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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.
Microsoft: Who do you want to sell your domestic policy to today?
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
This ruling means most of Judge Jackson's findings of facts are upheld. It means that Microsoft broke the law. And it means that Bill Gates and the people in Seattle were, quite simply wrong.
But it doesn't mean a thing in terms of Microsoft's behavior, right now. Here comes Windows XP, clearly with Microsoft having set their sites on Real, Inc. Now we'll have to see what sort of a deal Bill can buy from the Bush administration.
Quite frankly I'm surprised that the Bush administration is arguing for oversight, rather than breakup. Fox watching the chickens? I hope not.
No matter what it is. Sure, this isn't major news, but at least the Supreme Court has the wisdom to see how Microsoft was conducting business was wrong.
Now, I figure it's back to the lower courts to see what kind of penalty is recommended.
Most likely, it won't fit the crime.
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
At least it will still take a while for this case to finish. In the mean time the current economy can strenghten again and the general feeling will be more altruistic.
MicroSoft lost this case but there are of course more to be fought. Let's see those before we begin whining.
Anyway. If MicroSoft continues to put out products as they do now they will themselves destroy what they created. Look at the last couple of weeks. All the bad press sure rings a few alarmbells over there. Gartner who has been very lenient (not pro but not contra as well) towards MS are now actively advising to drop MS products in the internet arena.
No... i'm not afraid of the future. MicroSoft will get what it deserves.. whatever it deserves.
This may be obvious, but...
- Anticompetitive behavior prevents new ideas from ever reaching the market. Had MS not been around, there would have been more innovation for sure, but nobody can say exactly where, because it didn't happen that way. Blocking innovation harms consumers in a general sense, and you don't have to point to a specific blocked technology to prove it ('cuz you'll never know if that technology would've died on its own anyway).
- You can't imagine anything but a monopoly controlling the OS market? What a lack of imagination! How about hundreds of vendors offering OS's which are based on public, published, standard APIs, in which competition isn't based on compatibility/lack of compatibility, but on service, platform tuning, etc. Sounds like a healthier marketplace to me.
Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly position has hurt consumers both directly and indirectly.
Firstly, and most easily quantified, is the cost people pay for the operating system. Somewhere buried in the analysis that was floating about at the time of the trial, were the figures which showed that per-unit profits were not only high, but increasing over time. The argument is that this would not be sustainable in a competitive environment. In this situation, the only people benefitting were those with stock or some other interest in Microsoft.
Secondly, past introduced incompatibilities have inconvenienced or cost consumers. Such things as the DR-DOS debacle, or the incompatibility of 'standard' Microsoft file formats, or even the apropriation of file name extensions have put pressure on consumers to go the whole Microsoft way. This costs more money (or encourages copyright violation!), wastes time and is generally unhelpful.
Thirdly, the efforts which Microsoft have engaged in have slowed or stopped competition on a number of fronts. This has had an indirect effect on consumers through lack of options and alternatives. The situation with OS/2 springs to mind.
One can trawl the archives for more quantitative data, and other ways in which this situation has hurt consumers.
Another class of people hurt are developers, systems administrators and the like. Windows has never played nice in a mixed environment, and on occasion has been downright nasty. Mix that with the stability problems that have plagued many Windows versions, the lack of emphasis on security and so on, and it's a nightmare from a support point of view.
Oh! And then there are Macro viruses, Outlook-propogated viruses, and so on. A whole bunch of daft security decisions that have very much hurt consumers. Why would people stick with such virus-prone software? Monopoly perhaps?
I've been modded down before for being anti-Microsoft, but honestly, this is all based on personal experience and that information which has come to light through the anti-trust trials. This isn't malicious slander, it's simply true.
msft hurts other companies by integrating the best ideas in to the OS itself, but that
must be a plus for the consumer.
well, pondering is often a good thing, but pondering "solved" problems from the standpoint of no education is eventually a waste of time.
