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Microsoft Antitrust Update
You can't help but know that Microsoft and the Department of Justice (plus several of the states that joined in the suit) are attempting to settle their antitrust dispute. The rest of the states are holding out for a settlement with more teeth, or a continuation of the case. A few links from the past few days: The LA Times looks at the states still opposing Microsoft. Microsoft defended the settlement before a Senate committee, which was crippled by political maneuvering (see also the NYT story). The speech given by the CEO of Red Hat is online. Microsoft filed a brief with the court, unsurprisingly urging the court to accept the settlement. The Register has a story on the proposed settlement, which is available at the DOJ Antitrust website. Linuxplanet has some advice for people who want to comment on the settlement - you've got 60 days from November 28. Finally, Microsoft has named two people to help it comply with the proposed settlement.
My understanding of this proposed arrangement was that there would be three compliance officers.
- One chosen by Microsoft
- One chosen by the DOJ/US Government
- One chosen by the above two people
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
You can read the proposed Civil Settlement (pdf) and the responses as well. They also are pdf files being just scanned images of the letters recieved.
The responses are interesting, most of the ones I have read from School Districts indicate that they are afraid that they get very little value out of the settlement, since the software will be donated, and the hardware will be largely used requiring more maintenance than the benefit it provides. In efffect the schools are saying that they will be saddled with a much greater percentage of the total cost of ownership than Microsoft. So if the intention is to punish Microsoft and reward the schools this is the wrong way to go about it.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Senator Leahy had invited Jim Barksdale (co-founder of Netscape) to testify on the effects the RPFJ would have had if it was in place when Netscape was starting up. Microsoft balked at having him testify and said they would have refused to appear if Barksdale was there. So Barksdale was dis-invited, but sent a letter giving his answer. That letter was partially read by Sen. Hatch and said that Netscape would have never received VC funding. Pretty damning stuff.
Leahy asked Charles James (head of Antitrust for DoJ) to respond. He dodged saying that he had not read the letter yet and it seemed like typical hyperbole that was being spouted off (but also said he could not characterize it as such given he has not read the letter). Leahy asked him to formally respond for the record, which will be done in writing (I assume).
It was a little suprising to see such a little used procedural movement to kill the hearing. Leahy was visablly upset, but admitted its a Senator's perogative. Ironically, it was Sen Byrd (who knows every minutia of procedure) who was upset over TPA (fast track trade negotiation authorization for the President on trade treaties) and called that mark-up to a halt--however, it had already been succesfully reported out of committee at that point.
So what was left was 4 Senators upbraiding MS and calling the settlement for the sham it is. The only one defending the settlement was Sen. McConnell who clearly wanted to get his 1 minute in before the first recess (for votes, asked to be heard when Leahy tried to do a 20 minute break so he would not have to come back). All McConnell said was that 70% of the public favor a settlement, so any settlement is good. Leahy responded by saying that he too favored a settlement, but not a meaningless one riddled with loopholes.
FYI, the 4 senators attacking MS were Leahy (D-VT), Kohl (D-WI), Hatch (R-UT), and DeWine (R-OH), a bi-partisan group to say the least.
Bitching about how letting MS put it's products into our children's classrooms will only increase their foothold isn't going to help when you only do it on slashdot! Here's the contact info for making your argument known! For those extra lazy people (myself included), they are also accepting emails!
US Postal Services:
Renata Hesse,Trial Attorney
Suite 1200, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice
601 D Street NW
Washington, DC 20530
Email:
microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov
Fax:
202-616-9937 or 202-307-1545
Try not to be too rude. Remember, someone has to actually read these, and you'll only make them ignore your arguments if you are snide. Also, try to get records of reciept where possible. (Send by certified mail, use email reciepts, get fax reciepts) Supposedly ALL recieved comments will be published in the Federal Register. So if you don't see your comment in it with all the others, then you will have your reciept to back up your claim that not all comments were considered and included!
I don't recall the name of the metric off the top of my head, but one that is commonly used is the summation of the squares of the market shares of the various companies, or:
.9^2, or .81, which is very high indeed. Traditional industries usually break down into something like .4,.2,.1,.1 + niche players, and I think the legal bound on the overall metric is usually something like .4 for monopoly.
[sigma from 1 to n] (% mkt share) ^ 2
So, if we assume that MSoft has 90% mkt share of business desktops, then their (whatever the name of the metric is) would be upwards of
Of course, the lawyers get involved with the definition of "market," as it's in Microsoft's interest to define market as broadly as possible, and it's in the DOJ's interest to be as finite as possible, since the DOJ can then "prove" that MS has a monopoly over the "secretary level OS sales among Fortune 30 companies involved in airplane wheel manufacture." Meanwhile, MS would claim that they only hold 10% of the "business machine requiring an electrical circuit" market.
Not an answer, but it might help on the question of monopoly scale.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Available for viewing - roughly an hour long.
Here 'tis
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"