Microsoft Would Settle For The Children

The news from MSNBC is that Microsoft wants to, er, settle for the children. Take that whichever way you want. They propose to settle civil anti-trust cases (not the DoJ suit) with a $1.1 billion (retail value) spanking (they have $36 billion in the bank), consisting of free computer goodies to our nation's poorest schools (the first hit's free, kids). I'm sure Microsoft will upgrade those old computers to keep them current, in perpetuity, for free, out of the kindness of their hearts, but in an apparent oversight that was left out of the news report. Of that $1.1 billion, $0.9 billion will be software presumably valued at whatever Microsoft wants to charge (see "monopoly"). For hardware and (laughable) training/support costs, Microsoft will be docked three weeks' worth of interest on their cashpile; they will seek matching funds for the remainder, I am not making this up. Some lawyers opposed this but "concluded that Microsoft's monopoly already is so pervasive that students would have to learn to use these products anyway in the workplace." Update: 11/20 21:22 GMT by M : Heh. Red Hat offers an alternative to Microsoft's settlement proposal - you provide hardware, we'll provide software.

Comments

Sigh..

[KingAdrock]

OK, I understand the Microsoft is unpopular here on slashdot. I also understand that they settlement could have probably been alot worse. But lets look at the advantages of this.

The kids are going to win in the end. They are going to get better computers in the classroom that should ulitimately allow them to get better jobs and improve their quality of living. If their was going to be a settlement, I like the idea of this much more than dumping a lump sum of money to state governments and ending up with god knows what. At least all the money is directed toward a good cause.

Re:Perpetuating the Monopoly

[kelzer]

What an incredible double-standard there is here at Slashdot whenever the subject of Microsoft comes up.

If Redhat were to donate $1 billion in free software to all the poorest schools in America, they'd be hailed as saviors of the poor, and nominated for sainthood. But when Microsoft does it, it's just another evil conspiracy.

Here at Slashdot, Microsoft is damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

Re:article w/o MS influence...

[Master Bait]

That story is all over the net, and yet Slashdot succumbs to the Microsoft monopoly itself.

In fact, almost all general news stories that Slashdot posts are links to the MSNBC site.

MSNBC puts money in Microsoft's coffers so they can better wage their war against open source. REAL BRILLIANT, SLASHDOT!

Are you editors given free anti-ms training?

[Telek]

It's getting rediculous when you don't even bother to read the articles properly before posting the headlines, thus biasing people. You are far from an unbiased news source...

$900m in software + 200,000 reconditioned computers + $90m in teacher training + $38m in technical support + $250m for the foundation + $160 to teach kids how to work with computers, guys, basic math.

900 + 90 + 38 + 250 + (est $40m for the computers) + 160 = $1478m ... this is NOT EQUAL TO $1.1B.

I watch all of the people here who complain without even reading the articles, and believing word-for-word what the editors post in the headlines and it makes me sick. You are a jouralist outlet that serves half a million pages a day, and you should be a lot more responsible than that.

Let me also call this fact into light:

The settlement proposal came from one of the lead plaintiffs' lawyers in the case

Oh interesting, so it was the prosecution's idea to do this...

and also:

Estimates of the value of the settlement ranged from $1.1 billion to as much as $1.7 billion, one source said. "It's going to get money to the people that need it the most," this source said.

And as I counted, the $1.7B is a lot closer to the value than the $1.1B, and this is also not counting the costs of actually figuring all of this stuff out for MS. And don't think that for each copy of windows handed out they don't have any costs either, they're not free once you consider everything into account (you add up all costs of developing and divide by the number of products made)... It's not going to cost them $900mil, but it will cost $400mil or so...

I just get tired of people who hate Microsoft and blindly believe everything that they're told (partially because they want to believe), and yet are being completely hypocritical. We're in a capitialistic society ladies and gentlemen... In this society man exploits man... If you were in their shoes, can you honestly say that you wouldn't do things any differently?

---

Having said all of that, yeah, they're being overly monopolistic, and yes, this is a rediculously small punishment for what they've been caught doing. I mean, not that $1.5B is a small chunk of change, that is a large chunk of money for any corporation, but they're not really being restricted hardcore from repeating the same "mistakes"/"crimes" in the future. And as anyone knows, the companies that survive don't do so because they're magnanimous, they just learn how to hide their mistakes better the next time.

But then again, with the court's track record lately, could you honestly have expected anything different? (sigh)... Justice will have to be postponed for yet another day.

Using my powers of Executive summary:

[GISboy]

DOJ's proposed Settlement:
Asks Microsoft "Where do you want to go today?"...{Microsoft addendum}...and who do we want to do it to.

Microsoft's Proposed Settlement:
"Oops, we did it again"...{DOJ addendum}...don't worry, we know you were "Just thinking of the children".

I sometimes dislike quoting cartoon characters, but "WHY AM I *NOT* SURPRISED!!!" Iago, Aladdin.