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Microsoft Break-Up To Be Proposed?
lowLark writes: "The Seattle PI is reporting that the feds and most of the states have agreed to pursue breaking Microsoft into two companies." One company will be in charge of 'Bob' and the Mouse, the other will be everything else :)
There's a very good article in the Washington Post with lots of details. It also talks about the restrictions that will be placed on the Baby Bills - limits on bundling, uniform licensing, etc.
-David Ziegler
-dziegler@hotmail.com
-David Ziegler
-
Non-sucky
- Barney
- cream-coloured optical wheelmouse
- Age of Empires
- most other microsoft hardware
- Word 2
Sucky
- "Nike" mouse
- anything that stops working unexpectedly
I think that covers it all.
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
Despite the /. anti-Microsoft propaganda machine, the forced break up of Microsoft would be a bad thing for the computing industry as a whole, and harm consumers more than anyone else. Persoanlly I think this whole mess has gotten well out of hand, and it's now being used as an excuse for blaming Microsoft for everything from the Fall of Man onwards, which is blatently untrue.
The fact of the matter is, Microsoft practically single-handedly turned the PC from the haven of 31337 tech-savvy "gurus" to a domain where anyone could use a computer to browse the internet, write letters and play games. Whilst I know that /.ers seem to think that only they should be allowed to use PCs, Microsoft pushed the idea that everyone could benefit from a PC, and it worked, because people wanted that.
Face it, the only people who have anything against Microsoft are the very people that disdain to use it since it isn't based around a CLI. Breaking the company up will harm the average user, since a high level of integration means a greater ease of use. And for once, /. should stop and think about the average user rather than blindly following some dogmatic principle.
- Services (MSN, Hotmail, MSNBC)
- Internet Explorer (Surely this can't be part of the OS!
:) ) - Hardware
- Development software (VC++, VB)
- MSDN (Developer services, training)
- BackOffice (Server apps)
- Non 'Office' Software (Games, educational software)
All of those are key players in Microsoft's unified Juggernaught. Any two of them in combination provide all kinds of competitive advantages to MS.I don't see any simple way to divide the company in two to remove the monopoly power.
No. I've been concerned about this for some time. It's certainly a step in the right direction, but the OS company will still have a desktop OS monopoly, and the apps company will still have a monopoly in terms of office suite market share (and hence will be able to block competition by repeatedly changing file formats, etc.).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
If I were MS, I'd be very quiet right now, with perhaps an occasional mention of how much competition MS faces from Linux, Apache, Oracle, AOL, Sun, etc.
"What I cannot create, I do not understand."
Sorry, I just think it's kinda funny that so many slashdotters claim to be libertarian and then turn around and expect the govt. to break up MS. Personally, I would rather see the market punish MS. Move from MS products to quality products. MS will either be forced to change to what the market wants (instead of what MS wants), or they will die out. Iron_Slinger -- Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
See the latest I, Cringely article at PBS online for why this is all irrelevant at this point (see towards the last half of the article). If you don't have your I, Cringely slashbox turned on, I'd say turn it on. The guy always has some interesting points, a better pundit than Dvorak.
-JD
Breaking up Microsoft will not work.
Let me repeat again, it will not work.
The only thing that will come out of the breakup is streamlined business processes. They will still have the same communications link. Even though this worked for AT&T a while ago, this will hurt consumers.
Some people like CLI's, and others like their hands held by Artifical Intelligence. We should not force our beliefs onto others. Once we tell them the facts (truthfully, like the lack of applications for Linux; this is changing though) we should not interfere with their decision.
If they want Windows, let them. If they want Linux, don't torture them because they chose RedHat or something not as "elite as Debian."
This will be the only way we can attract more people away from Windows.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
I've been reading articles that talk about how "great" Microsoft is for consumers but I can not dismiss my own experienece with their software. I have used all the major version of Windows (Except for Win2K). I've used MS Office on Windows and MacOS. I still can not get over the impression that MS produces software that is "just good enough"- not excellent. That's the mentality of much of the US today, don't strive for excellence just do something that meets the bare minimum of expectations and put some flashy graphics up to make it look interesting, but do not go out of your way to do something that is outstanding.
I am beginning to think that breaking up the company would actually be a good thing. It might bring a breath of fresh air into a world and an industry that desperately needs it. That's one of the major reasons that I am a big fan of Apple.. they are willing to take risks and try to introduce change in th their industry- and are willing to deal with the flack (ie. all the complaints about the iMac, G3, G4, MacOS X, etc).
And before you dismiss me as an overzealous MacMarine, I do acknowledge the things that I believe Microsoft has done correctly- one of the most recent things being the Optical Intellimouse Explorer (I bought one for my G3 at home and also for my PeeCee at work)- it's a fantastic piece of hardware. I wish that all MS products were as well engineered as that mouse.
I also get kind of frustrated at reading the comments made by people that are saying the DOJ is wrecking their retirement portfolio. Folks, investing is a gamble - there are no guarantees. If you invest heavily into a single stock, then you should be smart enough to realize what will happen if the stock drops in value. If you are not, then you should probably not be investing in the stock market at all- until you educate yourself a little more. The same goes for the businesses that build their livelyhood soley around a single customer base- like well-to-do Microsoft employees.... you should be aware that there may come a time when your customer base dwindles or changes significantly. You need to be able to deal with it... and not complain to the newspaper and act shocked when it does happen to you.
Ok, enough of my rambling.
Hasn't Slashdot milked this enough? How many "Microsoft-will-die" stories must be posted to satisfy the drooly/giggling anti Microsoft fanatics?
It's been stated already, this will go on to appeals and will probably not come to a conclusion in our lifetimes, get over it and report some real news already instead of playing the old podium game.
Realize also that any breakup of Microsoft will have very little impact on Linux. If a hardware vendor doesn't give a rat's ass about Linux, it certainly won't change it's mind like magic after any ruling.
