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

Glad to see this

[Syre]

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.

There doesn't need to be any final victory...

[dmorin]

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.

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:I amazed MS wasn't held in contempt of court

[garcia]

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.

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.