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Microsoft Loses Delay Appeal
cheesethegreat was the first to submit that Microsoft has lost their appeal to delay their case by requesting a review with the Supreme Court. We mentioned the appeal a few weeks ago. The link doesn't say much more than that the appeals court denied the delay.
You are correct: the resources to create a desktop O.S. are out there. Otherwise Linux, Open/Net/FreeBSd and others wouldn't be here.
A monopoly is not bad or illegal until a company *abuses* that monopoly. IMO, Microsoft has. If you don't believe so, please inform Be and any other now nameless O.S. companies that have been applied any pressure to not deliver.
Also, Microsoft *abuses* their monopoly by leveraging that monopoly into their other products. Whoever controls the Operating System usually can control *what* can actually run on it and *how* those applications run, including but not limited to that application's performance. Microsoft has pressured OEM's to *not* load software onto the computers that the OEM sells. How? By leveraging the monopoly of their desktop Operating System.
And what are they doing with XP? Integrated MSN Messenger, Media Player and other applications. While doing that, they *again* pressure OEM's not to include competitor products, even though they say, "it's what the consumer wants". *THAT* abuses their monopoly. I *will not* have a company tell me what I do or do not want.
So what? They don't control anything but the x86 Desktop market... Of course, they'll *never* try to leverage their desktop Operating System onto other chips (Itanium, Alpha, Mips).. No, they would never do that. They are like the Borg: take a planet(x86), then move on to the next one and conquer it(Itanium). It must be nipped in the bud.
The government has every right to interfere when a company *abuses* their position in the market place. I'm glad everyone doesn't follow the libertarian point of view of "no government interference"... the economy would die in short.
Though I appreciate your opinion, I whole-heartily disagree with it. That's what makes countries like the US good, IMO.
The federal court can't wait to bend over backward and give Microsoft more latitude to continue to abuse their monopoly ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The server market is just not significant. Very few people run their own servers, and companies don't upgrade their servers/routers/firewalls that often. The cash-flow, per unit time, is very small, even though servers (per se) cost a great deal.
The embedded market is also a limited one. Many embedded systems are embedded precicely because replacing the hardware or software would be prohibitive. As such, there's just no money in it. It's less a well, and more a puddle.
Whilst it is true that anybody "can" write a desktop OS for the PC architecture, in order to be competitive, you MUST have OEMs who support it and software houses who develop for it. Many a good system has died, because it was useless to the users. But OEMs are under intense pressure (and have been placed under contracts later ruled illegal) to ONLY supply Microsoft products. Software houses, such as Netscape, SpyGlass, etc, have either been pushed out of business, bought out completely, or had their products stolen. (Microsoft has been found guilty of software theft, in the past, most notably with the disk compression system in DOS 6.0.) Under those conditions, no competitor can thrive, or even survive.
Microsoft pretty much owns TV-based Internet access, via WebTV. And that means that it has a very strong grasp on Internet-aware appliances, once those develop. After all, that is what WebTV essentially is.
As for the market deciding -- it no longer has the power to. For the market to decide to switch away from Microsoft, EVERY SINGLE COMPANY, organization, household, etc, that uses Microsoft products would have to change at the same time, in the same direction, to an alternative that already supports the current Microsoft standard. Failure to do so would mean total chaos. Documents, spreadsheets, databases, etc, would be unreadable. Networks would stop working. Printers would stop printing. In short, civilization is as hooked on Microsoft as any heroin addict is on their drug. Microsoft-specific protocols, such as SMB and NetBEUI, and Microsoft-specific file formats, permeate everything. Any attempt to go "Cold Turkey" would be every bit as lethal as it would be for that addict.
THIS, in my humble(?) opinion, is the great threat Microsoft pose. Their products are just products. The label isn't important. And money, for corporations, is just play-stuff, anyway. The numbers mean nothing more than the numbers on a pinball machine.
BUT the addiction factor. Now, that CANNOT be escaped. Microsoft can tell the market exactly what to do, and the market will respond. The price of failure would be too great.
IMHO, this trial's focus on the Sherman Anti-Trust laws is all fine and well. But the real issues that keep getting mentioned are those addictive ones. Has Microsoft made withdrawl just too dangerous for anyone to contemplate?
If the answer is yes, then the Government damn well better "interfere". A Government exists to prevent dictatorial power-blocs from forming, where that dictator has created conditions such that refusing to be dictated to carries a penalty sufficiently high that your average person will comply.
I dislike the "libertarian" notion of removing "Big Government", alone. It creates a power vaccuum. Such a vaccuum created the monstrosity we know as Microsoft. Power vaccuums are BAD. Even if the power that was in them was "bad", the space left behind when that power is gone is MUCH worse.
TRUE Libertarianism would have to include limiting ALL entities, not just the Government. Otherwise, you replace an elected evil that has legal limits with an unelected one that has no limits at all.