So instead of having just one dirty handed, predatory, monopolizing business, we're going to have two! What a great solution!
The feds are going about this entirely the wrong way, they're thinking that software is somehow like oil, when infact it isn't anything like it.
The product has different properties which make breaking up the company ineffective.
1. It costs virtually nothing to copy data
2. Source between these two companies can be shared in such a way that they can basically keep operating as one company
3. The two companies would have different products (OS / Everything Else) and therefore don't have to compete against eachother unlike the oil and phone company breakups!
It's just a bad decision, I've said it from the start, and I'll say it 'till the end.
-- iCEBaLM
You realize, of course, that Microsoft 2.0 will have all the features of Microsoft 1.0, plus added functionality: MsEmailSafe (tm) will no longer allow damaging emails to leave Microsoft Exchange Server, and wind up on Open Source web pages. Exchange will lock up and spit blood instead, and the users will never notice, having become accustomed to this. MsPropaganda will be upgraded to 3.2.1, incorporating the latest kernal upgrades from the MPAA and the Public Confusion Algorithm (MSPCA), in particular. And Bill Gates will finally get a decent haircut.
Error 503:
Break up as proposed is good, but I think the initial rumours of 3 separate companies (OS, Applications, Internet) would be better. After all, what if they start integrating IE into Office? We don't want to go through another DoJ...
:)
The behaviour of Gates and Ballmer are not surprising. Gates has been defiant from start and very arrogant indeed. In fact, should he have accepted the initial measures before the trial, he could have avoided the whole anti-trust embarassment and gotten away with a minor hand slapping. Instead, he chose the path of defiance and he now reaps the consequences (I think he lost over 40b in the past few weeks and the #1 position on rich list, not to mention the bad PR M$ is getting).
He should have learned from Slobodan Milosevic not to fuck with Uncle Sam
My £0.02 ($0.035 approx).
No one seems to have pointed out that one of main things that gives Microsoft an edge over all of their competitors is that they have full and exclusive access to the Windows API. Breaking the company into two would mean that any information being tranferred between them is "on the market" and therefore available to anyone that's willing to pay for it. So next time they change the whole of the Windows OS in order to make Word work correctly (you'll notice that almost every system dll is replaced when you install Office) they have to tell everyone what they changed. No more undocumented API calls (in theory ;-)). Woohoo.
--- If something doesn't feel right, you're probably not feeling the right thing.
Breaking up MS into OS and apps doesn't destroy or even affect Windows, Office, or IE as products. It prevents the MS marketing dept from misusing their monopoly position. You may think differently, but there is very little benefit gained by the integration of apps with the OS. In fact, I see very little integration at all, aside from default file associations, and the fact that MS Office just uses the Windows OS better than competitors, who don't have the same information. IE has been used to enhance the desktop and file manager, but those enhancements could be done independently of the browser.
Remember that Bill Gates didn't write DOS, he bought it. He didn't invent the interface, he copied it. He didn't invent any applications, he just copied and improved competing applications. If MS never existed, we'd be still have PC's, good apps, good OS's. We will never know what things would be like if MS hadn't been around. I won't say things would be better or worse, because I don't know. What I do know is that things would definitely be better if MS had never broken the law.
"What I cannot create, I do not understand."
> Perhaps a third for services (MSN etc), but I don't think that is neccesary, since that leg is standalone anyhow. Same goes for hardware.
There is no need to cripple MS, just to take away the "unfair" advantage. Once you have a real choice about what applications to put on a preinstalled PC it is no longer possible to pull an "internet explorer"
All opinions are my own - until criticized
They are not going to weaken their stand in any way, because any sign of hesitation or capitulation will be translated as admitting guilt. If you were Microsoft, you are NOT going to admit you're guilty, even if you know you are. Basically, they are taking the "never surrender/go down fighting" mentality, and they should.
Let me put it this way, if they allow for a hint that they might have done "a little wrong", then people will jump up and down and say "see? you even admit it yourself that you did the wrong thing". If Microsoft show any sign of weakness, it will be devoured quickly into oblivion.
1) Microsoft did not turn the PC from its haven of the techy into the realm of the user. That title went to the Mac, good _marketing_ gave the PC its edge as well as the massive failure of IBM to spot its power.
2) The rise of the PC and of Microsoft is of the same sort of community that is contained in
Now onto the rest. Microsoft _has_ done a good job in promoting and extending the PC. The problem is that it has done this _at the expense_ of the consumer on many occasions. Few would argue that MS-DOS was better than DR-DOS, yet strangely DR-DOS died. This was a result of MS pushing out the opposition by using their dominante position.
Microsoft have succeeded by realising two things
1) Quality doesn't matter, being first matters
2) Marketing can over come most evils.
Using these two commandments they have created the PC market place. However when competition loomed they used their command of the market to crush the competition, not in the interests of the consumer or because their product was "better", soley because they have the first hook that every user sees. This is bad.
The internet, windows, the web, the mouse and all the other things that make the world a better place for the average user were not invented or even best implemented by MS. They were best marketed by them and opposition removed by other means.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The joint state-federal plan calls for breaking Microsoft roughly in half. One-half would be the operating-system company; the other would hold everything else, including Microsoft's applications software, such as the word-processing program Word and the spreadsheet program Excel, and the Internet properties.
I have a feeling that Gates has known for a while that Windows was doomed--this is not a troll--I honestly believe Windows is beyond saving. Rather than completely dropping support for Windows he gets to have it artificially amputated instead.
So Microsoft can appeal the decision as long as Windows is still profitable, then "give up" when it turns into dead weight. The dying operating system that they no longer want to support becomes someone elses problem automatically. Gates can just shrug and say "Hey, it's not our fault the DOJ broke us up. It's a shame to see the operating system I created die at their hands."
