Slashdot Mirror
Bush Administration Stops Microsoft Breakup
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by the Bush Administration to cease its drive to break up Microsoft, which has already been found guilty of violating U.S. anti-trust law in a complaint filed by the Federal Government and 19 states. See the BBC or CNN for more. It isn't clear what wristslap, errr, remedy the Justice Department will seek instead. Update: 09/06 15:21 PM GMT by M : Declan McCullagh of Wired notes: "The text of the DOJ announcement is here. Wired News has an article. Also, the DOJ says a 'Senior Antitrust Division Official' will brief reporters at the department's DC headquarters at 11:30 am ET, so look for some followup stories from that."
Certainly took MS's checks long enough to clear...
Where does this say Bush was the reason for stopping the MS breakup? I see a reference to the Bush administration, but I assume that means someone he appointed (ie John Ashcroft) is the person who "Stop[ped] the Microsoft Breakup".
How can Ashcroft defend his tough-as-nails posture regarding alleged computer crime by a small-time russian company who threatens nobody, while refusing to pursue an in-the-bag conviction already won in part, of a notorious bad actor whose conduct will affect virtually every computer user on the planet?
Ashcroft's new motto: "We're tough on crime, except when they donated to our campaign fund."
The article that I first saw on CNet said that this announcement was *ONLY* the Justice Department and that this did *NOT* represent the wished of the individual states.
The newest CNet article is unclear, saying that the Justice Department and the States and the Judge will all meet over the next two weeks.
There might be a chance that the states won't go along with this. The Attorneys General of the states tend to be more progressive in consumer protection.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Legislative Branch - Makes the Laws = Congress
Executive Branch - Enforces the Laws = President
Judicial Branch - Evaluates the Laws = Judges
The Department of Justice is part of the Executive branch, as well it should be. The executive branch is charged with law enforcement. Bush can't order the judge in the case to rule in a certain way, but he can tell the government lawyers prosocuting the case to proceed the way he wants them to. Checks and balances are still maintained. Even if Bush were to dangle the carrot of a higher position within the courts in front of the judge checks and balances would still be maintained because congress would still have to aprove her for her new position.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
"All your presidents are belong to us!"
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
I'm no fan of MS, but given my current job search headaches I'd prefer not to see a recession get triggered by something that could be avoided. Selfish? Short-sighted? probably. But I'd like the economy to recover sooner than later, and a MS breakup would result in later.
cz
In some ways this would be like FDR addressing congress on December 8, 1941, "Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
We will therefore abandon Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Philippines, and all of our bases in the Pacific and leave it to the japanese as a reward for their initiative and innovative spirit, but leave them with a stern warning not to invade Texas."
What this translates to:
May bundle and give products which are the sole source of income, and thus drive out of business, no more than 35 companies per year.
May not bundle and provide free of cost any of the following: oil, natural gas, lumber, minerals or mineral ores.
May not give more than $500 M^H^H^H^H^H$1 billion per annum to the Republican Party, conservative think tanks, and special shadowy organizations which shall remain nameless.
May not give more than $10.00 per annum to any parties other than those affiliated with the Republican Party, unless they have a popular, but nutty candidate which is competing in an upcoming election and may draw away votes from a party which will be remain nameless.
The Microsoft CEO may not spend more than 3 consecutive nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.
May not include less than 64,000 bugs per major release.
Will release a special W. version of Word with a spell checker which forbids use of words over 7 letters or 2 syllables in length.
Microsft products shall be distributed to all enemies of the USA, free of cost, so that we shall know of their weaknesses.
Should Microsoft be found in violation of any* of these conditions, the CEO will be sent to bed without dessert and grounded to his multimillion dollar mansion for one week of his choosing.
* Excepting the oil and gas provisions, under which punishment shall consist of the Microsoft CEO briefly discovering the resting place of James Hoffa, Sr.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It might be more complicated than it looks.
I'm not sure I understand the DOJ announcement, but doesn't it say it wants to take action immediately? If I understand it right, it claims a break-up would take too long.
In short, they want to punish Microsoft effectively before XP hits the shelves.
Oh, geeze, I really hope I read that right... It might actually be a good thing, you know...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Remember: if you're a monopoly and you illegally use your monopoly power to stifle competition, you have to pay triple damages to the people you've harmed.
Let's take a hypothetical example of a small start-up worth $50 million at its peak which was brutally hammered by Microsoft's unethical business practices. This start-up might not be worth anything anymore, but whoever's handling the start-up's business affairs (even though it's defunct and bankrupt) can sue Microsoft for a hundred fifty million in damages.
Let's take a look at Be, which was worth (at its peak) $120 mil--or, at least, that's the highest price Apple ever offered for them. Be is currently worth less than a six-pack of Budweiser. Since Be was crushed in large part due to Microsoft's unethical business practices, that's $360 million dollars in damages right there--or a third of a billion.
Now let's take Sun Microsystems, which is unarguably going to be hurt by Microsoft refusing to include Java in WinXP. How many billions of dollars can Sun claim in damages? Now triple that, and you get an idea of how large Microsoft's Sun-induced headache is going to be.
The interesting thing is not going to be the breakup, or the conduct remedies, or anything else. It's when the dust finally settles and this is all over, the US government is going to wind up placing big-ass, gnarled, iron-studded clubs into the hands of the Mongol Hordes who hate Microsoft.
That's gonna hurt.
And let's not even get into the copyright issue. Under American law, any monopoly which leverages intellectual property to preserve their monopoly has their work turned over to the public domain. This isn't something the Feds or the state AGs are pursuing, because they probably think that would kill Microsoft outright, and they don't want to do that. But how long until Sun, or IBM, or someone else, discovers this--I'd be surprised if they didn't know it already--and files a suit in Federal court to get Windows turned over to the public domain, and thus slaughters Microsoft outright?
For Microsoft, the pain isn't really going to begin until after the trial ends. That's why they're stalling as long as they can--because when the trial ends, that's when the Mongol Hordes arrayed against them start chanting, Bring the Pain, Bring the Pain.
(And yes, the DOJ has used that nifty bit of copyright law as leverage to get RIAA to do things the DOJ's way. If the DOJ can use it against RIAA, then anyone can use it against Microsoft.)
Now you might speculate that they're taking the quote out of context, or that there might be another implication to what he said (or almost didn't say), but to only go from one source and ignore all others is clearly very poor investigation.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement