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Microsoft Settlement For Private Suits Rejected
Lumpish Scholar writes: "Reuters story here. The judge "could not endorse the settlement ... Microsoft will have to start from scratch in negotiating a new settlement or fight the scores of suits in court."" Reuters also has an article from yesterday that looks at the positions of the various parties prior to this news. You will recall that Microsoft was proposing to settle the civil suits brought against it by donating free Microsoft software and old computers to schools. And do remember - because this always seems to confuse people - that the case brought by the Department of Justice and state governments is distinct from these suits filed by individuals.
Enough said. They can keep fighting, but the years and years of bad software design is finally catching up to them.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Seriously. Their idea of a settlement was to donate computers with MS software to schools? I read about that before as their proposed settlement and didn't really pay much attention to it, but now that they actually took it to a judge I'm just speechless.
Here's why I'm laughing inside: MS gets sued by individuals for unfair competition and illegal business practices, and then MS proposes a solution where they will appear to be doing a public good, but in fact they will be cementing their platform in the future computer world by brainwashing children. What a joke!
Like many others on here, I would love to see them donate all this hardware only for RedHat to volunteer and install Linux on it all, but I seriously doubt MS would let that happen. Given their attitude and actions in this case so far, I'm sure they'd write up some wordy contracts about proper use of the equipment they donated. I wouldn't be surprised if they even claimed everything produced by the computers and software would then become IP of MS. Anyhow, I really think the judge should have fined them for wasting the court's time.
~ now you know
Don't dwell too much on this going on for years in the courts. The best thing that can come of this would be similar to what happened in the 80's with IBM -- that the government and anybody else possible shines as much attention on Microsoft for as long as possible, slowing their monopolisitic practices long enough for the competition to catch up. Unfortunately for IBM the one that caught up to them was Microsoft :-/.
It's already happening, and will continue. Have patience.
I think the tobacco industry might be a better metaphor. They had tons of money and could throw cash at lawyers for thirty or forty years until they just got tired of it. I'd have preferred the Redhat-style penalty; hit them and make them pay cash.
I was just talking with someone today about how something like a speeding ticket to Bill Gates is no punishment at all.
But a public whipping would be pretty punishing no matter who you are (well maybe not to masochists)
So rather than come up with some arbitrarily large sum of money to punish Microsoft, maybe all the execs on the board should be publicly flogged.
If the school districts are poor why on Earth would they want to buy a Macintosh. Soon their cheapest computers will be 1200 dollars. Far more than a low end PC.
This would be fiscally irresponsible.
The excuses Apple whiners make up for why they pay more to get less is growing tiring.