As for now, his "go ahead and break us up, I dare you" attitude doesn't suprise me one bit.
numb
Over the years, Microsoft has produced a lot of great software and given us many innovations such as windows, mice and trashcans on our desktops. I maintain that they are a great company and that Bill Gates is one of the greatest and most innovative talents of out time. I firmly believe that Microsoft will continue to create great products for many years to come.
Guide to M$ English:
great: mediocre / terrible
innovate: buy/steal from other companies
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
But then ms came from nowhere and inialated them. No one had to use windows. It was the best and most available at the time.
Nothing came up to challenge it sufficently. Okay OS2, MAC OS, but MS always came back ?
All the kiddies on this site seem to forget this. Remember the apple2 ? Remember the BBC micro, hell even the ZX spectrum where a lot of computing gurus grew up.
But if apple had dominated, we would be in a much worse position now, what with it's proprietary hardware and software etc...
No linux then my friends !
Equally if IBM had pursued the copyig of it's BIOS by other companies (notably compaq who reverse engineered it) then again we would have another unfriendly giant to content with.
Never forget what microsoft has done for the industry, but the fact remains they got WELL out of control.
They should be broken up, into different division and FORCED to release their APIs to the OS, and also make sure that the other baby bills did not get early access to them.
Consider this also, if everyone was using different apps, operating systems etc. how would they all transfer files without being messy ? Yes HTML, PDFs etc...
Another law should be passed to provide a common file format for all applications (one for word apps, another for spreadsheets...etc..). This would solve a lot of compatability issues.
I really don't like MS, and use linux a lot at home because it I can do more easily, but it has to be said, MS did certainy help make PCs avaiable to the masses.
Just think for a minute what would have happened if the corporate giants at the time would have had there way.
Aso think Bill was once a geek, but he really MADE it and fair play to him.
Alanp
"Microsoft has delivered tremendous benefit to consumers as an integrated company," Murray said. "And there is virtually no information in this case to support these radical steps."
"Even though you found me with the bloody knife standing over the dead body, with me covered in blood" Says the defendant. "I still don't see why I'm on trial here."
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
I don't think there's a meaningful way to simply "divide" the company. I think if they want to do it right, they have to DISMANTLE the company. Like so:
- Marketing in one company, engineering in another. Each half must independently regrow the other half and thus cannot simply repackage the same old crap with brand new FUD and claim it as 'innovative', MS Engineering will have to EARN its respect and I can't imagine many engineers wanting to work for MS Marketing.
- Hold a public auction to sell off each and every one of Microsoft's products. The only stipulation is that no company gets more than one product. I can see logistical problems trying to make sure there's no collusion or secretly connected "subsidiaries" involved trying to accumulate a whole other Microsoft, but this WOULD END THE MONOPOLY. The two Microsoft companies described above would be allowed to bid, but each gets only one product. (Plus it would flush out the back catalog of stuff MS just sits on; anything not purchased goes GPL, which means freeware ROMs for lots of emulators and fully commented source code for old goodies like EDTASM.)
This won't happen, because I can't imagine the DOJ having the cojones to attempt such a radical solution. I figure they'd be afraid MS would win the appeal. But even THAT might not be so bad. Ponder this sentence:
The Microsoft of 1995 would never have allowed Linux to get where it is today.
In other words, Microsoft behaves itself when it's under the spotlight. Simply keeping the light in the giant's eyes for a few years has been enough to allow alternative OSes to capture the MAINSTREAM's eye for probably the first time since the late 1980s. If Microsoft appeals, it's likely that the spotlight could remain on them for years to come - hopefully long enough that their 90% market share in multiple markets will erode to something more surmountable, that well-equipped competitors can climb.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
--
As of this writing, there are 2419 responses, and the results are:
Yes: 28.48%
No: 67.96%
Yes: 68.06%
No: 18.12%
Yes: 29.94%
No: 63.67%
I think though that the poll is a little bit pre-fabricated (incidentally or intentionally) for a certain outcome. If you look at the answer buttons on the poll page, you'll see that the answers (Yes, No and Not Sure) are ordered differently on the different questions. It just happens that if you always choose the first answer, it will be "No", "Yes" and "No", indeed a very Microsoft-supportive poll answer.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
I dissagree. Breaking up MS would be a Good Thing(tm) if done properly. I am very afraid that too few people know this and that it will not be implemented. If not implemented then you are completely right, we will have two big bad Microsofts.
The key lies in the restrictions placed upon the baby Bills. They want to tightly integrate applications into the OS. Fine let them. But this means that the OS company has to make the OS specs avalible to the Applications company. What must be prohibited is the OS company making an exclusive aggreement with the Applications company for the OS specs. The OS company must be forced to release the OS specs to anyone that wants them. This is what will foster compition! Imagine wine that actually works..... :-)
Jack Neely
If anything this may be one of the biggest reasons almost all of the DOJ's case was found to be true.
That is incorrect. The only reason almost all of the DOJ case was found to be true was because there was overwhelming evidence proving beyond even an unreasonable (much less reasonable) doubt that Microsoft was guilty of the crimes they were accused of. The judge's anger at Microsoft's blatent dishonesty, arrogance, and lack of respect for the legal system probably didn't even significantly effect his choice of verbiage. It certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with the verdict and findings of fact themselves.
Sounds a bit reactionary, let's give the idea a minute to sink in.
1. It costs virtually nothing to copy data
Yeah, so what? It also costs nothing to copy data between Lotus and Microsoft. They don't exactly have a Cartel going.
2. Source between these two companies can be shared in such a way that they can basically keep operating as one company
This is why they need to be two companies. The Fed can dictate the terms of the break-up, and include a clause about conspiratorial practices. I expect that the terms of break-up will REQUIRE that communication between these two SEPARATE companies be conducted on open channels, via published APIs and public company press releases. Again, M$ and Lotus style. The Fed can not exert this kind of control on separate departments of one company, but they can on separate companies.