'K? it is mathematically provable. So, if your pondering does not lead to further understanding along those lines (or to an overturning of accepted theory
So, anything Microsoft "gives away" as a "benefit to consumers" must be seen in the light of the stuff that they do not give away that they make so much money from. The final thing that is provable in economics is that excess money that monopolists extract from a market would ordinarily be money that would belong to other people. Furthermore, it's not just a reshuffling of assets that libertarians think is "ok". By charging excess prices, monopolists also shrink the overall size of the market, destroying value that would belong to society at large. How many small businesses don't upgrade their computers because prices are too high? how many working class kids don't have computers because prices are too high? How many small businesses that could serve those markets simply don't exist? Many Many Many.
stop pondering and take a class in microeconomics, preferably one that requires calculus as a prereq.
First off, Microsoft kills off competition. You will never quite find out how the consumers could have benefitted, because Microsoft has eliminated possible new advances that could have competed with them.
But more than anything, we are now seeing the most obvious, direct, and "see, they are clearly a monopoly" harm: raised prices. It's even worse than just raised prices; it's clear that the advances in Windows and Office are really slowing down, so Microsoft is essentially forcing you to pay more for less. Microsoft is simply milking its customers, and even threatening them to audit them if they don't move to the new program.
If that isn't consumer harm, then I don't know what is.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
Microsoft's integration on the OS level is just being used to leverage an advantage. Applauding their supposed innovation ingores the obvious problems of single providers. Let's take music as an example.
If we assumed that Microsoft would integrate music into their OS, then no other company would be foolish enough to create a music solution. It would crash and burn before the might of Microsoft. (There is the possibility that many companies might attempt to be bought out by Microsoft... but this is a different issue.)
Now with only Microsoft as a provider, we are hindered by one development path. No one will innovate because there is no profit in innovation if Microsoft can simply copy what you have with an army of programmers.
The end result is a single attempt at a solution where everyone must use Microsofts results regardless of merit.
Contrast this to a system where the OS level is simply a layer and a music solution could be created by anyone and you see quickly that competition would give a better result. With many developers taking risks for the possiblity of profit, variety results in a better population of products. Eventually a winner emerges. Nothing had to change in the OS to make this happen... it's already in place with a seperation of OS and applications.
Integration could easily be made possible for all developers, but this bites into Microsofts profits. They wont open integration to other developers because it's a huge advantage for their own products.
I hope this explains it well enough.
here's why:
it is pretty damn near impossible to buy a computer in a mainstream store that isn't loaded with unneccesary and clunky microsoft products
once you get said machine home and try to make any modifications to what is loaded on it or try to move anything around, the computer then crashes on an even more regular basis.
if you are one of those weirdos who likes netscape, you suffer slow operation of the program, can't look at all websites because many designers are short-sighted enough to only test them in i.e., and generally have to put up with a lot of crap just to use a program that isn't microsoft in a microsoft environment.
if you are barely computer literate and/or just want a computer to play around with, do homework on, etc, you are at the mercy of windows just because other operating systems seem daunting and microsoft is the most accessible system everywhere.
so, yes, microsoft hurts the consumer by eliminating choice, by dictating to the consumer what they can and cannot use on the consumer's computer, and by driving other companies out of business, and thereby eliminating jobs and healthy competition which would serve to control prices.
in short, bill gates is the devil. ;-)
"Why is all this crap here?" -- 4-year-old Brandon
This is important, people!
It means that the last door on this ruling has now closed for good (well, as much as anything closes for good in the legal system). That opens up two critical items.
First, the case that is now before the new judge is no longer contaminated by any doubt about the facts. MS, which might have been taking a delaying tactic in hopes of still getting the facts overturned, has lost that hope. That doesn't mean they won't delay as much as possible, but it does mean that they're now limited. As long as there was a possibility of overturning the findings of facts, they could spin delays to their hearts content. If a settlement was imposed, an injunction would almost certianly have been granted while the findings of fact were still in question. That finding is no longer in legitimate question, so that avenue is gone.
Second, and probably more important in the long term, the solidification of the findings of fact opens the door for damage suits against MS. IMHO it was not a co-incidence that MS settled with DR shortly after the initial finding. But there are many more suits pending, and some of the plaintiffs have no reason to hold back.
