where yall goin?! - nicely put, even poetic.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
What do you mean "standards"? When I think of standards I think of organizations like ISO and the excruciatingly detailed documents they publicly issue and maintain. In contrast a.) MS "standards" change every three years, and b.) no one outside MS is allowed to know what those "standards" are.
I may be too obtuse to get the joke and you could just be kidding, but I'm not kidding.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
I'm curious, why is it that whenever someone does muster up the courage to say something mildly positive about Microsoft, they follow it up with "I don't want to sound like a MS flunk/supporter/etc" ? Are you afraid of some mystical curse that might take hold of you if you proclaim that you really do like Microsoft products? It's not a crime, it simply makes you intelligent. You use whatever works best for you. That's the bottom line. Don't apologize, just do it.
It's interesting that you mention share holders and employees.
From reading the MS culture article here on slashdot a few weeks ago, the employees at Microsoft appear to be very happy, well paid, and have no major issues with what Microsoft does.
As for stockholders...I don't quite follow. How do Microsoft's actions hurt stockholders? A stockholder is concerned with one thing, and one thing only - $. Microsoft has been raking in profits for years, which in turn raise share prices, which in turn make stockholders happy.
You are right on one part, Microsoft has no-one to blame. However keep in mind, no profitable company survives for long without stepping on a few toes.
Of course, whatever ruling he passes, MS will likely appeal. Oh well.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The bundling with the OS may be the least of it.
Last summer I wanted to install netmon, a packet monitor component of SMS. It forced me to install Internet Explorer. (I subsequently chose not to use the MS product for this reason. Screw you, Bill.)
This year we want to upgrade our SQL Client to 7.0. If FORCES us to install Internet Explorer.
In neither case is there any conceivable technical requirement for this.
This is part of why I despise MS. This arrogance in leveraging their position to force me to use their browser is astonishing. And it is chilling, because if they seriously dominate the Web Client, they can use that to attack the Web server market through their 'embrace, extend, destroy' approach to any standard.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I was going to take your points one by one and dispute them, but there have been others that have done a wonderful job of pointing out the obvious. Instead, I decided to dismiss you're point of view as clearly uninformed and lacking critical thought.
The only thing I ask is that you please go here: http://www.isoc.org/zakon/Inter net/History/HIT.html to gain a better understanding of MSs lack of influence on anything internet. Please pay close attention to the fact that MSs started their company in the 70s when the internet was hitting it's stride and did nothing, nada, zipo, null-set, bupkiss, zilch, to help, grow, open, dominate, or sqelch the internet untill 2 decades later when a small start-up in Mtn. View threatened to take over their position as the primary development platform.
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What you left out is when Netscape slipped an object model (java) under the browser they were (and still are) a smart choice for developers looking to write a distributed application that runs across multiple platforms.
This was the threat that MS reacted to. Up untill that point, NS was just another app. in MSs eyes. Once NS went after develpoers they drew MS into the battle.
I would blame MarcA for this particular mistake. I remember him being interviewed after the 3.0 release and he spoke *very* boldly against MS without fully understanding their power and control over the market. He should have been saying to MS "nice doggie" while looking for a stick to whack it. Instead, he just came out swinging and MS took his stick away.
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"I have no sympathy for MS, but i don't want them to be a precedent that states the government has the right to interfere in scary ways with the internal workings of a software company."
In short? fuck em'.
Micros~1 has made it patently clear that as a whole, they have no intention of acting fair, honest, or legal. In light of these actions, MS deserves the full wrath of judgment being applied to them by the people.
I've heard it before, and I'll say it again, "MS is the Phillip-Morris of the software industry and it's time the government made them pay for Linux adds on TV."
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I'm guessing Mountain View, CA is somewhere near the FUD headquarters for Redmond, WA.
It is our choice to install another browser - however, a machine with two browsers installed, especially when each of them requires at least 20Mb of hard disk space, is not what the majority of people consider "lean" - and any John Doe can tell you "I already have one browser, why do I have to install another?"
The point is, MS does not give us the ability of not including IE in the installation or the ability to uninstall IE like any other app.
And, having one browser already installed prevented some lazy people from installing the browser of their choice - to forgo their choices easier - if there is a browser that (even just barely) works, I can sacrifice a bit for my choice because installing another one takes so much trouble.
For people who haven't used a browser (thus have no "favorite"), if you have to choose between an installed browser and a not-installed browser, which would you choose?
MS prevented vendors from even MENTIONING the other browser, do these people even know they actually have a choice? This is what I call "brainwashing".
I'd be fine if MS lets people uninstall their stuff and stop preventing vendors to NOT MENTION their competitors, or let vendors install the competing product instead of (NOT ON TOP OF) theirs.