3. The two companies would have different products (OS / Everything Else) and therefore don't have to compete against eachother unlike the oil and phone company breakups!
The purpose of a company is to make money. The more money the better - since a company must show profit to it's stake-holders.
An applications company will necessarily develop for all platforms, since it will not care about the success of a particular one. Office for Mac and Linux is right around the corner. An applications company will seek to maximize profits by making it's product available on all possible platforms.
An operating systems company will seek to support as many different applications as it possibly can, to make its product OS(es) as desirable to customers as possible. It will be in the best interest of such a company to make the OS easy to code for, and to make the API available to all application developers.
If an applications company and an OS company share information 'under the table', they will be guilty of conspiracy to form a monopoly - this problem has been solved before - they are just like oil afterall.
In the case of Standard Oil, SO consipired with rail shipping companies to give preferential treatment to SO's business, and to squeeze other competitors out of the market.
If MS-Apps were to play footsie with MS-OS, they would get slapped with Sherman Act faster than you can say MONOPOLY. Besides this, they would be more PROFITABLE without conspiring. That is what business is all about, profits, not control of the market. The two often go hand in hand, but with the Fed's fingers in your pie, it's just not doable.
The point of the break-up is not to force MS-OS and MS-Apps to compete against each other. The point is to make it un-profitable for the two product lines to bolster each other's success in the market place. The point is to make all apps compete for all platforms, with no one specific combination of the two (MS-OS and MS-Apps, for example) profitting a single company.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Erm...
:)
IBM were sued over their alleged monopoly in the mainframe market, not PCs.
Broadly, though, I agree. Microsoft could well be looking at IBM and feel reluctant as they see a Computing giant that came ratehr close to going under after losing focus due to anti-trust proceedings. A long time after, but arguably still due to the trial.
Personally, I can't see what Microsoft are so afraid of. Splitting them would probably result in a higher total valuation, while resulting in a series of companies more able to react to changes in the market. It could be the best thing to happen to them in years.
Which, if I'm honest, is why I'd prefer to see them simply obliterated totally. All their IP assets placed in the public domain, all their patents revoked, all their physical assets sold off. Not very realistic, but there are days when it seems a nice idea
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Well let's see...
It would be VERY BAD for customer confidence if the Monolithic Microsoft decided to port it's applications (MSO is a cash-cow after all) to another, competing OS - especially a free one.
What sort of message would that send to customers? "Microsoft has no confidence in it's OS".
But if the Big Bad Fed huffs and puffs and blows Microsoft apart, then the MS-Apps can happily port to Linux, and be justified in doing so, in the name of competition ( or Innovation(tm) ). Subsequently MS-OS can 'partner' with other applications companies, (under NDA of course) and glean what it is that they do better than MS-Apps; after all, MS-OS is just trying to do what's best for the customer ( Innovation2k(tm) ).
This 'break-up' might be good for Microsoft. On the App side they would 'embrace and extend' Linux. Yes, it's open source, but if you NEED some key daemon (closed source of course) to run that hot new version of Office... Well, all but the purists and the zealots would oppose, and they don't run MS-Products(tm) as it is.
On the OS side, poor, battered MS-OS could 'take a peek' into how MS-Apps competitors do things (in an effort to help them compete, of course). And while communicaton between MS-OS and MS-Apps would be Federally monitored, the board members of these companies would regularly play golf together. What's more, developers at either company (OS or Apps) could easily 'job-hop' across the street, with their lap-top PCs, every couple of months. I wonder how well this developer migration would coincide with each companies release cycles.. Hmmm.
Back, and to the left. Back!... And to the left!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I read (in real paper) this front page story in the Post. Here are a few of my thoughts:
Interestingly, the attorney representing Florida wanted to break MS into three competetive companies instead of two (preferred by almost all other states) or leaving MS as one (preferred by only Ohio). I thought his point was very strong: What will happen to MSN, MSNBC, etc...? Are they operating systems or office suites?
There was no mention of interim conditions, but I imagine there must be some. Otherwise, MS could tie things up in appeal for half a decade making the whole point moot. This is, after all, what happened with DR DOS.
A couple other thoughts: Apparently some of the state attorneys feel "slapped" by the microsoft response. MS reports to employees and shareholders that a breakup will never occur.
The proposal to split the company would require Gates and other top execs to choose either the OS or the app company to put their stock in. That I hadn't heard before. Common shareholders get stock in both.
But as far as I could tell, all this must be regarded with a grain of salt. The article was littered with journalistic reservation. "Sources close to the matter say..." and "people who have seen the proposal indicate..." The whole thing was written as if the journalist from the post really had no first hand information. Pretty queer for a front page story in a supposedly first rate rag.
If you'll notice, the first answer for each question is positive towards Microsoft. Example:
Should Microsoft be split?
o) No
o) Yes
o) Not sure
Is Microsoft stock a "buy"?
o) Yes
o) No
o) Not sure
This is pretty much leading the respondant into the anwers, a nice way of screwing up the results (read: Getting the answers you really want).
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
"just good enough"- not excellent.
My sentiments almost exactely - I really wouldn't mind a monopoly IF it was a really good product like a Mercedes or the local power company (which is 'up' really reliably) but this land mine filled, quality disclaimered garbage?
I'm particularly primed for Msft bashing this week after having mistakenly installed PPTP on our production server w/o doing a lab run first to weed out the tricky spots - now our main Internet dialout is F****d, I had to whip up a 'band aid' box for access untill I can spend a Saturday in here cleaning up Msft's puke (What's this adapter [5] and why is there a registry error when trying to delete it?? Arrrggg!!! This wasn't in the white paper!!! REboot-boot-boot-boot-boot-boot... repeat ad-nauseum). Yet business people who don't know any better love this crap. I swear, we've got to break this iron triangle where clueless business decision lords pick Msft products for little other reason than "but they're a multi billion dollar outfit! It must be great, quality products, and therefore any problems that arise are the admin's faulty work". Utter B.S.
