Slashdot Mirror
MS and the DOJ Return to the Ring
Johan Jonasson writes "ZDNet reports that the opening round in the appeals phase of the Microsoft case gets under way Monday, when the company is scheduled to fire the next salvos in its battle to prevent a breakup. In a 150-page document, the company will try to convince an appeals court to overturn a lower court ruling that would split the software giant into two parts."
... the M$ antitrust lawsuit or the election?
--
BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL
Someone please moderate the above post as Troll, because only a moron would think that the AT&T breakup was a bad thing. The only thing that has died was an illegal monopoly that overcharged for everything and didn't offer any new services.
Here are some of the new technologies and products that have come out since the break up:
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
No third party has ever been able to create an API that's pervasive in Windows. Even OpenGL is nowhere near as popular as DirectX. By having the browser integrated into Windows, all Windows programmers can be assured that its API is available, regardless of what features the user installed or didn't install.
I'm not saying that MS shouldn't be punished. From a pure technical point of view, they did nothing wrong. No, MS should be punished because of their underhanded schemes to keep competitors from gaining a foothold in the Windows market.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
If it was a Linux antitrust case, we could have got twice as much argument in our favour in 35 pages. We have benchmarks to prove it.
Innovation did not die. Look at what we have now. It got better.
MS is not *responsible* for the acceptance of computers into the home.. that would have happened *anyway*, as technology progressed. MS just leveraged it so they would appear to be the sole player.
And this is *not* about the 'Linux' community, it is about antitrust law.
And this will stand as an example to all corporations who think they are above the law.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has set up a web page for No. 00-5212, United States v. Microsoft, and No. 00-5213, New York, et al. v. Microsoft. The page includes a schedule and court documents.
In addition, you can join an official mailing list to be notified of submission of new pleadings or court orders.
According to James Grimaldi of The Washington Post, Microsoft intends to target District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in its 150-page appeal Monday. Others predict it is a distraction to demand recusal for Jackson's comments to news media, released after his decision.
As I mentioned in discussing another /. topic, the D.C. Circuit Court judges are exceptionally savvy about technology, and are equipped with Apple Powerbooks. Unfortunately, however, it appears that some of the judges on the panel will have to recuse themselves because they were Justice Department employees before becoming judges--and those judges had considerable antitrust experience, in contrast to the remaining judges.
Let's hope that the current popularity among some "pundits" to bash the judiciary does not carry over to politicizing and weakening the verdict all of us need in this case in order to carry out business in this new era.
Yeah this Christmas at a cinema near you "The Fellowship of the Ring"
Starring:
Bill Gates as Sauron
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson as Gandalf
Association for Competitive Technology as misc Orcs and Wargs.
AOL as Saruman
First off, one thing to remember about appellate judges. They're extremely busy people, with very little time to waste. If you want to score points with an appellate judge, the way you do it is to keep your arguments clear, concise, and realistic. If there were three "real errors" in your trial and another twelve "didn't affect the outcome, but still wrong", ignore the twelve and focus on the three.
If you put all fifteen in your brief and force the judges to figure out, on their own, that three of the issues were worthwhile and the other twelve was just attorney ego-stroking, don't be surprised if Los Federales take a very dim view of you.
Microsoft lost in trial court, but they wouldn't have lost as badly if they hadn't committed the cardinal sin of pissing off the judge. You can get past any legal hurdle in any courtroom except that one.
With a 150-page legal brief, which the appellate judges will have to examine point-by-point in their opinion, Microsoft is guaranteeing to make a lot of judges on the appellate bench unhappy, too.
Were I Microsoft, I'd have focused on only a handful of issues (and maybe made a token attempt at discrediting James Allchin, since he turned out to be Boies' best witness). I sure as hell wouldn't go about writing a 150-page monster which is guaranteed to make me enemies of the judges before I ever set foot in their courtroom for oral arguments.
First, you aren't allowed to introduce new evidence at the appellate level (except in extremely unusual circumstances). There's no new testimony allowed, there's no new evidence allowed. All you're allowed to argue on is the court record.
Microsoft had plenty of opportunity to show "features unavailable to them in a non-Microsoft browser". The reality of it is, not only did they not show this, their own witness discredited this claim.
James Allchin's direct testimony (submitted in written form) claimed that customers benefitted from the integration of browser and OS in ways which were not possible with the products being separate. He had seventeen or eighteen points which he hammered on.
When Boies cross-examined Allchin, Boies went step-by-step through Allchin's direct testimony and asked him if those exact same benefits couldn't be obtained by downloading IE 4.0 as a separate product and installing it on Win95/B.
On every single claim, Allchin was forced to admit that "correct, the integration offers no advantage in this case".
Boies' cross of Allchin ought to do in the Litigants' Hall of Fame. Allchin was bloodily eviscerated on the witness stand, and Microsoft's strongest witness turned out to be the strongest witness, all right... strongest PLAINTIFF'S witness.
They might argue that IE/Win is beneficial to the users, but the court record shows MS's own witness admitting, seventeen times, that the integration conferred no benefit.
In other words, they're just putting that argument in there to look good. I'd expect the appellate judges to come down pretty harshly on them for it.
Another thing to keep in mind--the last time the appellate bench overruled Jackson, they said that tying products together was lawful as long as it conferred a benefit to the consumer. Most people don't remember that; all they remember is "they said the `integration' was okay". Microsoft is apparently depending on the appellate court to say that integration is always okay.
But if the appellate court holds to their earlier opinion, Microsoft is in a hell of a lot of hot water.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Errr, some window managers have start menus.
I was speaking in this case specifically about the installation of Gnome included with Red Hat 7. Its interface is nearly identical to Windows 95 - the maximize/minimize/close icons, the start menu, the taskbar, even the clock on the taskbar. And to top it off it's a less responsive GUI than Windows 95 running on the same hardware is (though it gets some points in that it tends to crash less).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
> being a monopoly is illegal.
Is the cable company illegal?
Is the gas company illegal?
Is the electric company illegal?
Is the water company illegal?
Is the US Mail System illegal?
Monopolies, by themselves, are NOT illegal.
The state recognizes certain monopolies.
You can see the categories here.
Microsoft also is expected to question Judge Jackson's conduct during the trial.
In past filings, company attorneys have argued that Judge Jackson was biased against Microsoft and that he failed to provide them with an adequate arena to present their case. They've also accused Jackson of mishandling the case and applying antitrust laws too broadly. - from ZDNet story
This is incredible chutzpah. They started with a judge (Penfield) who was a political conservative disposed to be sympathetic, and then MS proceded to lie as lamely as possible and really piss him off. MS had plenty of chances to defend itself, but the facts, as found by Penfield, are that MS comported itself as a monopolist, engaged in restraint of trade, and basically has become a criminal under the antitrust laws.
Of course, it doesn't end there. MS then says that it's willing to discuss a satisfactory solution, in that it would simply agree not to be a bad boy for awhile. Its representatives are taken aback and offended at proposals to break MS up. Doh. If for no other reasons, there should be punitive considerations.
I use MSIE on my Mac, I use OE and the Office suite. The San Francisco MS team's Mac products are good. But MS's actions as a corporation have been found to be illegal, and need to be dealt with. Should they pierce the corporate veil, find the individuals who carried out intimidation and other anticompetitive acts, and punish them? I think that's too radical for the judicial system (it would mean nasty polluting CEOs could go to prison, not good for the DemiPubs)... so MS has to pay the piper. Amazingly, MS simply believes it never did any wrong, even as its attorneys were caught up in lies before much of the world press.
-Dave