Folks,
You reap what you sow.
You have just set back the computer industry six years or more [Emphasis mine]
There seems to be some confusion here. This is /., not the U.S. Department of Justice.
This will be the ultimate IT manager nightmare, because they will have be current on multiple competing versions of Windows, Linux, BeOS and whatever x86-compatible operating system comes along the line.
Actually, OS competition seems to have been forcing companies (*cough* MS *cough*) to make better products. For example, do you really think Windows 2000 would have its UNIXish features if it weren't for the surge in popularity of Linux and *BSD? So why will competition set the industry back? You seem to be arguing that OSes require a natural monopoly like local utilities, but if that is the case, the standard course of action would be for the government to strictly regulate MS's actions, just as local utilities are strictly regulated. You can't have an unregulated natural monopoly without gross abuse by the monopolizing company. (I don't think that OSes require a natural monopoly, but it sounds like you do, which defeats your argument against MS being tried.)
is here. Unfotunately, I didn't see anything in it that actually stated what the two sides' positions were... just that they were still far apart.
Does anyone have a good take on what MS's latest settlement offering was? What I've been reading is that the one thing they wouldn't consider was a breakup. If that was the only thing they wouldn't consider, it implies that this was they only thing that DOJ, et al would consider adequate.
Gonzo
If that report is correct, Justice offered Microsoft a very good deal. Microsoft is not going to see anything that generous again.
To be honest, I don't want to see a breakup. I'd be happy if the government forced all APIs to be disclosed and documented, and if the application group got them at the same time everyone else did. I think that would clear up most of the iniquities.
Oh, yes, I think there should be no more tying. IE should be separate, and so should the office stuff.
That should clear up the rest of them.
But then again, I wouldn't put anything past MS to get past that kind of stuff. Maybe a breakup is the only foolproof way.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
So NOW you understand why Microsquish is not settling. They can string this thing out till doomsday. They regard legal as just another biz expense. Ethics, morals, etc. be damned...
What the open source community needs to realize is that the majority of contributions have come from proprietary software companies. This is especially true for the less visable parts of the software economy, such as engineering software. The Gnu-Linux system is a nice system to learn on, but thoroughly second rate in most regards.
I can tell you that in the scientific computing community, the mass market of powerful PCs, generated mainly by the prolification of Windows, has revolutionized the way research is done, in many fields. We are doing simulations currently that no one would have dreamed of doing a decade or more ago. Clusters of cheap, fast, PCs are an amazing asset, as is the internet, and it is mainly thanks to Microsoft. Humanity owes MS a great debt, and I for one am voting for Bush solely because of his pro-MS stance.
The result is very simple: IT managers will start to sit on the sidelines waiting for the standards to settle down before buying any new hardware, and it'll be akin to the side effects of the AT&T breakup in 1984. You can tell what THIS will do computer hardware sales.
....
I seriously doubt in the simplest terms MicroSoft is holding together the Computer Industry. First of all, the breakup of a Device Oriented Company is completely irrelevant:
Telephones and all Equipment that AT&T deals with, to the best of my knowledge - are Devices. There is a very fine line, which is beginning to be reflected between computers & devices. At the moment however, a device is a system incapable of change - whereas a Computer is. The change is implemented through the Software.
We are already in an Era of multiple OS's running networked multiple-hardware systems in corporate environments. What has happened as a result of this? First of all, IEEE & IETF & ASCII and every other standards association has begun to implement protocol Standards which meet the requirements of every type of connectivity we can imagine. These can be seen from the beginning of SCSI - ISA - PCI - AGP, TCP/IP for the internet... etc. all the way to todays IPv6.0 - lending itself to Voice Over IP communications more efficiently; BlueTooth (back to devices) which is a standard protocol to help computers & "Mellennium" devices communicate with each other. etc. etc.
Standards & Protocols are the wave of yesterday, they have become a part of every developers code, and they have changed the way we see technology. We no longer think of a program as a miraculous invention because it uses a printer & a modem and communicates with itself on other peoples computers. We think of a program as being good/bad based on the darwinian advances it has lent to the evolution of its purpose. It is built to communicate as all other programs of its design, but its GUI, or its Efficiency, or its Purpose is Entirely different or advanced though it communicates the same, meaning it can run its own clients for the same server applications, and it can communicate with any other OS out there over a network thanks to, yes thats right, standards & protocols.
I won't even get into what MicroSoft has continually done to destroy these standards or how poorly it has implemented them, or attempted to make them their "own" standard through encapsulating; Or how MS has slowed the progression of every developement through not releasing its own protocol standards.