Chuck the defrocked McSE
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
This is exactly what they did in 96(?) when they were being sued for attempting to kill Netscape via predatory practices. They acted like total asses during the original trial to the point where they had ired the judge so much so that he refused to consider Microsoft's request to disqualify an outside consultant who had been brought in by the judge and who supposedly had an anti-Microsoft bias Their arguement concerning his bias was very weak, but the appeals court decided that the original judge shouldn't have been so hasty in dismissing their request that he be removed, so they over-turned the original decision. Now Microsoft continually points to this earlier overturn on appeal and "spins" it to make it look like the government gave them a seal of approval to do what they did with IE.
I wondered the same thing back when this trial was going on - why on earth would Microsoft being acting like such enormous asses? I saw no way that they could possibly gain from being so hostile, but amazingly enough it turned out to be a brilliant plan. Not only did they get the original decision overturned because the appeals court saw them as being treated unfairly (even though they were really, really asking for it), they now go on and on about how this previous case gave them the green light for their bundling and aggressive "marketing".
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
The project manager for the Bob project was nobody other than Melinda Gates herself. It was the only project she ever headed at M$. Oh, and she was billg's SO at the time, too.
InThane
I agree. I'm not the anti-gub'ment type, but I don't think the US Congress is competent to design media formats. Plus, it's absurd to fix a format in stone, considering the rate of evolution of IT.
However, I would modify one item on your list of suggestions:
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Corpus callosotomy involves the severing of connections between the right and left sides of the brain
with the left brain being allowed to chair the OS division, and the right brain the App division.
While primarily used to control intractable epileptic seizures, this procedure may have impact on his obvious megalomania and delusions of producing world class quality software.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I'll just "me too" the other posters on how a breakup would work and be a good thing.
:-), the more we can get back to having some competition in desktop software again.
But wouldn't it be fun if MS Office were itself broken up? By building this monolith, and entangling it so tightly with the OS, MS has ensured that individual best-of-breed packages can't thrive. There used to be a time when you bought your word processing, spreadsheet, database, publishing, email, and presentation software separately, and could pick and choose the best in each category. And if it weren't for this trial, we'd see Visio piled into Office shortly, too.
Remember, folks, the MS monopoly has been created by, done its damage (to both consumers and competitors) with, and made its profits from, OS-specific APPLICATIONS, not the OS itself. And those applications have become more entrenched by merging together.
Now, take the same argument and apply it to IE, and MSN, and Visual Studio, and Windows extras, etc. and you can see that the more finely MS is chopped
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
The correct URL is http://cnnfn.com/poll/micropoll.html The results are overwhelmingly in favor of keeping microsoft whole. I'm not sure I disagree - there might be other non-split-up alternatives that I haven't seen yet. Just open-sourcing the code won't do it, imho.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
...they'd probably shatter it so it wouldn't do any harm.
Honestly, could they have picked a worse way to end this trial? Even giving them nothing more than another slap on the wrist and another "no more anticompetitive practices for you" order would have been better, as Microsoft would have then been more likely to continue futilely bashing it's head against Sun and IBM on the high end while getting eaten away by free software on the low end.
I'm sure there are anti-Microsoft fanatics out here who are happy to see Bill get his comeuppance, but think about it. The last thing people who hate Microsoft should want to see is more Microsofts. Sure, they'll only have a few billion dollars in cash a piece, and they'll only have part of the Microsoft software line... so what? Does anyone really expect the corporate culture to change instantly because they're under different names? Will we see Office for Linux now? No.
What we will see is Microsoft forceably saved from it's biggest danger - corporate bloat and sluggishness. I heard someone use the analogy of cutting up a starfish; it doesn't kill the starfish, it just makes more of them. Basically this just drastically reduces the chances that we'll get to see Win32 fade away and see POSIX/X standards develop as a permanent way of ensuring that consumers are never locked into one company's monopoly.
It also sets a hell of a precedent. The original reason for going after Microsoft was bundling IE with Windows, remember? WTF? Should Red Hat be prosecuted for bundling Netscape (and Apache, and a whole lot of other things that are even less "a part of the operating system" than a web browser) with their Linux distribution? Look for the
"Federal Software Guidelines and Regulations" series of 1000 page books to start appearing in university libraries everywhere, on the same floor that's filled with all the other selectively-enforced laws and executive orders of similar titles. Hope you included a nice hefty legal budget in your startup's business plan.
I use Linux, not because I think Microsoft is a horrible monopoly, because I don't want to pay for Windows, or even because Windows crashed on me every week and needed to be reinstalled every year when I did use it. Well, actually that last one was a biggie. I use Linux because it has greater capabilities, cleaner code and APIs, and because it gives me more choices of kernel (I could move to a BSD or even a recent commercial Unix without much upset), user interface (some of which I like better than Windows, although Explorer is good), and applications. I don't have to worry that the programs and documents I produce today will be obsolete tomorrow like thousands of Win16 programs and Win* file formats are today. I don't have to worry that Linux is going to get worse or stagnant (when do we get a non-DOS based, stable consumer OS from Microsoft, exactly? Even Win2K doesn't seem any more stable than NT), because there are so many Linux options to choose from, so when Slackware or SuSE falters moving to Mandrake or Debian isn't the end of the world.
But that's not why everyone uses Linux. A lot of people avoid Microsoft because of their outrageous pricing (have you looked at buying a non-OEM license on anything from Microsoft lately?) and instability. Some people switch from Windows because Linux is better on a relative scale; I think most switch because Windows isn't good enough in the absolute sense.
