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.

Comments

One for the good guys ;)

[Dave21212]

I have friends that know Judge Motz here in Baltimore. He was described to me as a person with "A strong sense of fairness" and a good judge. I had a feeling he would reject that BS settlement ! woohoo !

Overcharged?

[afxgrin]

From the article: "Class-action attorneys from California have argued the money should be reimbursed directly to customers who were overcharged for Microsoft software."

This is interesting. How does someone actually determine the worth or 'price' of software? Generally you want to take all your overhead, add some profit, and take a good estimate of what your sales will be. Then you'd determine a price. (I realize this is very OVER simplified) You would also compare your product against competitive products and see where you sit in comparison to them price/value wise.

Since Microsoft essentially had a monopoly on the PC market for sales of Operating Systems, their competition was none. They could charge any price to the OEMs and Consumers for the retail packages they felt like, which at least appeared to be a reasonable price to most customers.

But how would they determine if someone was overcharged by Microsoft? Is the very fact that when you buy a PC, you automatically have Windows installed on it and are also paying for the OEM version of Windows that was installed on that PC?

This could easily be argued as a 'value-added' feature of that PC. Where the customer ultimately benefits because the cost of an OEM Windows license is less than the Retail Windows license.
I personally loathe Windows, and don't use it. But I'm more curious on how they determined that Microsoft overcharged it's customers.

Re:Overcharged?

[Sc00ter]

this is a good point.. and when you look at the few alternitives, both now and in the past.. MacOS, OS/2, Be, even boxed version of linux that come with support.. They're all around the same price.. So how is that overcharging..

Also, as far as Windows being pre-installed.. Who let it be pre-installed? The person selling the computer. They didn't have to have an OEM deal with MS, but they decided to.. You don't like it, buy a computer from somebody that doesn't have an OEM deal with MS.

Re:Overcharged?

[sheldon]

Nobody is quite clear on that. The Retail price of Windows is substantially higher thant the OEM price. (i.e. compare $100 to $15) In a sense Microsoft keeps the retail high to actually encourage people to buy new PCs bundled with software. They do this to benefit their OEM partners.

But the case is oddly about OEM sales for the most part. Since the lawyers(not consumers mind you) who have brought these cases wish to make them as all consuming as possible, the OEM market is a better client because it accounts for some 90% of Microsoft sales.

It'll be interesting to see what evidence they bring in the trial. I think they'll have a tough time proving their case, however.

This case has more to do with ambulance chasing lawyers, or in this case law firms with a "sue microsoft" business plan. :)

It's just one battle

[john82]

MS may have lost this one, but they are patient in seeking complete market domination. There are many palms to grease in DC. Eventually someone will rise up in Congress and ask that we brush aside this blight on the profits of such a fine company as Microsoft.

I'd like to believe that won't happen. But too many legislators have the techincal comprehension of a sea slug. Nothing substantive will ever happen to Microsoft at the behest of any branch of the US Government. Eventually the dissenting states will be forced to give up the fight because they simply can't afford the up-front cost of litigation.

Re:Microsoft vs Apple

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yes, if Apple had 90+% market share, they would be just as bad as Microsoft, maybe worse.

And if Sun had 90+% market share, they would be just as bad as Microsoft, maybe worse.

And if Oracle had 90+% market share, they would be just as bad as Microsoft, maybe worse.

And if IBM had 90+% market share ... wait a minute, never mind.

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.

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 ... like Microsoft itself was in the days of IBM dominance. Maybe Red Hat?) 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.

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.