What is really important, is that MicroSoft software has nothing to do with the system you buy. The only important thing that matters is that you choose a Server or Client based application which adheres to the important things. Network Device Support, TCP/IP stack, Encryption (DES, MD5), and everything else which is important to you.
Now when you go to choose your applications for your hardware, keep in mind it doesn't matter which OS you choose at all since they all support that.
Oh, except I know from experience that MicroSoft encryption is both horrible and not-included-with-WIN98-for-VPNs.
Second of all, Linux as an Operating System is doing very well. Linux is developed by so many people however, that it tends to come out with different releases. Yet in any release of Linux I believe I would be able to configure the things I wish to configure. This is due to the fact that the software itself has been developed and changed based on the ideas and desires of the World. No single Bill Gates could hold back the developement of something useful for their own gain with an open-sourced project.
My point being: Every Software company but MicroSoft is changing the computer industry - because they are actually competing against each other to satisfy people for there profits. No competition between these companies could have the ramifications that MicroSofts competition has. They could not fail to adhere to protocols & standards or develop their own and have them succeed if they were inferior.
When I walk in to an office to Configure a network, I'll read the manual. "Whoa, this OS though obscure uses TCP/IP... probably because it has to. I guess I'll figure out how to configure its internal IP and connect it for the person who actually uses it"... "Oh yeah, page 6: setting the ip.".
"We're better than you are"
"... it doesn't matter."
Ace
However, one thing that is negligected when talks of the result of this case are mentioned are finacal ones; not just how it will affect MS's finances, but the stock market. Everyone knows that most high tech stocks, especially the IPOs of late, are riding a bubble, and at some point, that bubble *has* to burst. I think both Judge Jackson and most market people realize that even with a ruling on MS that is in accordance with the law and anti-monopoly tactics, it WILL hurt the market. Especially given the levels that have been suggested by the reports of how big the judgement will be. When that stock bubble breaks, it probably will not take down the whole market, but it will ripple through the current booming economy badly.
So I think that Jackson was trying to encourage a settlement to avoid breaking the market; a settlement is much more pleasing to investors than a government ruling. But, as either DOJ of MS is not yeilding to the other side, that won't be happening. Brace yourselves for a very interesting week this week.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Microsoft headquarters also appears to be under a higher alert level, including employee badge checks. These events, combined with instructions transmitted over the US Emergency Broadcast Network to consider shutting down any and all machines running Microsoft OS and applications, for undisclosed "safety reasons", have caused only minor unrest and agitation. We spoke with one source, a computer industry veteran who wishes to remain anonymous at his Y2K survival bunker in Northern California. "Microsoft has breached three major financial and military facilities in the past week, possibly using a Windows NT back door. Electronic warfare between Justice and Microsoft has been escalating over the past week. I beleive it is only a matter of time before this e-war becomes a hot war." Our source pointed out that Microsoft has gained control of the top level internet domain .ms (by acquiring the formerly sovereign nation of Montserrat) and "may attempt to declare independence at any time." Meanwhile, angry computer users, carrying torches and pitchforks, shouting "You'll pay for our suffering" are rumored to be on route to Washington State, and growing by the minute. Some appear to be carrying laptops, cell phone modems, and homemade firewall penetration softwarwe. Microsoft was down one half of one point during trading today on light volume, before rallying to gain 2 points in the afternoon.
one thing that is negligected when talks of the result of this case are mentioned are finacal ones; not just how it will affect MS's finances, but the stock market. Everyone knows that most high tech stocks, especially the IPOs of late, are riding a bubble, and at some point, that bubble *has* to burst. I think both Judge Jackson and most market people realize that even with a ruling on MS that is in accordance with the law and anti-monopoly tactics, it WILL hurt the market.
...When that stock bubble breaks, it probably will not take down the whole market, but it will ripple through the current booming economy badly.
The only market it will hurt is the market for Microsoft shares. Think of how many Linux and independent software vendor shares are going to get a shot in the arm from a ruling that promises to bell the cat, er, um, tame the shrew, hmmm, cut the gordian knot, ahhhh, you know what I mean. It sure wouldn't hurt to be holding some Redhat and Corel when the conclusions of law come down.
If, as you suggest, there is some tough medicine to be taken, isn't it best to take it when the economy is strongest?
In any event, the market as a whole will turn up if anything, the stronger the ruling, the more up.