And where does this lead? Microsoft goes of and grudgingly does this. A round of competition starts. Microsoft then releases a new OS with a revised tool set and a new set of "standards." And they make any use of the old "standards" heavily penalized in the new OS. The industry cries FOUL and the whole thing ends up back in court.
I heard a historical account of one of the first anti-trust lawsuits in us courts. It was about some shoe company that had monopolized the industry. It took the courts almost 20 years to get around to breaking up the shoe monopoly, with plenty of shennagians like this along the way.
So Jambie gives a prediction: Court comes out with ruling, Microsoft complies and then subverts intentions of ruling and twists it to their advantage, thus ending them in court again. Repeat this cycle until the courts get miffed enough to take severe action.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
IANAL, but from the occasional TV drivel I've caught, I've picked up on one important part of legal stratagy:
Settlments have a place before the ruling, right? I mean... The DOJ won, that's just been re-re-clarified again (redundancy intended). When a party is found guilty, what would possibly possess the prosecution to settle for a lower penalty? If Microsoft DOES end up with a slap on the wrist, it's going the be the definitive large scale failure of a "blind" justice system.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
And why don't you ask laid off tech workers why management thought everybody in the company, including the janitor, required a cell phone and Palm? Or how about companies with no business model? Or how about "Oh yeah, we're a computer manufacturer but we're special because we install linux on our machines." Yeah, that's going to save them from the razor-thin profit margins that plague all the other well established big names out there. But it certainly didn't stop investors from pushing the IPO price up so high that it would take 20 years of growth before shareholders saw a return.
But, of course, because investors created a new vocabulary and started using buzzwords like "eyeballs" to explain the vaulted "New Economy" every insane investment they threw money at was going to make people rich. 150 years of economic history and lessons (tulips anyone?) could be thrown out the window because this new industry is digital.
But of course you are right, MS is just so big (bigger than IBM even! Not.) that picking on them is just going to throw the market into chaos.
Please. Get a refund on your next version of Office and go buy a clue.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Nice one, good link. Mod up the parent.
"You're constantly looking for a balance, of how you're balancing the complexity and the simplicity in the time we need," he (Microsoft spokesman Dan Leach ) said. "The fact so many customers are showing up, at least in this survey, having concerns or confusion shows just in part how complicated it has become. That's one reason we're trying to make the program simpler, easier to understand and easier to administer."
Well let's see, in the case of RedHat, you go down to the local CDROM store, buy a single copy, and install it at your leisure on as many machines as you care to. When it makes sense to do so, upgrade.
How complicated does it need to be? You're buying software, not aerobraking into Mars orbit.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I think that a part of the problem is delayed effects from Y2k. A lot of companies threw out perfectly good equipment and replaced it with new stuff because of Y2k concerns. The whole supply chain grew because of this, and had to collapse when demand fell to lower than normal levels.
The problem is that the majority of the world, i.e. your grandma with her new Compaq, don't see why Microsoft having a monopoly is a big deal. They DON'T CARE about what OS is on their PC, as long as it runs and emails their photos of their grandchildren and does their taxes without having to pay an accountant. Windows does that, so they're happy.
I'd go so far to say that, to them, competition in OSes is a BAD thing, because they might have to learn something different. In general, people hate to learn, as all of you tech support and TA folks know.
Let me emphasize this: We, meaning power users and geeks, are the ONLY people who care about this!!!
Until the rest of the world knows a) what an OS is and b) why it's good to have more of them, will the M$ case mean anything. Until then it's a political liability for the feds, as they risk a populist backlash because "they made the computer harder to use".
- Josh
Does Microsoft hurt the consumer?
When did we stop being a nation of citizens and become a nation of consumers? The government is supposed to protect its citizens. Anyway...
There is no doubt that msft hurts other companies by integrating the best ideas in to the OS itself, but that must be a plus for the consumer.
There is more to helping consumers than just giving them (sorta) free stuff. Microsoft's tactics were designed to destroy competition. Competition is good for the public, it encourages lower prices, higher quality, and specialized products for different needs. Once a person or business is largely using Microsoft products, proprietary protocols and file formats create a prison that is very expensive to migrate out of.