I don't want to live in William Gibson's Neuromancer nightmare, or the sickness of Max Headroom. You might, and that's your choice, but frankly the thought of corporations becoming the latter-day Feudal Lords and Barrons is terrifying to me. You really, truly don't want to back-slide into a Feudal society. You just don't. If you aren't sure why, look through some English history books, some time. Specifically, look up events such as "The Peasents Revolt", the massacres perpetrated by King William and King Rufus, the endless horrors of the Tower of London, and the numerous regional wars (such as the Wars of the Roses).
If companies such as AOL and Microsoft are not subject to law, what's to stop them from buying up a bunch of mobile rocket launchers, and wiping out all who oppose them?
Am I going too far? Maybe not. In the end, what is the difference between destroying a competitor through intimidation, deceit, and industrial espionage, or destroying them with a short-range ballistic missile? The missile would probably work out cheaper, have a much higher chance of success over a shorter time-span, and be much more influential in how other companies act in future.
If the corporate wars have no bounds, then sooner or later, it's going to expand beyond mere price wars, verbal threats and forged video tapes.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The best solution the problem of Microsoft's monopoly is this:
Rule that the "you can't sue us" clause in their licenses is null and void.
That's it; no other intervention is necessary from the government.
Imagine this: Some random large company suddenly finds that they have 100x the cash on hand of any of any company that makes profitable product 'X', which is almost completely unrelated to their original core business. Product 'X' has great promise in the marketspace, so thinking long term they decide to blow all that extra cash to make a virtualy identacal product 'X'. Not only do they give their product 'X' away for 'free', they force everyone to have one by gluing it to the side of their already succesfult product that everyone *needs* to buy, so that it is completely pointless to purchase a product 'X' from anyone else. The other product 'X' companies' demise is guaranteed. Sure, this might seem harmless, and you might think it should be perfectly legal, hell they have the money they should be able to spend it how they want, right? What if you later found out that their motives were to put all the other companies that make product 'X' out of business so that they could then vastly overcharge you for product 'X' once you have nowhere else to go. They could then more then double that original cash pile, and then find some other lucrative product, glue that on too, and start the cycle over again.
This can't be allowed for many reasons. First the consumers of product 'X' are harmed. They loose choice, and demand no longer has any effect on price. Also there is no incentive to improve or maintain the quality of product 'X'. Marketplace innovation is stifled. Secondly, there is no incentive for new companies to go into business to create other new innovative products if there is any chance that this random large company could glue an identical product onto theirs. Innovation is further stifled, the business marketplace and economy suffers, and the consumer gets fewer new innovative products. It's unfortunate that something so subjective like fairness has to be enforced, but to some extent the system has to enforce fairness as a form of self preservation. Plus it's the freedom of individuals that matters, not the freedom of companies, right? You need to enforce a level of "fairness" on competition between companies to guarantee the freedoms of individuals.
This should not delay XP and that would be harmful to consumers.
What needs to happen with this is that equilibrium needs to be restored in the computer marketplace through restraints put on Microsoft limiting how they can limit customers: Namely that hardware vendors that integrate the Windows operating system have every right to modify the desktop, add/remove programs, or develop relationships with other companies for cross-promotion. In Dell starts shipping computers with desktops full of third-party tools, and they replaced IE with Mosaic and removed notepad, then so be it: Let reviewers hash them out and sell the benefits versus detriments to the massive number of vendors which we as consumers get to choose from. Personally, while I don't like Java myself, I think it would be great if vendors preinstall the newest Java Runtime Environment for their customers.
lawyers or r&d ???
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
Split off the Office software company
Share O/S source amoung no less than two new companies (Competition should make Windows _way_ better! Look what it does for Linux distros ;-)
Split MSN/NBC into a seperate company
Allow Gates to hold controlling intrest in no more than one of these companies for a period of 2 years.
That oughta do it. Did I leave anything out? IMHO each of these pieces would be immensely strong and profitable short term, how they fare among the rise of the competition they've cheated nearly to death (Word Perfect, Lotus, Netscape, Novell, etc.) should provide great products.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Actually, splitting up the company is a very simple and pragmatic way of solving the problem. Consider what the problem is: Microsoft has a monopoly on PC operating systems and they're illegally using that to expand their monopoly to other kinds of software by bundling that software with Windows. There are basically three things that you could consider doing to remedy the problem:
IOW, far from being the most intrusive and legally costly strategy for dealing with Microsoft, splitting the company in two as the government proposed is likely to be the least intrusive. It cuts to the very heart of their illegal actions and should be effective in stopping it from happening again in the future. Seems reasonable to me.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
How funny it is that americans argue for competition amongst companies esp. for the chinese/russians, but when a company comes into illegal control, competition is not the answer. On that is on top of the fact that history shows us that EVERY monopoly that has been broken up does better afterwards for consumer and stock owners. Personally, I say keep the idiots together. Just do not allow them to be illegal. Every large company under regs with competition who is not, will lose BIG.