No, all Jackson's efforts to achieve settlement have nothing at all to do with the stock market. They have everything to do with (1) trying to achieve effective rememdies without a long draw-out supreme court appeal (2) bringing down a rock-solid judgement that doesn't stand a chance of being overturned on appeal. Showing that every effort was made in good faith to achieve a settlement, and that the defendant did not reciprocate in good faith is just part of building that airtight judgement. No judge likes to be reversed on appeal and Jackson is doing everything he can to avoid that.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
seems to me a "settlement" would be silly.
after all, wasn't this whole thing started because MS failed to abide by their last settlement and refused to abide by their agreement not to tie products together?
if they didn't do it then why would they do it now? they'd just appear to comply for two years, stop complying, and then when the gov sues them to start complying again the injunction to stop would be overturned again and we'd be back at square one, going into a massive legal battle that will not end until enough time has passed the original issues (in this case netscape) are irrelivant.
likewise "forcing them to open APIs" by a legal _judgement_ doesn't seem too bright either. How would you insure they _were_ following the judgement? You couldn't, except by having the government surveilance and oversight of MS be so intense it would be seriously scary. I have no sympathy for MS, but i don't want them to be a precedent that states the government has the right to interfere in scary ways with the internal workings of a software company.
This is why i say a breakup is the only way-- make OS/compilers and software seperate companies, and make it so they can only communicate through openly published, universally usable APIs. This is the only way i can think of to reliably ensure the MS OS is just as integrated with MS apps as it is with non-MS apps without resorting to Shades of Orwell. [although somewhere you still have to do something about OEM contracts]
I have one other thought, one which may be wrong since i don't think i have all my information straight. so i'm just going to say it, and ask for corrections: i think "opening up" the windows source code would do more in the way of placating the public than of actually solving anything, but one thing that does need to be done is force MS to open-source Visual C++ and MS Developer Studio and all that other crud. MS development tools seem to have an insane stranglehold on the market and seem to have a distinctly unfair advantage, but i think making compilers a third company seperate from both OS and software (as some have suggested) would actually make it very difficult for MS to do things such as propigate APIs.. my opinion probably isn't very meaningful though because i don't know much about this subject. Could someone please correct the flaws in my thinking? does anyone else have comments on what if anything should be done about the situtation involving MS having such a huge advantage when writing the compiler / MS making it virtually impossible to write decent software for their OS without shelling out huge amounts of money to them?
-mcc-baka
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Interesting - though my personal preference would be for only two seperate companies - MS"1" and MS"0".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Zagato-sama wrote:
"Revenge against a company that makes software? Oh dear. Move over Hitler, there's a new villain making way. *eyerolls*"
lol!
I think there are legimate gripes with Microsoft, but Zagato-Sama has made a point that doesn't get made enough, except by some very -ahem- 'suspect' sources. Namely, that Microsoft is a company which had made a bunch of "good enough" software for 20 years, put hundreds of thousands of hours and enough money to sink boats into designing interfaces and such, distributed an affordable (or rather, 'more affordable than contemporary competitors') GUI OS, employed thousands of people etc.
There seems to be a frightening smugness in some of the prescriptions that people have for Microsoft -- like being barred from the software industry for "malpractice." Whaaaa?! What if it was you?
The impression that an alien would get reading descriptions of Microsoft in the popular press and esp. on fora like slashdot might be that Microsoft is attacking the people of earth, and that anyone who used windows was doing so drugged and at knifepoint, with gritted teeth, and reaching for the cyanide pill. Nothin' doin' -- people have been using MS for the same reason that (as the saying goes) nobody every got fired for buying IBM -- inertia, laziness, other priorities, or (surely, at least in some cases) preference. Businesses can decide that compatibility with their clients / partners / suppliers is the single most important aspect of an OS. (That's why open file formats are important, and why people should demand them from software providers.)
There is danger is turning over something as important as software to the wisdom of government regulators.
Just thoughts,
timothy
p.s. I feel like Bruce Perens right now. Not that he'd agree with me, just that my wrists hurt from typing so much.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I think this is good news. If they had settled, and Microsoft were not convicted, then the next monopolist after Microsoft could go and behave in the same way and the DOJ would have to waste another 5 years fighting them in court. Wheras if Microsoft get convicted, then a legal precedent will have been set and it will be much easier to prosecute the next violator.
Of course, this assumes that Microsoft do get convicted. If this doesn't happen it will be very bad news indeed. Not so much because Microsoft will then wreak havoc; more because then every other potential monopolist knows he has nothing to fear from the law. MS have price-fixed. They've held secret meetings to arrange not to compete in a certain area (with Netscape). They've payed companies to dump a competing product. They've arbitrarily tied products together (other than Windows+IE). If they aren't a monopoly in the eyes of the law, then nobody is.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
First off, do you agree with everything the US government states? I then assume you agree with the DMCA? If Microsoft are a monopoly, so are Intel, Sun, Apple, Cisco, and many other companies who maintain a "majority" share in their perspective field. Personally, I'd say yes, Microsoft is one. Sooner or later, Redhat will become a monopoly in Linux, I hope you'll then stand up and advocate that they be crushed by the DOJ.