With a Microsoft breakup, that won't be the case. Windows may get cheaper and more stable... not enough to satisfy anyone who has used free software, but enough to slow the expansion of Linux on the desktop, enough to give it a new shot at taking over the embedded and server markets. It may still not be a quality product... but that never stopped McDonalds. People like familiarity too.
Hm. Well, that's my rant for today. I got one hour of sleep last night, and it looks like it shows. I hope there was some coherent logic up there; but basically I'm trying to get across the concept "Microsoft breakup == bad".
The hell with breaking up Microsoft, lets just break up Bill Gates! Dip him in some liquid nitrogen, apply a 14 pound sledgehammer liberally, and sell the parts as religious icons to the devout Microsoft zealots!
-=Bob
If the story is right, I'll go out on a limb and say that Gates will choose to abandon the OS company (calling it Windows), and go with the apps company, which would retain the Microsoft name.
Why? All of MS's current profitability is currently in apps, Linux is making it so that OS's can't get too high-priced, and MS apps would still hold a virtual monopoly on both Windows AND Mac desktops. Think of all the software categories that will still have little or no competition on these platforms: office apps (several categories right there), development tools, internet tools, and more.
Given the familiarity barrier to entry for other tools, and the ability to leap into new platforms with money and customers in hand, Gates should be able to profitably milk that cow for some time.
Too bad, really, that they didn't go for breaking them into more parts.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
> What evidence do you have that any secret API's > were given out by the Windows team?
:-).
Back when I worked at Vantive, I was doing a port of their UNIX product to Windows NT (now I spend my time helping people port from NT to Linux, so it goes
We were using MS-SQLserver for the port. Now this was back in the NT3.1 timeframe. MS-SQLserver could do a very neat thing. It could take an authenticated Windows users who had logged onto the domain, and allow that user to access a SQL database *without needing to log on again* - ie., the Windows domain password was being used to control access to the SQLserver database.
Wow, what a neat trick, I thought. I'd really like to be able to do that to control access to the Vantive product (as then a username/password would only be created once, in the Domain, and the SQLserver and Vantive products would both use the same logon/password pair).
So I started to look to see how it was done.....
Can you guess ? It was not possible given *any* published API's at the time.
Now (5+ years later), the SSPI is revealed as the way they probably did this.
But no one outside MS had access to that API. Oracle on NT couldn't do this (no single sign on). Sybase & Informix on NT couldn't either....
Don't tell me the OS team don't leak private API information to the app development team without explaining the story above please.
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
I am a lawyer; this isn't legal advice. See an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction if you need legal advice.
:) Remember, Stone is the one who claimed to be entitled to "artistic license" *in a documentary* when he was called on his fabrications . . . (specifically, _Born on the Fourth of July)_)
>Interesting theory, except how do you explain Microsoft Office for the
>Macintosh?
He wrote, "Oliver Stone voice." That means there's no need to be consistent, or pay any attention to the facts
>Everyone seems to forget about that one.
Noone has forgotten that, not even Judge Jackson. The Findings of Fact were quite clear about the use of the mac version to maintain windows dominance. Microsoft threatened not to ship the *completed* next version of Office as a means of leveraging Apple to make IE the "default" browser for Mac. This was to undercut Netscape, thereby lessening the general threat of Netscape applications.
hawk, esq.
> So instead of having just one dirty handed, predatory, monopolizing
:).
> business, we're going to have two! What a great solution!
That's (at least) three companies too few. I'm in the minority here, but I also have a lot more backround on both the legal and economic end of it than most of those getting paid to talk about it (so someone hire me
Splitting into two companies is only a start. It is part of the solution, because the os and office monopolies are both taking losses to benefit each other--to the detriment of the consumer. Better information on API's than the competitors, for example. The windows monopoly would have *no* incentive to give this information to the office folks and not to competitors of office after a breakup.
Putting office by itself, separated from windows, solves part of the problem (particularly, the preferential treatment and the leveraging of the OS monopoly to create the office monopoly).
However, it *doesn't* solve the windows monopoly. It takes away some of the things ms has abused to create the monopoly, but not all of them. Windows should be split into at least three pieces, either formed from microsoft, or by auction of source code rights to other parties. This creates three different entities that can sell windows.
That's four companies, and I'd put the miscellaneous (hardware, msn, etc.)
into another company.
> The feds are going about this entirely the wrong way, they're thinking
>that software is somehow like oil, when infact it isn't anything like it.
>The product has different properties which make breaking up the company
>ineffective.
>1. It costs virtually nothing to copy data
This makes some changes in the economics, but doesn't change the
fundamental result. Monopolies overcharge whether they have a
marginal cost or not. Consumers are harmed by this monopoly either
way. No marginal cost is just the extreme form of the situation which
creates monopolies in the first place.
> 2. Source between these two companies can be shared in such a way that
>they can basically keep operating as one company
No, your economics is *completely* off base here. Aside from the fact
that that would be illegal, they would be sued by the *shareholders*
of each of the companies. As a single company, it makes sense for
the os division to give up $20 to make $50 in the office division.
As separate companies, it would not.
> 3. The two companies would have different products (OS / Everything
>Else) and therefore don't have to compete against eachother unlike the
>oil and phone company breakups!
Competing against each other has nothing to do with this. The problem
is that the monopolies are used to prevent *other* companies from
competing, which increases price and decreases quality. There is *no*
need for the units to compete against each other (unless we make multiple
versions of windows).
> It's just a bad decision, I've said it from the start, and I'll say it
You can say it as often as you want, but it would require a fundamental
change in antitrust law to reach another decision. Argue for the
change if you want, but arging that this decision is wrong is to
simply ignore the facts and law. ANd for the record, consumers
would be worse off under the change, while monopolists would be
better off.
hawk, esq.
Guess again. We had multiple phones which we owned long before that.