Really, all you "the government is overstepping its bounds" people really need to look at the big picture here. Really, what is the difference between "government power" and "corporate power"? With government power at least can be controlled to some degree by the people(in theory anyways, but corporate power interferes with our elections as well). When corporate power is abused(and i believe ms is guilty of that, but not for trivial "bundling" issues, rather for other reasons), it deserves to be smacked down, as such when government power is abused. Of course, i never thought that it should be something drastic liek splitting them up, but at least some sort of punishment should be placed against them. Call me a hypocrite if you like(libertarian sig at the bottom), but this is my take on it.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Am I the only one on earth who thinks that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson knew what he was doing when he talked to the press?
Fact one: Jackson split off his statement of facts from his statement of law. The statement of facts was very competent and comprehensive.
Fact two: He didn't start talking to the press until after the statement of facts had been filed.
Fact three: This case is huge; it's the biggest anti-trust case in 100 years. There is an enormous amount of money behind Microsoft. Jackson knew that there was zero possibility that the case would be a slam-dunk on appeal. The higher courts have to answer to that much money to some extent; it's impossible to ignore it in a capitalist culture, particularly when soft money elects (read: appoints) Congress and the President.
BE IT RESOLVED, that Jackson had to throw a bone to Microsoft. He gives something for Microsoft to chew on, and he gives the higher courts a way to appear that they are carefully considering the legitimate interests of Capital.
So Jackson threw a fake drug-store doggie bone to Microsoft by talking to the press. They chewed happily on it for a year, virtually ignoring the hefty record of facts that had been compiled at the trial. The issue of Jackson's prejudice was highlighted by Microsoft in their appeal, setting the stage for the Circuit to unanimously affirm almost all of the important facts, while slapping down Judge Jackson.
All the media bite down on the same fake doggie bone. Microsoft thinks they won, because the appellate decision was superficially ambivalent so that the media don't bother reading the record. Meanwhile, the important facts are upheld unanimously, and it seems unlikely at this point that the Supremes will even hear the case.
Here we are, 15 months after Judge Jackson's structural remedy. The remedy is thrown out, but the case was so big that something had to be thrown out in any event. Jackson's victory is that he got the least significant decision he made thrown out, by carefully orchestrating the appearance of prejudice according to a precise time table.
Here we are, 15 months later, and Microsoft has run out of delaying tactics. A new judge will be appointed who is required to do something major, because the facts have been affirmed unanimously and are not within his purview to challenge. He has merely to appear fair-minded, and his decision with respect to remedies will stick.
Stick that in your ear, Microsoft.
Hey you stupid feds: JUST STOP BUYING MICROSOFT'S STUFF
The federal government should just move to a different competitor. I read that all fed agencies shovel over a billion a year at Microsoft in various license fees. Imagine how much a billion a year would help another software company become a viable competitor to Microsoft.
They don't need the courts, use the damn marketplace...
don't hold your breath. Our legal system is unbelievably slow and unwieldy, getting an injunction issued before October 25th is not going to happen no matter how anti-competitive Windows XP is. If there is an injunction issued in time, Microsoft will ask for a temporary lift on that injunction so that it can appeal it and the lift will be approved, leaving them free to begin shipping XP which will make any further attempts to stop XPs anti-competive features moot.
Yes, eventually Microsoft will lose several cases and exhaust all appeals, but I firmly believe that by the time the first case is finally over I (17 year old high school Senior) will be out of college and possibly even a husband/father. The Open-Source and Free Software community can not sit arround hoping for the courts to "kill" Microsoft. Instead, Microsoft must be "killed" by the production of incredible Free Software that totally blow any proprietory products out of the game. There is no reason why this cannot be done, after all Open-Source projects have the advantage of having MANY more developers than any company can hope for. If more developer put forth a serious effort to better existing projects those projects could easily outshine any proprietory competitors.
The main problem with most Open-Source software is it is always playing catch-up to proprietory software. Open-Source developers need to design original and innovative features as well as incorporate existing features. A great start would be Linux Only games, but not just any games, incredible FPSs, RPGs, and Racing Games. Trust me on this, make a great word processor and Joe Sixpack won't give a flying fuck, make an advanced and extremely gory FPS thats only available on Linux, and Joe Sixpack will have the newest copy of Redhat (or any other Distro) with 2 hours of the announcement.
In conclusion, the fall of MS will only be brought about by the development of great, solid, and innovative Free Software (especially in the entertainment areas), not by the courts.
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Here it says
Not a lot more info. Are the court rulings public documents?
Hi!