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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.
Gooooood!
My faith-o-meter in this planet just rose a little. That would have busticated me had MS been able to lock in the next generation of kids with their products as a 'punishment'.
"Old man yells at systemd"
This is awesome... the deal that was reached was so totally beneficial to Microsoft it would have made more sense if Microsoft had been suing the schools and the judgement was inflicted on them!
A flat-out $1 billion cash sum should do it.
Apple and others had objected on the grounds that by letting Microsoft give software and cheap hardware to schools, they were actually not out much money (since they just have to replicate their own software) and were reaping giant marketing benefits by pushing out Apple or other vendors.
It's at least a small victory.
Delay is better than letting Microsoft make their strategic investment, er, I mean penalty of installing their software a many new machines, likely displacing a lot of their competitors installations. The poor school districts could likely still have lots of old Macs in use.
end of line
It's already happening, and will continue. Have patience.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
This was a pre-trial settlement. Microsoft has not been found guilty of the allegations of over charging consumers.
These cases will now go to court.
But it's up to the claimants to prove that in a more competitive market the price would have actually declined. That was the allegation that Judge Jackson made in his court that spawned these lawsuits, but it was more of an assumption of the nature of monoply than really supported by facts.
It's highly unlikely that Microsoft will lose these cases, they simply tried to get a pre-trial settlement because it would have been cheaper than the legal costs of fighting in court, as well as derailing the negative publicity a court case causes.
That is why the proposed settlement cost seemed so low. It was a hedge, not a punishment.
Not enough. Consider: MS has 35+ billion-with-a-B dollars just in the bank, not counting personal funds of the richest man in the world and several of his executives, not counting long-term assets. Even one billion dollars -- big as it is to you and me (or at least me) -- is barely enough to get their attention. IMNSHO, the only way to stop their tactics for good is to divest the OS from the rest of the application world -- split the company, publicize the source, whatever it takes. The OS is where the power lies; remove the power.
Always will a company try to settlement of good and services rather than cash, as cash represents an immediate hit on the bottom line, but goods can be manufactured and suppliers billing for material are usually paid on Net 30 terms.
It's all about the cash flow. Monetary settlements ccan wreak havoc.
Good point.
... hilarious? sad? incredible? decision to do nothing to Microsoft after being found guilty.
Now, what about the $1 Billion penalty that some EU -leaked document proposed as a way to finish Microsoft trial in Europe?
I know that $35 Billion is a lot, but 41 Billion is still a lot... and will claim for the attention from some judge that pretended not to enfuriate a big corporation while we are at war... or so I understand form the
I mean, if I gt a ticket I must pay a fine. Why not Microsoft?
Sincerely puzzled,
O.
Or to keep it going until everyone is tired of it and someone finally gives in and lets Microsoft have whatever they want. Personally, I'm getting tired of it and I'm not even an involved party (other than owning a copy of windows that came with my computer.)
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
It wasn't Microsoft's proposal, it came from the plaintiffs.
From the original article: "The school-software proposal came from one of the lead plaintiffs' lawyers in the case, Michael Hausfeld..."
Its unbelievable how this misinformation keeps spiraling out of control. Even the Slashdot editors have now bought into it.
If you get a ticket, you must pay a fine?
No.
You have exactly the same rights as Microsoft in that regard - you can choose to fight the validity of the ticket, its appropriateness, or any aspect with which you don't agree.
how about give up cash and let the schools decide what goes on it?
Who the hell are we to say, "hey let's have them give hardware and have RH come in and put Linux on it" Talk about brainwashing.
Short term investments is not cash in the bank. If it was, it would be included in cash and equivalents. There are two separate lines for a reason. Just because something is a short term investment it doesn't mean they can turn it into cash overnight or even within several months. Anything less than a year is short term.
How about a compulsory $37-billion donation to the Free Software Foundation as punishment?
From cnnfn there is a mention that the judges reasons are:
Judge Motz said he was not satisfied that there was enough value to the settlement and that the charitable institution would have been insufficiently funded.
Further, Judge Motz said the settlement "would raise antitrust concerns from the perspective of other software manufacturers" because the donation of free software could be construed as "court-approved predatory pricing."
Both these issues have been raised by many people and posted here on slashdot in the past.
... underdogs, and people like underdogs...
:)
I'll agree with this piece.
[apple] never encouraged tinkering and hacking by individuals
The entire development environment and documentation library for Mac OS-X is both free and pretty darn spiffy. Visual Studio is something like $500 to $1000 depending who you are and how you get it. Heck, my first Apple came with schematics and ROM assembly listings.
At least Microsoft freely release GW-Basic in the early days...