Here's an interesting note for you, Linux is "supposedly" superior to Microsoft's offerings in every way, and is free, and yet the DOJ finds that Microsoft has no competition? Somehow those two things don't go together for me...
As for my tagline, it's very simple. Here at Slashdot, readers are herded into one particular viewpoint. You may not speak well of Microsoft, you may not support DVD Encryption, you may not speak ill of reverse engineering, you may not suggest that Windows NT/2000 is a better choice for a lot of people then Linux. This is simply not allowed, Slashdot readers must maintain a singular opinion on major issues, otherwise all these Linux podium posts that outnumber real news 2:1 wouldn't have much effect.
Slashdot is not a "News for nerds" site, it's a podium for Linux advocates to bash Microsoft and closed source, while patting Linux and open source on the back.
An open minded individual uses all tools presented before him/her to solve a problem. A closed minded individual is trained to one particular way, and refuses to attempt anything else. Which category do the majority of Slashdot readers fall under?
When actual debates on which tools work, and which don't begin to take place, then maybe you'll be right. Until then it's just a reiteration of the old "Linux r00lz M$ dr00lz" chant.
Among the major points in the final draft of the proposed agreement put forward by the Justice Department were these:
*Microsoft would be required to establish a uniform pricing schedule for the Windows operating system so the company could not use price discrimination to penalize companies that defy its will.
*The company would be prohibited from tying any of its products to Windows by sales contract, though it would still be free to integrate applications or features into the program.
*Microsoft would be forbidden to strike exclusive contracts with other companies, as it did with Internet service providers who were asked to feature Microsoft's Web browser and none other.
*Microsoft would be required to share technical information about its products without discrimination with any company that had a right to it.
*The company would also be required to disclosure the software interfaces that allow programmers to like their programs to Windows.
*Microsoft would no longer be allowed to raise the price of older versions of Windows as soon as a new one is released, a tactic to prompt faster migration to the new version. The company would have to support the old version, and sell it at the same price, for three years.
*Computer manufacturers would be allowed to license the source code to Windows so they could modify it, allowing them to change opening screen users see when they turn the computer on. They could also modify the program to feature a program they prefer, such as a different browser. But Microsoft would disclaim any responsibility for offering technical support for those parts of the program that have been changed, or affected by the changes.
One official said Judge Posner had been receiving e-mail messages and telephone calls from numerous state officials over the last several days, complaining that their interests were being ignored and warning that there could be no settlement without the states' agreement. Judge Posner, in his statement, noted: "I particularly want to emphasize that the collapse of the mediation is not due to any lack of skill, flexibility, energy, determination, or professionalism on the part of the Department of Justice and Microsoft Corporation." Nowhere did he make mention of the states.
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It may be that the best thing to do to Microsoft is rule that they illegally used their monopoly power, do nothing to Microsoft (Hence, nothing to appeal) and let the hordes of civil lawsuits brought by MS Competitors bring Microsoft down?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I believe that one of the key reasons that Microsoft's market position has eroded at least somewhat is the DOJ's actions. The very threat of being sued allowed several national ISPs (AOL, CompuServe, AT&T, and a couple of others) to have their access software included alongside MSN in Windows 95. This allowed competition to occur in this arena, and to this day AOL's subscriber base dwarfs that of the Microsoft Network. Had the DOJ not harassed Microsoft on this issue, there is no way these ISPs' icons would have appeared on the Windows 95 desktop, and who knows, Microsoft may have gone even further to ensure that the only ISP s Windows 9x users could use were MSN and smaller companies that paid Microsoft a lot of money so that they could count Win 9x users among their subscribers.