The fiber optics networks were well on their way, too. The breakup certainly leveled the playing field for the long distance competitors, but it was neither necessary to their existence, nor did it precede them.
And unless you get your internet history from Al Gore, the internet preceded the breakup by a very long time.
And then be forced to fix all their bugs!
There's been a lot of speculation about whether being broken up would make the sum of Microsoft's parts more or less valuable than the whole. Personally I think: Not.
Microsoft's market machine so far has acted like a nutcracker - squeezing customers and competitors alike between it's two jaws: control of application api's through the os on the one hand and control of competitive os's through the apps on the other. Breaking Microsoft into two parts will be much like removing the nutcracker's fulcrum. You may still be able to poke people with iether half, but can no longer break their nuts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^crack nuts with it.
Without their made-in-heaven monopoly machine to fuel their unbelievable profitability there's only one direction for their earnings to go: down.
Microsoft's market cap is based on expectation of unending growth at a rate serveral times that of the computer industry as a whole. To date that fairytale has come true, year after year for more than 20 years. No longer. First, their earnings aren't going to grow any more, their going to shrink. Second, Ballmer is right - the rats^H^H^H^H^Hbrains are getting out. So are the execs. For the simple reason that Microsoft's options aren't worth a whole lot any more.
On that subject, absolutely the worst thing that could happen to Microsoft is a long slow decline in their stock price. This would be much more harmful that, for example, a sudden drop by a factor of 10. The reason? The long slow decline means that Microsoft options will never be worth a cent. Whereas if their stock would just fall into the basement and get it over with they could possibly once again use options as a useful tool.
There are other factors that will stress Microsoft's share price. Not the least of which is the availabilty of at least one superior alternative that costs nothing (or something, it's your choice). There is only one possible result. Microsoft will have to do major surgery on it's OEM prices and that means "goodbye 95% gross profit margin". In turn meaning more decline in the stock price.
And don't forget the upcoming class action suits, and the still-to-be-filed damage suits from competitors that suffered from their illegal practices.
All these troubles would be multiplied if any evidence of financial misrepresentation turns up.
OK, enough, enough. Time for my prediction. I predict that Microsoft's market cap will fall to less than that of General Motor's, which is somewhere in the $50 billion range. That means a further factor of 5 fall from where they are now. I predict that it will take a year to fall that low as shareholders really begin the understand the implications of losing at trial and being beaten by a free OS at the same time.
In the long run I don't see a lot of value in the Baby Bill's. I see the office monopoly eroding quickly, and I don't see the underlying problems of the software being fixed. I don't see Microsoft's good name ever being restored, nor Gate's. In short, I see Microsoft's total value falling to less than, for example, CA's, in other words, it's going to be decimated.
Well, Bill, it's going to be tough for you to swallow but sincerely believe you went out of your way to earn this.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
> Why couldn't you use ImpersonateXxx/OpenThreadToken/RevertToSelf functions
:-).
:-).
:-).
Ah, the peanut gallery
Yes I was waiting for this comment
So, tell me how you made those functions work *OVER A TCP CONNECTION*, NOT A NAMED PIPE, in NT 3.1 ?
No answer, well SHUT UP THEN !
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
(Who is feeling in a pissy mood today
What I find interesting about this filing that all this is going to have a limited impact on the status quo. I can take an educated guess on the following that will happen.
1. Microsoft will provide uniform pricing for their OEM products, and of course, we'll have both "loaded" and "plain vanilla" versions of Windows 98/ME/2000 for OEM's to load. Microsoft may deeply cut the price of Windows 98/ME/2000, so about a year from now, Windows ME will cost $29.95 for "plain vanilla" version and $39.95 for "loaded version"; Windows 2000 Professional (or its successor) will cost $79.95 for the "plain vanilla" version and $89.95 for the "loaded" version. And will be sold as a separate cost item for all system sales.
2. The applications company may be particularly bad news for Sun and Corel. Given that the vast majority of the world's business data files outside of very large databases are stored in Microsoft Office format, you can tell what kind of impact a Linux version of MS Office will do to the Linux market. Sun and Corel will be wondering why their office suite sales have gone down the proverbial toilet....
In short, we may have more "choice," but most computer users are so used to Microsoft products anyway that I expect its dominance--even when the company is split in two--to continue for quite a while. In fact, I won't be surprised that about three years from now the two split companies will have a combined market capitalization of US$1 trillion or more, mostly because BOTH companies will continue to be profitable, which is sadly not true of most Linux companies right now.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I just listened to Joel Klein from the government side on CNN, and one provision in the proposal requires the OS division to disclose the API to all software developers in as much detail as it would to the Office division. This is good, this finally makes it illegal to cripple competing developers by building in secret API's (and there are lots of them in Windows).
Second, the proposal explicitly makes it illegal to threaten hardware vendors with less favorable conditions if they wish to ship hardware with competing software.
As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft need not be split up if these (and a few other) stipulations can be enforced. Find a hidden API in Windows used by Office? Sue them. Internet Explorer using a better API to DNS than the documented one? Sue them.
Sigh. If the provisions of the proposal that are just sidelines to the case now were more easily enforced in the industry generally, the world would look a lot cleaner, and the entire trial circus that is going on now would be moot. I am as tired of the government case as I am of Microsofts, I do not think a breakup per se will do anyone any good, but I'm glad to see some rather common-sense ideas about fair competition in the software market gain a foothold in law.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
What about them? Public policy should not be subservient to the interests of Wall Street and those investors who speculate in the stock market. Contrary to popular belief, the stock market is not your friend. It may go up, it may go down, whether or not that is "fair" is irrelevant.
> In fact, there are about a dozen PUBLISHED API's
> on NT that allow you to authenticate users in various ways.
There are *NOW*. Didn't you read my post ?
This was on NT3.1, before even the LogonUser API
was public.
