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Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Appeal
Geoff writes "I assume you've gotten a few zillion of these already, but since I don't see it on the front page yet, the Supreme Court has rejected Microsoft's appeal of the antitrust verdict." It should be noted that this was expected.
Remember, just because the DoJ has backed off, doesn't mean that the states can't seek independant remedies.
If they push hard enough, they might be able to impose their view of what punishment should be.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
[BZZZZZZZ] Wrong... tell 'em what they're going home with Don Pardo.
So you're telling me that the tech market in the last 5 years has been technically sound and the ONLY thing that made them collapse was Microsoft? I think you may need to brush up on how the market works. Sure, bellweather stocks influence smaller stocks, but if a smaller stock is FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND it will survive.
So it wasn't the irrational exuberance of the telecom industry that fucked up Cisco, Lucent, et al, it was the gov't action against Microsoft? So it wasn't the fact that many pure dot.com companies were generating NO revenue that wasn't their downfall, it was the gov't action against Microsoft?
Nice troll. No clue.
This isn't a ruling at all, it's simply a refusal to hear a case.
It was expected that this would be the case. But, again, nothing was upheld by the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS is simply stating, "Look, the appeals court appears to be dealing with this and we would rather let them do so for now. If that doesn't work out, then come talk to us again and we'll think about it some more."
You are reading way too much into it. It's pretty much a non issue, and the most important thing happening is the negotiations at the appeals level.
Sheldon is correct. A denial of cert means
nothing.
"...this [Supreme] Court has rigorously insisted that such a denial [to hear a case] carries with it no implication whatever regarding the Court's
views on the merits of a case which it has declined to review. The Court has said this
again and again; again and again the admonition has to be repeated."
(Justice Frankfurter, Maryland v. Broadcast Radio Sho, Inc. 338 US 912, 1950)
I agree - you are right on the money. I feel your statements of "Simple OS Layer" and Microsoft opening integration are indirect cries for MS to FINALLY open source on its kernal(s).
Imagine, what a cheap cost effective way for the goevernment to hand down punishment - instead of breaking up a company, or executing oversight committees - just say "open your source for windows by Friday" and shut the door on them.
If Microsoft was worth its brass in development engineering, they would want open source kernals for Windows, so then everyone would have a platform to run their truly advanced software that integrates into Windows that makes it so unique and special - software like A MP3 player!! and A WEB BROWESER (oohhhh!!) oh wait A LOG IN WITH PICTURES!!!!
Of course, MS could just be 95% marketing and 5% actual innovation..
--cgeek--
Jesse Wolfe Sr. Manager Systems Integration
Thats blatantly false - Microsoft products, as a whole, are not innately superior - they're superior because of the power MS is able to bring behind them. Proprietary APIs are a good example - noone can make a mass-appeal alternative to Office because MS likes to play games with the file formats and uses hidden API hooks into the OS. If other vendors were able to see into those hidden areas, they could easily make a product that matched Office. If vendors were able to remove and replace MS applications that ship with the OS, then Dell and HP and whatnot would be open to distribution agreements with the creators of this hypothetical suite.
This would be a perfect opportunity for the average consumer to realize that Microsoft isn't the only source for computing. Which of course is exactly what MS DOESN'T want, and what they use all the monopoly power to stop from happening.
Let me make this clear: No, MS thugs aren't beating down my doors, making me use windows. But, with thier monopoly posistion, they are able to use market forces as an alternative to competing themselves - so rather than making a superior product, they simply make an okay product that is the most visible and easily obtained. Thats a valid marketing strategy, but it wouldn't work if they couldn't leverage thier OS monopoly to power it.