I am also convinced that the DOJ acted just in time to prevent Microsoft from really throwing its weight around hardware vendors. When I say "hardware vendors", I mean companies that make processors, video cards, sound cards, and other components, not OEMs like Compaq and Dell. I imagine many of you Linux users have been ticked off when you found that your favorite component you used under Windows won't work under Linux because only Windows drivers have been released, and the part's specs are under an NDA. I see no reason why a company with as many connections and resources as Microsoft would not have been able pressure most hardware vendors into producing only Windows-capable products after learning about potential OS threats on the x86 platform like Linux and BeOS. One way this could happen is if Windows simply refused to interact with a component not on some list of approved parts. A component would be approved if only Windows drivers existed for it and the vendor promised to keep enough information secret about it to make rolling one's own driver an extremely difficult task. While this approach probably would not have worked on the large companies like Intel and Creative Labs, I believe enough smaller companies could have been coereced by Microsoft's tactics to ensure Linux and other OS's could not thrive on the Intel platform. Now that the proverbial Linux horse is out of the barn, Microsoft really can't do much to suppress it by using this or any other unfair tactic. By investigating Microsoft for grounds for serious antitrust charges, the DOJ deterred Microsoft from leveraging their OS monopoly in this manner. I would imagine that if Microsoft considered this technique, the punishment would have been more swift and severe than anything that will come out of the browser trial. If it weren't for the DOJ, there would have been no deterrent for this action, and as a result Microsoft could have gained an even tighter hold on the desktop than they have ever previously enjoyed.
Also, consider the PR fiascos that have taken place during the trial itself. The DOJ has already shown that Microsoft executives habitually lied during the investigation, and in some cases, even under oath in the courtroom. The prosecution made it pretty clear that Microsoft is now mostly about protecting their monopolies at all costs, and are not concerned about who suffers to fulfill this goal. Now that Microsoft's public respect has been greatly diminished, competitors have been embolded to attack them, now that they know that they are less likely to alienate Joe User by going after Microsoft. This has caused further damage to Microsoft's dominance of the PC.
In conclusion, the DOJ has done quite a lot already to curb Microsoft's behavior through its consent agreements and now the antitrust trial. With a guilty verdict and a substantial penalty against the company, Microsoft's fall from the top may be complete. However, the outcome now is in the hands of the judge, and we must accept the verdict no matter how it turns out. While some may argue the DOJ stepped too late to stop Microsoft from crushing Netscape, it was and still is an open legal question as to what "tying" and "integrating" mean in terms of the Sherman Act. The prosecution had to wait until they had at least a decent chance of conviction before suing, otherwise the trial would simply be a waste of taxpayer money. And Microsoft has already won in other arenas, like office suites. It's too late to undo the damage that's been done here. However, if Microsoft were allowed to use this same behavior pattern to gain a monopoly on the ISP market, the results would have a much greater disaster than anything that's happened previously. DOJ action prevented this from happening, and now as result of threatened legal action, Linux has taken advantage of its opportunity to become a fast growing, viable OS on the x86 platform. Five years ago, no such product existed (outside of the very small Linux community at the time), and Microsoft was in a position to make sure that no such product could ever exist. However, current antitrust legislation prevented Microsoft from sufficiently leveraging their market share to meet this goal. So this trial is not the end-all-be-all that many have proposed it to be. Well a guilty verdict will most likely be the last straw that breaks MS's stranglehold once and for all, one must look at what's already come out of this case even if the judge finds that Microsoft has done nothing legally wrong.
Well, its that time again folks. MS is on the agenda, and the FUD starts flying... Just a shame therefore that its from both sides of the argument!
To my tale: I'm a long time computer user, various formats and various Operating Systems, from the old (DOS and whatever CP/M the Amstrad used, AmigaOS) to the new (Mac OS briefly, Win9x/NT/2000, Linux, Solaris). I know what I have found to be the practical plus-points of all of these systems, as well as the minus points. I have read all about the business practices of the people who make (made) these systems, and judged for myself when I think they're being unfair, and when they're just being plain stupid.
However, I don't let the business practices of the companies involved dictate my choice of operating system. Nor do I base my choice on my ideas of 'free as in speech', or even 'free as in beer'. Nope, I've decided on Windows because I can use it to get the job done with the minimum of fuss in almost all circumstances. I love the idea of Linux, BeOS, *BSD, any and all free operating systems and open source software in general. I just don't like the practical aspect of using them.
I don't consider myself to be a geek by the standards people on here seem to apply (I mainly use my computer for 3D art, in fact), so maybe what I'm saying isn't true for everyone. But for my needs, NT/9x are stable enough and give me months of use with virtually no maintainance, run all the software I need or use, and don't stand between me and what I want to do. On the occasions it has crashed, and yes there have been quite a few, a reboot has sufficed. So, when people talk about how unstable Windows is, I take it with a very large pinch of salt, because I can see the FUD going both ways.
In a way its a bit like the subject story - MS users like myself have irreconcilable differences with many Linux advocates, who seek to persuade us to use their favoured operating system, all the while deriding our choice which has been made for logical reasons which just don't fit their world-view. Which is sad, really.
Game dev and music blog
Maybe it is a April fools joke, but if it is everyone is taken.
Clearly, this is a very bad thing for Microsoft as a company (who knows about the stockholders.) The decision will be released and can be used in other Microsoft trials. Settlement was really in their best interest.