Although the MS SQLserver group obviously knew about it (along with the SSPI APIs).
That's the point. MS App developers get inside knowledge that other developers don't get until later.
Don't you think Oracle would have *liked* to have done single sign on in thir NT product, just like SQLServer did ? They couldn't because the OS division doesn't give advanced knowledge of APIs like that to MS-Application competitors. This is one of the reasons MS is in the "illegal monopoly, let's break 'em up" position it is in today.
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
--
Thus, this is important and relevant information.
This is NOT just a Linux site. This ruling would definitely affect all computer users.
P.S.: If I had any moderation points, I would be moderating this post down as "overrated" instead of posting. It seems that any post saying "Slashdot sucks now" gets moderated up these days. *sigh*
the point I was tring to make is that you must put something inbetween thouse parts of Microsoft products taht give it the advantage. Force them to make publick all teh little extras Word knows about Excel so that a user could use Word Perfect with Excel or even Word Perfect with MS Word.
Please keep in mind that a bunch of thouse DLL's that MS office uses redoes major chunks of the windows API. Ever notice that Word can scroll the same speed forwards and backwards? What other program can do that? I haven't seen one (of course with todays computers, I'm not sure I would notice)
"This is NOT just a Linux site"
You must be joking. Count the number of pro-linux and anti-Microsoft stories posted on slashdot, create a ratio of those two against the sum of misc stories that appear here.
My point was that this has been horribly blown out of proportion, there have been no less then a dozen stories posted on the matter of this trial. Why not simply wait until the end of the trial instead of speculating and drooling every other day over some new tidbit? How long will this go on? Years? Until the appeal process is over?
Why not post some Pro-microsoft stories on Slashdot instead? How about mentioning the money Bill Gates donates to minority kids for scholarships? Or how about the financial results for Microsoft for the last year? Maybe some more information on the X-box? Or how well Windows 2000 is selling?
Of course those stories don't belong here, Slashdot _is_ a site for Linux, and Linux these days is associated with Microsoft bashing.
P.S. Good luck on those moderation points, nice to know that anyone who mildly likes Microsoft's products has no opinion in your eyes. For a group supposedly dedicated to free speech, you sure are fascist in your approach to such liberties. Free the code, shut up Microsoft supporters eh?
I never stated my position about the Microsoft case in my post. Please don't assume you know what it is.
As a matter of fact, I'm typing this post up on IE as we speak, because I find it a superior product (though not without its flaws) to Netscape. I'm also personally against any Microsoft breakup.
However, precisely because I use Microsoft product, and because of Microsoft's general importance in the world, I find these stories very relevant.
Have you ever watched a game of sports? Do you just always wait till the end and check the score? The process is often just as interesting as the result. Perhaps you're not interested, but it would be arrogant of you to claim that others shouldn't be interested either. It would be even more arrogant to claim that anyone who is interested must be a Microsoft hater.
I've never denied that Slashdot is a Linux-oriented site with a general anti-MS bias. However, I said it was not a Linux-ONLY site. Btw, note that in every story about MS, there are many anti-breakup posts, such as this, this, and this, all from this story.
In short, this is relevant news that a lot of people, both pro- and anti-MS, care about, and just because you don't care about it doesn't mean no one else does, or should, or that anyone who does is anti-MS.
Yes, it is a big difference. It was a "very loosely based-on-true-story" movie, but Stone tried (at first) to pass it off as a documentary.
> Worried that your little reverse-engineering
:-). Samba may be many things, but "little" it isn't any more :-).
:-).
> projects won't be possible for much longer
That's funny
We now have *permanant*, *full time* contributors from HP, SGI, Veritas and IBM, that's not counting the full time people at VA Linux Systems and Linuxcare.
What's the matter, not *worried* about a little reverse engineering project, are you... ?
What, like a little UNIX reverse engineering project called "Linux"
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
> It's explicitly stated that you can only do
> standard (i.e. supply uname/pwd at SQL Server
> logon time) logon off a TCP/IP
Do you remember your NT API history ? I do (you aparently do not).
In NT3.1, there was *no way* to authenticate a user given just a username and password.
The LogonUser API was only released in the NT3.5 timeframe.
The SQLServer Team used the *undocumented* LSALogonUser API I believe (not having access to their source code I cannot be sure of course).
As I stated - a use of an *undocumented* API to give advantage to a Microsoft application product on a Microsoft OS. An API *not* available to other application vendors.
I don't think this is much in question from people who were working on this at the time.
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
> The SQL developers apparently went to the NT
:-).
> developers, asked how to do this, and were told.
> When other significant customers (not
> reverse-engineering cloners), who happened to be
> outside Microsoft, wanted the same feature,
> Microsoft published it.
>
> What's your complaint
Nice story. Ok, would you call Oracle, Informix or Sybase "reverse engineering cloners" ?
No ?
Then why couldn't they do single sign on under NT ? Why only SQLServer ? Maybe a hidden API ?
Microsoft have been caught doing this, again and again and again. Red handed. Why do you thing the DOJ wants an MS Apps and MS OS companies. To stop *exactly* this kind of thing happening.
BTW: The "reverse engineering cloners" comment is especially funny, as MS Lanman was originally developed by 3COM, MS-SQLServer was based on the Sybase code (and still uses the same over the wire transport TDS format)... Should I go on ?
Who are the reverse engineering cloners here
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
> has repeatedly stated that SQL Server has never > used unpublished APIs to acheive its performance
Well good for him. I wasn't talking about performance. I was talking about single sign on integration with the OS. Which can be a significant driving sales factor. Why do you think we try so hard to do the same thing for Samba ?
> I really think that makes the whole "MS uses
> unpublished APIS to its advantage" argument moot
> don't you think?
No I don't, for reasons stated above. Performance is not the only way to gain an advantage over the competition.
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.