Furthermore, integration isn't the only crime Microsoft commited. Microsoft repeated took steps to actively deny people options. Restrictive agreements with ISPs to limit end users from using competing web browsers. Apple wanted to ship only Netscape with new versions of MacOS, but Microsoft leveraged their office suite monopoly to force Apple to make IE the default browser. Several computer manufacturers wanted to ship additional functionality for customers on new systems, functionality like additional ISP options and Netscape Navigator, but Microsoft used restrictive license agreements to stop them.
Microsoft's tactics definately harmed consumers. The immediate gain of a web browser or similar additions doesn't outweight the cost.
What they need to do is enforce stiff monetary penalties (they are one of the richest companies on the planet) payable to the companies they screwed over (at least the ones named in the antitrust case). That would help force them to crank the price of WinXP (and their licensing schemes) to even more ridiculous price levels, thereby forcing companies to switch to a better, and cheaper OS.
Well, yes.
IIRC, MS has something on the order of $3e10 cash reserves, enough to make it the envy of every company that has sought a good credit rating from Standard & Poors.
What that means, though, is that the monetary penalties would have to be stiff to an almost unprecedented degree. Something on the order of the tobacco company settlements, to give you some idea of just how stiff.
They have enough of a market lock and cash reserves that it would take an extremely stiff penalty before they would raise the price of XP even more than they already have.
Besides, am I mistaken, or are most corporate IT departments facing unprecedented increases in costs for licenses from MS and, for all practical purposes, looking to take those lumps? Sure Linux exists, but to their eyes not so much as an alternative that they would really take but more as a bargaining chip when they sit down with MS to negotiate how much they have to pay for Enterprise License Agreements.
If I were a PC hardware manufacturer, especially in the current slump, I'd be pretty peeved that MS was about to swallow an even bigger piece of the pie from corporate IT budgets and leave the crumbs for hardware upgrades.
No, I think the only resolution is to pry open the clo$ed interfaces that have been abused. All Office formats (including rendering rules), win16 APIs, win32 APIs, HALs in NT need to be shown the light of day, free for anyone to implement and free for anyone to interface into without the need for purchasing any agreements or worrying that the interface will subtly break their app.
Let everyone innovate, and not just the company that happens to own the standards.
Let MS introduce .NET, but give them, or anyone else, a drastically curtailed time window of monopoly power on it. Once it is running an installed on 80% of computers or, say, 17 months, force it open also as a standard.
Let innovation be in implementations, with less emphasis upon the supposedly "new". Let's not accept the abuse of the term "innovation" as an excuse to lock down new technology indefinitely and to force payment for the right to use that technology long after it's innovative value has been established.
The MS of old had a lot more incentive to innovate (improve their product) when there viable competitors breathing down their necks. That's no longer the case and hasn't been for many years.
Actually, no court remedy would be necessary if a very large customer base, such as federal, state and local governments, mandated that all of their computing be done with precisely documented open interfaces. MS could choose to retain business from those clients if they were to open up, or else face the prospect of all those customers migrating to alternative platforms and applications based upon open standards. Such a move would seem logical, given how much ostensibly public business is locked up in proprietary .doc formats already. Imagine if the U.S. Constitution were only viewable from Word!
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Yes, but the fact that they are required to document even "all future API's, etc." doesn't change the fact that they are defining the playing field. As long as they have that advantage, they can switch the field as quickly as others can adapt. Even though it's more costly for them, it's still a wonderful monopolizing advantage.
They won't compete on a level field as long as they have any control over the field. I certainly wouldn't in their position. They don't view the market as a sport, they view it as a battle.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
Excellent suggestion. For reference, until very very recently, IBM had similar rules enacted against it for system 390 related products and annoucements. If it weren't for those consent decree's, we would all still be using 3270 terminals connected to mainframes to do our computing. Without antitrust against IBM, there would not have even BEEN a PC industry or Microsoft. Who knows what the opportunity cost of NOT punishing Microsoft is doing to our economy now.