Apple gave away Basic before Microsoft even existed. Never for Macintosh, but I believe that was more for strategic reasons. Apple needed to force the applications to a dramatically higher level of usability. This required the armys of evangelists and much arm twisting. "modern" mid '80s gui applications were not going to be thrown together in the Basic of the days.
Microsoft has also supported the porting of Perl and Python (via Activestate) to the Windows environment.
Yes, now we can see if that was the embrace before the extend.
Microsoft's software has been typically cheaper than Apple's
I have no idea in what universe this is true. Actually, there is very little in the way of good comparisons. Office $400, Appleworks $99. But Appleworks is feature poor compared to Office. It does everything I need, so its a good deal for me (well, $0, I buy low end Macs where it is included). If I needed the extras Office has this would be a worthless comparison. IE? No comparison. Apple is still forbidden from suggesting that there may be other browsers much less making one. iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD? No competition. Likewise there are loads of MS apps with no comparison. OS prices? Upgrades are similarly priced. Development tools? No contest.
Remember Apple 's sordid attempt to foster clones?
Yes. Apple gave them the hardware reference designs and OS in the delusion that the cloners would make a wider variety of machines and attack niches. The cloners just built the reference designs with minor tweaks and sold them in to apple's highest margin market (early adopters) because the cloners could start selling the newer faster processers while they were still in short supply and Apple with their larger market had to wait for production to ramp up. (I believe at one point Apple was buying all the initial production of higher speed processors at a premium and warehousing them so they could get the fast machines out first. When you have to pay a premium to keep faster processors away from your users in order to promote your platform something has gone wrong.) The media savaged Apple for offering slow machines. Apple lost sales. The platform didn't gain . Apple didn't revoke the cloners licenses (except one, they bought that back) they just raised the OS price so the cloners paid the same per machine for the OS as apple. Without the OS subsidy to pocket the cloners left the business.
I am glad tho that I do not have to pick between the lesser of two evils
Me too. I suspect any corporation with a 90%+ market share will be bad for the users. God knows what GPL v9 will look like when free software has 90% of the market.
Oh.. so can I donate my old Palm Pilot Personal with my copy of Freecell to a school so that I don't have to pay for my ticket?
What?! You mean I can't? That just sucks.
In my opinion, this is not much different than offering a bribe to the other side's lawyers to get their support in settling the case for peanuts. Would it be OK if the plaintiffs offered to pay M$ lawyers to persuade M$ to make a $5 billion cash settlement offer??? I think not.
M$ is not the only company that is allegedly trying to settle class action suits with charitable contributions & paying the plaintiff's attorneys. To me, this is a dubious practice that should be squashed.
I don't know what the big problem with lawyers is and why everyone thinks that they are the "true victors" in legal battles.
How much would you pay for someone to slurp up thousands of pages of legal procedures, associate your offensive and defensive tactics with the appropriate laws and precedents from a gigantic pool of possibilities, and then, on the fly, respond to the same from two other sides of the courtroom (the opposing legal team and the Judge).
What could be a more damaging task for the human brain (besides perl programming)?
I am not an attorney. I don't ever want to be an attorney. I'll stick with the perl programming for now.
"Yes, if Apple had 90+% market share, they would be just as bad as Microsoft, maybe worse."
... wait a minute, never mind."
... like Microsoft itself was in the days of IBM dominance. Maybe Red Hat?)"
Probably, but at least their stuff WORKS.
"And if Sun had 90+% market share, they would be just as bad as Microsoft, maybe worse."
I disagree. Sun's a hardware company. They sell hardware. Cheap software means selling more hardware. Plus, since they aren't turned off by Linux, they could avoid $$$ in development costs.
"And if Oracle had 90+% market share, they would be just as bad as Microsoft, maybe worse."
Yep.
"And if IBM had 90+% market share
Actually, if they had it again they might at least put out a little better product, because they got taken down once.
"The point is not how vicious other companies beside Microsoft may be (though I'll note that Apple has become considerably less closed in the OS X age than it used to be.) The point is that Microsoft has unique monopoly power right now, and that they are everyone's enemy. Let me make that clear: if you work for Apple or Sun or Oracle or IBM or any other computer company that is not Microsoft; if you prefer MacOS or Solaris or Linux or any operating system that is not Windows; if, in fact, you do not actually work for Microsoft or for some "company" that is really a marketing arm of Wintel, Inc. (e.g. Dell), Microsoft is your enemy."
Except if you're in the Bush administration, apparently...