--Karl
RayChuang wrote (in part): "You reap what you sow. You have just set back the computer industry six years or more as we have just set the stage for the 'balkanization' of the computer industry with multiple competing standards."
/either way/ is all I'm saying. It's no exaggeration to say that a lot of hardware sales have been because Windows does not take advantage of hardware the way that Linux and other UNIX variants do.
I disagree with the thrust of this claim. And I am *not* in favor of breaking up MS -- making me probably a minority both as a slashdot reader and slashdot author, though I've not seen any real poll data;) -- but not for this reason. In fact, I think a flood of competing 'standards' (none of which is truly fixed, perfect or universally accepted) is the best thing that could happen to the computer industry, and the thing which is most harmful about Microsoft's market dominance.
Why? Because a robust marketplace of ideas is anything but abstract in the computer world. Ideas in the form of bits really are competing for acceptance, based on the interaction of human prejudices, interface, capabilities, availability.
There are simultaneous upheavals in the hardware world as well as the software world -- and not just whether chips are 32 or 64 bits, or whether they take RAMBUS memory. The whole idea of what computers are for, whether they ought to be special-purpose or general (and as part of this, whether the processing power that defines the abstract "computer" available to a given person / organization ought to be distributed or all in one place) is still up in the air.
We could 'standardize' on something -- new law passed tomorrow says "You may only use MS Windows 2000, rev 2 or below" -- but that's not how a free market works, or ought to. Standards shift, mindsets change, the unthinkable becomes commonplace. Sure, the software environment will affect the hardware environment, but in the case of OSes running on commodity hardware (as is the case with Linux, the various BSDs, Be, Solaris and others*), why should a breakup of MS per se have an effect on hardware sales? It could go
Just thoughts,
timothy
*I'm ignoring the other processors these can run on only because they're not germane to this line of reasoning.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Revenge against a company that makes software? Oh dear. Move over Hitler, there's a new villain making way.
*eyerolls*
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot
What I find most amazing about this whole thing is that it was started to protect Netscape, as lame a software company as ever came down the pike.
Here was a company that took a free browser, made it proprietary, cleaned it up a little, and grabbed 85% market share, not because it was any good, but because they had a head start. On the basis of what was basically an HTML file viewer, they announced their intention to topple Microsoft. Investors believed them, and the money started pouring in. They used it to go on an acquisition spree, hoping they could buy and popularize enough stuff fast enough to maintain their lead; relatively little original code ever came out of Mountain View. And when this silly plan didn't work, they were lame enough to blame Microsoft instead of their own hollow business plan.
Netscape's stated plan was to leverage their browser share, and they immediately started doing all the things that we get ticked off at Microsoft for: adding proprietary tags, encouraging sites to write to their specifications instead of to the open specs. In the early days, this was pretty effective, since Netscape jumped the gun with such things as table tags and font tags, which were pretty radical tools for early web designers. But such a strategy was doomed to failure, since each new feature became increasingly less useful than the previous one. When people started to notice that very few copies of Netscape were ever purchased (it was free for students, government, and non-profits), they said that their plan was to make money by selling servers, and that they were going to use their browser share to drive the server business!
Eventually, the investors lost their shirts and nearly everything else, but not before Netscape management became wealthy. But of course, it would have been suicidal to admit that their business plan had been as bad as it was; to do so would have invited a massive shareholder's suit. Instead, we've been treated to the spectacle of whining billionaires, one of the worst inventions ever to come out of Silicon Valley.
The most ironic thing is to hear these losers tell us the secret to Microsoft's success. Well, if they're so damned smart, how come so many people lost so much money on their company?
Please don't construe any of this as a defense of MS; I'm just sick of hearing guys with zillions of other people's dollars complaining that they didn't end get more. Yeah, maybe MS did end up with a monopoly in browsers, but if Netscape had concentrated on making a decent product instead of trying to topple Microsoft by churning out crap quickly, they might still be a player instead of a little component in AOL 6.
Yes, the judge doesn't understand that Microsoft is criminal to the core. Yes, the judge is continually trying to look for a change of heart, a sign somebody there has a clue. Yes, MS is taking all of this as signs of weakness in a purely darwinian armwrestling match. But there's still the law, and there's still the judge- and Microsoft doesn't make all the rules. Who noticed all the details on the failure of settlement? Posner pointedly avoids laying blame for the failure on Microsoft- yet the last straw was when he read Microsoft's latest proposed terms. _I_ think Posner is going back to Jackson and saying "I give up. These guys are the biggest criminals I've ever seen! They're not even ashamed of it! Everything they've proposed has intentionally had loopholes you could drive a truck through, they don't even bother concealing it. They have no good faith at all, it's absolutely sick to watch. Nail 'em. Nobody can say we didn't try, and they can't even say I was prejudiced- I thanked them and implied it was the states' fault. Excuse me while I go _wash_ _my_ _hands_... euggggh!"
I'm serious- I think these judges have been beating their heads against Microsoft's obvious, relentless criminality, astonished that it doesn't even understand what they're trying to do. And I agree with Cringely that MS can see this only as a sign of weakness, because they are so far outside the law in their heads that they can't even comprehend it (something which shocks the hell out of the judges). But Cringely is wrong if he thinks that is going to help them- MS is NOT the law, and to the legal system, it is not a defense to say "I am innocent because all this legal stuff is crap anyway! I kick ass wherever I want and you can't stop me 'cause you're weak and cowardly!". That is... not an effective position to take.
It is the position Microsoft believes, in its heart. And so, I see Posner giving up, going irreconcilably against Microsoft (Posner's first love is the law, not power) and cleverly issuing statements to block even the implication that he was biased and quit due to unfair prejudice against Microsoft. His statement seeming to blame the states... is for the appeals courts to appreciate, not us.
The latest Cringely has a very interesting take on the vast difference between the judge's way of looking at things and Microsoft's, and how that explains the failure to reach any agreement.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Folks,
You reap what you sow.
You have just set back the computer industry six years or more as we have just set the stage for the "balkanization" of the computer industry with multiple competing standards. This will be the ultimate IT manager nightmare, because they will have be current on multiple competing versions of Windows, Linux, BeOS and whatever x86-compatible operating system comes along the line.
The result is very simple: IT managers will start to sit on the sidelines waiting for the standards to settle down before buying any new hardware, and it'll be akin to the side effects of the AT&T breakup in 1984. You can tell what THIS will do computer hardware sales.
Don't laugh when I say "I told you so" at the end of 2001 when the computer industry is in the doldrums because of the combination of the collapse of Microsoft and the collapse of the Internet industry due to stockholders demanding profits.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
(let's try that again...)
I have a song request: anybody who lives in the Redmond area, see if you can get your local classic rock station to start playing Queen's Waiting for the Hammer to Fall off of Radio Ga-Ga, and dedicate it to Bill.
www.eFax.com are spammers
While Microsoft was a monopoly from 1995 - 1998, owing to the overwhelming success of Windows 95, the changing state of computers has done more to level the competitive playing field than any consent decree possibly could.
Much has been written about Microsoft's ability to dominate the desktop. Nearly every Microsoft basher worries that Microsoft will be able to leverage its strong desktop position into a powerful server and internet position. They argue that Microsoft will assimilate like the Borg, spread like a virus, but the numbers simply do not bear this out.
IF Microsoft were a classic monopoly, they would try and leverage IE into forcing NT / Win2K sales. IE now dominates the Windows desktop space - it's bundled after all. However, as much as IE has gone up, the use of IIS and WinNT as a web server has remained even at best in terms of share. In fact, IIS is starting to go DOWN against Apache.
You would think that since Microsoft completely owns the client, that they would be able to force Windows NT as a server, or at least provide a compelling reason to use NT over some other server technology. They have not. Windows NT / 2000 market shares are steady, not increasing. Indeed, Linux is the growth player in operating systems. Not Windows.
One might also think that because Microsoft rules the desktop, they ought to be able to leverage an online service. This has been the biggest and most damning failure of the company. MSN has been bundled into Windows 95 since the get go. This alarmed a lot of people, but as it turned out, AOL not only succeeded in the face of this, but triumphed. While MSN goes from being a core part of the operating system to being a web based streaming media thing to a web based thing to possibly up for sale to something else, AOL has become the dominant owner of not only network infrastructure (Cable), but content (Time / CNN / etc). At AOLs level, the choice of browser or even operating system is almost trivial and is certainly non-relevant.
All of the talk about Microsoft dominating the Internet has been just that, talk. That they destroyed Netscape was sad, but in the grand scheme of things the destruction bought them absolutely nothing. They have not dominated the server market. They have not dominated the online services market. They have not even protected their interest in retaining control of the PC - internet appliances are all the rage. Microsoft is about to be slammed by the justice for committing a crime that had no reward. In retrospect, the destruction of Netscape was a phyrric victory, a business decision that achieved none of its objectives for a price that may ultimately threaten the business itself. You may not like the destruction of Netscape because you whine and sob, Cat Stevens like, about the evils of capitalism. But even the most hardcore capitalist at this point has to conclude that the destruction of Netscape was not even very smart.
This is my sig.