"If and when Microsoft is toppled from its throne (and I sincerely hope it happens soon) there will be another company waiting to take its place, no doubt -- and it's entirely possible that one of the companies I mentioned above will be it. (Probably not; it will probably be someone we either don't know about or aren't particularly afraid of
If Linux takes over, it will NEVER be like it is with Microsoft. Thank you GPL.
"Whoever it is, they will try all the same monopolistic dirty tricks as Microsoft has, and that IBM did before it, no doubt. And we will have to be on our guard against them, and fight them every step of the way -- hopefully we can keep them from ever getting that powerful, but if not, expect yet another long anti-trust saga that leaves no one satisfied."
If Microsoft gets taken down, hopefully that will be a lesson to whoever follows. Probably not, though.
"But right now, in 2002, that doesn't matter. What matters is that Microsoft is much too big and too powerful, that it is crushing innovation, that it is evil. Remember that Churchill and Roosevelt allied themselves with Stalin against Hitler, and they were right to do so."
Um, bad comparison. Microsoft isn't THAT bad (very few are, fortunately.) Plus, we don't have to crush Microsoft to succeed. (Although it would give us that little warm feeling inside...) I'm operating this computer without using any Microsoft software. I'm getting work done (well, not right now, but still...) I'd call that a victory.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
If the federal judge accepts the DOJ-M$ "settlement", then none of this will matter.
.NET vs Java, etc... then preventing that company from dominating a single segment of the economy: education, will be practically meaningless.
The potential impact of Microsoft getting off virtually scot-free by the DOJ will overwhealm the positive impact of this settlement being struck down.
Should Microsoft be allowed to continue these exclusive arrangements with OEM's, the leveraging of Windows into other margets, gauging for Office, leaving out Java support in XP as well as plguins for IE, forcing users to ask for permission to upgrade their PCs on XP home edition, rigging ZD Net polls on
How many entrepreneurs have been dissuaded or discouraged from writing software because of Microsoft stiffling innovation? (hardly any commerical companies make consumer operating systems anymore) How many once dynamic and cutting-edge products have stagnated once Microsoft gained a 90% share? If they dominate more of the industry, we're going to see even more inferior products. The only good software M$ ever came up with was when they had to compete with another company.
Having the school settlement struck down is a small victory, one that pales in comparison to the potential losses that would occur if the colluded DOJ settlement is accepted.
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The point was that schools don't need more handouts from anyone. There is a brand new high school here with 600 students. It cost $36 million to build. Excuse me, but WTF!?!? If the building stands as a school for 20 years, that's $12,000 per student (for four years) just for construction costs. Give that money to a private school and they'll probably educate three times as many students twice as well.
The emphasis has shifted from spending money on hiring good teachers and good supplies to building impressive buildings so that taxpayers can "see" where their money is going.
BTW, 580 Billion is about $12,800 per student if you assume that during that time about 1/6 of the US population attended school. Keep in mind that's ONLY federal money and doesn't include state or local contributations.
You want to know how to fix schools? Pay teachers. Pay them well enough to attract some real talent to the area. I mean something in the neighborhood of $80,000-$100,000 for those with Masters degrees and teaching certificates.
Then, you tell the Federal government to F!#& off. You open it up so that if a parent is not happy with the school, they can remove their student and send them to another public school or even to another district or a private school. This way, the bad schools are driven out by market forces and the good schools are rewarded by more students. Reward the good and let the market drive out the bad.
The system we have now rewards schools and teachers who perform poorly.
You also encourage (by tax credits, which != tax deductions) private citizens to contribute to private schools.
I agree that the education system in this country is seriously screwed up. It's not for lack of money though, it's because that money has been grossly mismanaged, partially by the beaurocratic regulations associated with federal funding.
You are talking about the anti-trust suit which is a different matter. The topic here is the class action suit which is somewhat related in that once M$ was found guilty then the class action was a slam dunk and was only a matter of damages.
.....
But then we are talking damages here, and only damages to the aggrieved. That is no doubt one reason the judge threw out the settlement, it provided not once cent for the victims.
What we are talking about here is not punishing M$ for being a monopoly, that is a separate case. This is about reconstituting those harmed for what M$ has done to them.
Punitive damages may apply. But don't lose site of the origins and objectives of the case. It is not the Justice Dept. Antitrust case, although they are linked by the guilty verdict of
.... that malicious verrmin in Redmond.....
....sorry.... lost myself for a minute.
This is especially true on online forums. For any given story, it will seem like most people are complaining. In reality you are just seeing the subset of the Slashdot readership which dislikes the person/act/item being discussed. This subset shifts from story to story, but you can bet that no matter what the story is, you can find some group of readers who are angry. These are the readers most likely to post.
I just remind myself periodically that Slashdot is not a homogeneous community and therefore has no commonly held opinions.